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 MIDDLESEX COUNTY MANUAL 
 
 io. 2 
 
 Published by the 
 
 PENHALLOW PRINTING COMPANY, 12 MIDDLE ST. 
 
 LOWELL, MASS. 
 
 1878. 
 
 
Ft*. 
 
 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1878, 
 by the Penhallow Printing Company, in the Clerk's oilice 
 of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 We take pleasure in presenting to our 
 readers the Middlesex County Manual. 
 
 Judge Cowley's "Historical Sketch" traces 
 the fortunes of the County from its incorpora- 
 tion in 1643, when it extended to the "South 
 Sea," and included large portions of New 
 Hampshire and Connecticut, as well as of 
 Massachusetts, until since the adoption of the 
 Federal Constitution, and the close of Shays' 
 Rebellion. It is the first history of Middlesex 
 County ever printed. 
 
 In it Judge Cowley has incorporated the 
 principal and most valuable portions of both of 
 General Gookin"s works : namely, his Historical 
 Collections relating to the New England Indi- 
 ans generally ; and his History of the Christ- 
 ian Indians during King Philip's War. Both 
 of these narratives are dificult to obtain. We 
 have known as much as ten dollars to be paid for 
 
8 PREFACE. 
 
 the volume containing the former of these works, 
 and even a greater price for the volume con- 
 taining the latter. One might watch the 
 chances of the booksellers ] for many years to 
 obtain, for twenty dollars, the narratives here 
 supplied, in all their most desirable parts, for a 
 single dollar. 
 
 In addition to all this Judge Cowley has en- 
 riched his "Sketch" with much new matter, and 
 with notes and references to original authorities. 
 
 Mr. Johnson's labors in the Committee on 
 County Expenditures have enabled him to pre- 
 sent a valuable summary of the frauds and 
 abuses heretofore practiced in County affairs, 
 and to show how they have been or may be 
 reformed. 
 
 Since Mr. Johnson's article was prepared, 
 the Legislative Committee on Prisons have 
 made a report on the Middlesex House of Cor- 
 rection, from which it appears that that 
 establishment now actually yields a small 
 income to the County, instead of being the 
 public burden it was before the investigations of 
 1874; although Charles J. Adams has been per- 
 mitted to remain in his place as Master. 
 
 This Committee say : — "In 1877 the receipt 
 from the sale of brushes was $24,000 ; and for 
 board of prisoners, sale of old materials, offal, &c, 
 
PREFACE. 9 
 
 $4,893.84 ; total, $28,893.84. The total expen- 
 ses of Jail and House of Correction were $28,- 
 521.70, leaving a balance of receipts over 
 expenditures of $372,14." 
 
 Others besides Mr. Johnson would like to 
 be informed why an establishment that can 
 be so conducted as to yield an income to 
 the County in the worst of times, could not 
 yield an income, but was actually run at a heavy 
 loss, when the times were the best ever known 
 in the land. 
 
 It will be seen that the income above re- 
 ported, when divided by the number of inmates 
 (285) amounts to $1.30 apiece. Mr. Johnson 
 thinks this much smaller than it should be. 
 Ought not an able bodied prisoner to earn more 
 than $1.30 in a year, besides his board and 
 clothes ? Mr. Johnson says, he ought. 
 
 We had hoped to add another valuable 
 contribution, on the "Old Families of Mid- 
 dlesex," from the practiced pen of the late John 
 Wingate Thornton, author of "Roger Conan't 
 and Cape Ann," and other works of acknowl- 
 edged merit, and himself a noble scion of two 
 of those families. But his recent lamented 
 death, before preparing his article, compels us 
 to omit those pages (111-116,) in which we 
 
io PREFACE. 
 
 hoped to see the "Old Families of Middlesex" 
 "live again." 
 
 County publications, in a great number 
 and variety, are noticed by various writers, in a 
 manner at once critical and interesting. 
 
 Lists of County officers have been com- 
 piled with an amount of labor of which the 
 average reader can form no adequate idea. 
 
 Lowell, July 4th, 1878. 
 
 Penhallow Printing Company. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 NTY. - 13,-^9 
 
 Historical Sketch of the County. - 13 -^9 
 
 Financial Reforms in the County. - Si 
 
 Reconstruction of the County. - - 93 
 
 Civil List of the County. - - - 103 
 
 Advertisements. - - ----- 117 
 
 New County Publications. - - - - 123 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 OF THE 
 
 COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 
 
 The year 1643 was signalized by two im- 
 portant events in the history of Massachusetts : 
 — the formation of the famous confederacy 
 between this Colony and the three other Colo- 
 nies of New England ; and the creation of the 
 four Counties of Middlesex, Essex, Norfolk and 
 Suffolk. The tide of immigration from England 
 to Massachusetts, which ran without interruption 
 from 1630 to 1640, had substantially ceased to 
 flow. About four thousand English families, 
 including more than twenty thousand persons, 
 were then domiciled on the rugged shores of 
 New England. Since then, "more persons have 
 removed out of New England to other parts of 
 the world than have come from other parts to 
 
14 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 it."* The white population of the "Bay 
 Colony," as Massachusetts was called, was then 
 about fifteen thousand souls. 
 
 The chief cause of this discontinuance of 
 immigration was undoutedly the English Civil 
 War. So long as the contest between Charles 
 the First and the champions of popular govern- 
 ment was a war of words merely, every ship that 
 entered Massachusetts Bay brought her quota 
 of adventurous immigrants. But as soon as 
 that struggle was transferred from the halls of 
 Westminster and Oxford to the battle-fields of 
 Newbury and Chalgrove, Marston Moor and 
 Edgehill, no Englishman that had a heart could 
 think of leaving the shores of his native land. 
 Some of those who had settled in Massachusetts, 
 returned to England to stay — such as the Rev. 
 Hugh Peters and Sir Henry Vane — and bore an 
 honorable part in the war which saved the Eng- 
 lish Constitution from the fate which overthrew 
 all the other Constitutions of Europe. Vane 
 ana Peters both perished on the scaffold. 
 
 It is interesting to notice with what intense 
 anxiety the first settlers of Middlesex and the 
 other Colonial Counties watched from afar that 
 
 *So wrote Governor Hutchinson in his History of 
 Massachusetts, vol. 1, p. 91; and from his time to ours 
 the same fact has continued 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 15 
 
 sanguinary struggle. In turning over the second, 
 third and fourth volumes of Massachusetts 
 Colony Records, I find that between July 21, 
 1642, and May 31, 1660, no less than twenty 
 separate days were set apart for fasting humilia- 
 tion and prayer, in which "the distractions of 
 our native land," "the present sad and deplora- 
 ble condition of our dear native country," etc., 
 were specially remembered. So, when the 
 Parliamentary forces won any signal victory 
 over those of the King, days were set apart in 
 Massachusetts for thanksgiving and praise. 
 
 The act creating the County of Middlesex 
 was passed by the General Court on the tenth 
 day of May, 1643, and is a model, of brevity and 
 comprehensiveness. It simply says, "The whole 
 plantation in this jurisdiction is divided into 
 four shires ;" names them, as Middlesex, Essex, 
 Norfolk and Suffolk ; and then gives the names 
 of the towns which they are to include. 
 
 The same page which contains this record, 
 contains one of those orders to which I just 
 now referred, for "a day of publique humiliation 
 for the sad condition of our native country."* 
 
 Thus we see that while they were passing 
 the most important measures of Colonial legis- 
 lation, and creating Counties that might endure 
 
 *Massachusetts Colon}- Records, vol. 2, p. 33. 
 
1 6 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 as long as the Merrimack and the Blackstone 
 flow singing to the sea, their hearts untravelled 
 fondly turned to the land where Cromwell's Iron- 
 sides were hurling back Prince Rupert's Cavalry, 
 and filling Europe with the fame of soldiers who 
 trusted in God and kept their powder dry. 
 
 The institutions and social condition of 
 the Colonies had, as Dr. Palfrey remarks, taken 
 a definite shape ; and at this point, accordingly, 
 he pauses, and pictures to us in vivid colors 
 that primitive system of society which has influ- 
 enced so largely the character and fortunes of 
 all the later generations of New England life. :> 
 
 The General Court, then composed of 
 Assistants and Deputies as now it is composed 
 of Senators and Representatives, had assumed 
 the fixed character which it still retains. 
 Originally it consisted of the Assistants and all 
 Freemen of the Colony ; but it had then come 
 to be a representative body, as now. At first 
 all the members sat in one chamber, like the 
 Parliament of Scotland, the City Council of 
 London, and the Legislative Assembly of 
 France ; but in 1643 it had assumed the fixed 
 form of a two-chamber body, as now. 
 
 The theory on which the government was 
 established, was not Democratic, but Thcocra- 
 * Palfrey's History of New England, vol. 2, chap. 1. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 17 
 
 tic* The suffrage was limited to church 
 members ; and the voters, or freemen, were "not 
 more than one-fifth part of the grown men."f 
 Thus was the suffrage restricted in 163 1 ; and 
 in 1660, when some of the inhabitants of Mid- 
 dlesex brought this subject anew to the atten- 
 of the General Court, it was ordered "that no 
 man whosoever shall be admitted to the freedom 
 of this body politic but such as are members of 
 some church of Christ ( *. e. some Congrega- 
 tional Church) and in full communion. "% 
 
 The Church, then, was rather the creator 
 than the creature of the State. Excommunica- 
 tion from the Church meant banishment from 
 the Colony. 
 
 How complete was the control of the 
 Church over the State and its members may be 
 seen from the experiences of Captain John 
 Underhill, as recorded by Governor Winthrop : — 
 
 "Capt. Underhill, being struck with horror 
 and remorse for his offences, both against the 
 church and civil state, could have no rest till he 
 
 *Hence Whittier applauds Samuel Sewall, one of the 
 Judges who condemned the witches, and afterwards 
 publicly confessed his error in the Old South Church : — 
 "Green forever the memory be 
 Of the Judge of the old Theocracy." 
 fPalfrey's History of New England, vol. 3, p. 135. 
 {Massachusetts Colony Kecords, vol. 4, p. 420. 
 
1 8 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 had obtained a safe conduct to come and give 
 satisfaction ; and accordingly, at a lecture at 
 Boston, (it being then the court time,) he made 
 a public confession both of his living in adultery 
 with Faber's wife, (upon suspicion whereof the 
 church had -before admonished him,) and at- 
 tempting the like with another woman, and also 
 the injury he had done to our state, &c. and 
 acknowledged the justice of the court in their 
 proceeding against him. 
 
 He came at the time of the court of 
 assistants ; and upon the lecture day, after ser- 
 mon, the pastor called him forth and declared 
 the occasion, and then gave him leave to speak : 
 and indeed it was a spectacle which caused 
 many weeping eyes, though it offered matter of 
 much rejoicing to behold the power of the Lord 
 Jesus in his own ordinances, when they are 
 dispensed in his own way, holding forth the 
 authority of his regal sceptre in the simplicity of 
 the gospel. He came in his worst clothes 
 (being accustomed, to take great pride in his 
 bravery and neatness) without a band, in a foul 
 linen cap pulled close to his eyes ; and standing 
 upon a form, he did, with many deep sighs and 
 abundance of tears, lay open his wicked course, 
 his adultery, his hypocrisy, his persecution of 
 God's people here, and especially his pride (as 
 the root of all, which caused God to give him 
 over to his other sinful courses) and contempt of 
 magistrates. He justified God and the church 
 and the court in all that had been inflicted on 
 him. He declared what power Satan had of him 
 since the casting out of the church ; how his pre- 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 19 
 
 sumptuous laying hold of mercy and pardon, 
 before God gave it, did then fail him when 
 the terrors of God came upon him, so as he 
 could have no rest, nor could see any issue but 
 utter dispair, which had put him divers times 
 upon resolutions of destroying himself, had not 
 the Lord in mercy prevented him, even when 
 his sword was ready to have done the execution. 
 Many fearful temptations he met with beside, 
 and in all these his heart shut up in hardness 
 and impenitency as the bondslave of Satan, till 
 the Lord, after a long time and great afflictions, 
 had broken his heart, and brought him to hum- 
 ble himself before him night and day with 
 prayers and tears till his strength was wasted ; 
 and indeed he appeared as a man worn out with 
 sorrow, and yet he could find no peace, therefore 
 he was now come to seek it in this ordinance of 
 God. He spake well, save that his blubbering 
 &c. interrupted him, and all along he discovered 
 a broken and melting heart, and gave good ex- 
 hortations to take heed of such vanities and 
 beginnings of evil as had occasioned his fall ; 
 and in the end he earnestly and humbly besought 
 the church to have compassion of him, and to 
 deliver him out of the hands of Satan. So 
 accordingly he was received into the church 
 again ; and after he came into the court, (for 
 the general court began soon after) and made 
 confession of his sin against them &c. and de- 
 sired pardon, which the court freely granted him 
 so far as concerned their private judgment. 
 But for his adultery they could not pardon that 
 for example sake, nor would restore him tO' 
 
20 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 freedom, though they released his banishment, 
 and declared the former law against adultery to 
 be of no force ; so as there was no law now to 
 touch his life, for the new law against adultery 
 was made since his fact committed. He con- 
 fessed also in the congregation that though he 
 was very familiar with that woman, and had 
 gained her affection &c. yet she withstood 
 his solicitations six months (which he thought no 
 woman could have resisted) before he could 
 overcome her chastity, but being once overcome, 
 she was wholly at his will. And to make his 
 peace the more sound, he went to her husband 
 (being a cooper) and fell upon his knees before 
 him in the presence of some of the elders and 
 others, and confessed the wrong he had done 
 him, and besought him to forgive him, which he 
 did very freely, and in testimony thereof he 
 sent the captain's wife a token.*" 
 
 To such discipline did this old Puritan cap- 
 tain submit, who had served in the English army 
 in the Netherlands, in Spain, and in Ireland, 
 and who had also borne a distinguished part in 
 the Fequot War in Connecticut. 
 
 Did not Hawthorne, in this affair of Under- 
 bill, find the germ of one of the most dramatic 
 incidents in his "Scarlet Letter ?" Not in the 
 
 ♦Winthrop's History of New England, vol. 1, p. 326, 
 vol. 2, pp. 18-16. Sec also Famous Divorces of All Ages, 
 bj Charles Cowley, of the Middlesex Bur. pp. 86-89. Pub- 
 lished by the Penhallow Printing Company, Lowell. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 21 
 
 the Rev. John Cotton, but in Captain John 
 Underhill, must we look, as I think, for the ori- 
 ginal of the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale. 
 
 However this may be, Captain Underhill 
 afterwards removed to the Dutch settlement on 
 Long Island. There he "sobered down into a 
 respectable Burgomaster," and died in peace 
 at the last. 
 
 The County of Middlesex, when first estab- 
 lished, contained eight towns — Charlestown, 
 Cambridge, Watertown, Sudbury, Concord, 
 VVoburn, Medford and Reading. Each of these 
 towns then covered a much larger area of ter- 
 ritory than now ; and the magistrates of Mid- 
 dlesex exercised jurisdiction as occasion required 
 as far North as the White Mountains, and as 
 far West as the Connecticut River. 
 
 Many will learn with surprise that so much 
 of Lowell as lies on the right bank of the 
 Merrimack, was once a part of Cambridge, but 
 such is the fact. Ancient Cambridge included 
 all the lands between the Charles and the Shaw- 
 shine — between the Shawshine and the Concord 
 — and between the Concord and the Merrimack. 
 
 Commissioners, appointed by the General 
 Court, in 1639, explored the Merrimack River 
 as far North as where Franklin now stands ; and 
 Darby Field, an adventurous settler from the 
 
22 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 North of Ireland, made the first ascent of the 
 White Mountains in 1642. 
 
 The first and by far the most important 
 institutions in the new jurisdictions were the 
 County Courts. These were held at first by 
 the Assistants, so called, who combined the 
 functions now performed by the Executive 
 Council and the Senate, with the powers of 
 Judges of the higher Courts, and the County 
 Commissioners. But it was afterwards provided 
 that they should be held by the Assistants who 
 lived in the County, or any others "that would 
 attend, together with such other persons as the 
 freemen of the County, four times a year, should 
 nominate, and the General Court approve of, so 
 as to make five in all, any three to hold a Court. 
 They had the power to determine all civil causes 
 and all criminal, the penalty not extending to 
 life, member, or banishment. Grand and petit 
 juries were summoned to attend them. Appeals 
 from them lay to the Court of Assistants, and 
 from them to the General Court." 
 
 ♦Hutchinson's History of Mass., vol. 1, p. 897; Mass. 
 Col. Rec, vol. 3, p. 325. Dr. Palfrey says "these Courts 
 had jurisdiction incases of Divorce." History of New 
 England, vol 2, p. 17. Hut I find no record of any decree 
 of divorce either from bed and board *r fiium tliw liutul 
 *e f t na tri nn i ny > under the Colony Charter. The Court 
 of Assistants however had the power of divorce. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 23 
 
 The County Courts were held four times a 
 year — twice in Charlestown and twice in Cam- 
 bridge. Among their many duties were those 
 of granting licences tc inn-keepers and common 
 victualers, and of assessing negligent towns 
 for the maintenence of ministers. 
 
 When it was proposed, some years ago, to 
 amend the Constitution so as to make the 
 Judges of our Courts elective by the people, 
 many cried against it as a most dangerous in- 
 novation. But the fact is, that the County 
 Courts of Massachusetts were filled by popular 
 election from the early days of the Colonial 
 Charter until that Charter was vacated by a 
 decree in Chancery in England, June 18, 1684. 
 But if other states have followed the example of 
 Massachusetts, by introducing elective Judges, 
 it is to be hoped that they will also follow her 
 example by adopting some better mode of filling 
 the bench of Justice than the chance-medley 
 of the caucus. 
 
 Middlesex County contained portions of 
 two of the five leagues of Indians, whom De 
 Monts found in New England in 1604. The 
 valley of the Merrimack and its tributaries was 
 sparsely peopled by the Pawtuckets or.Penna- 
 cooks, under Passaconaway. The Southern por- 
 tion of the County was occupied by the 
 
24 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 Massachusetts tribe, which included the Nip- 
 mucks of the West as far as Connecticut. 
 
 One of the first acts of the General Court 
 touching the Counties, was an order, passed 
 November 13, 1644, "that the County Courts in 
 this jurisdiction shall take care that the Indians 
 residing in the several shires shall be civilized, 
 and they shall have power to take order from 
 time to time to have them instructed in the 
 knowledge and worship of God." 
 
 On the twenty-ninth of May, 1644, Passa- 
 conaway appeared before the General Court at 
 Boston, and formally submitted to the Colonial 
 authorities.! The terms of the act of sub- 
 mission, to which, at different times, the various 
 Indian chiefs of the Colony affixed their marks, 
 were as follows : — "We have and by these 
 presents do, voluntarily and without any con- 
 straint or persuasion, but of our own free 
 motion, put ourselves, our subjects, lands and 
 estates under the government and jurisdiction 
 of the Massachusetts, to be governed and pro- 
 
 *See Memories of the Indians and Pioneers of the Re- 
 gion of Lowell, by Charles Cowley. 
 
 ■fThe date of this event is differently stated in Massa- 
 chusetts Archives, vol. 30 ,p. 8, and in Winthrop's Histo- 
 ry of New England, vol. 2, pp. lGfi, 214. But I follow 
 Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. 3, p. 7:i. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 25 
 
 tected by them, according to their just laws and 
 orders, so far as we shall be made capable of 
 understanding them : and we do promise for 
 ourselves and our subjects, and all our posterity 
 to be true and faithful to the said government, 
 and aiding to the maintenance thereof to our 
 best ability, and from time to time to give 
 speedy notice of any conspiracy, attempt, or 
 evil intention of any which we shall know or 
 hear of against the same : and we do promise 
 to be willing, from time to time, to be instructed 
 in the knowledge and worship of God." 
 
 In a note to Governor Winthrop's History, 
 Mr. Savage says : — "We may rejoice in the 
 benevolence, which attempted the civilization 
 and conversion to Christianity of these Indians, 
 and certainly must honour the government, 
 whose liberal treaty with their confederates is so 
 diverse from the usual terms of stipulation with 
 the natives ; but it may be feared, that there 
 was too much human policy at work in obtain- 
 ing their subjection." 
 
 The County of Middlesex was but three 
 years old when the Rev. John Eliot commenced 
 those Christ-like labors among the ruins of the 
 red men, which have won for him the name of 
 the Apostle to the Indians. It has often been 
 stated that he began this missionary work at 
 
26 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 Newton on the twenty-eighth of October 1646; 
 but others date it from a visit, six weeks earlier, 
 to the wigwam of the sachem, Cutshamekirt", at 
 Dorchester Mill, now, I believe, in Milton. As 
 early as 1647, Eliot reported the work of civil- 
 izing the Indians, (which he regarded as in- 
 separable from the work of converting them to 
 Christianity,) as successfully begun at Newton, 
 Concord and Lowell. 
 
 On the twenty-sixth day of May, 1647, the 
 General Court established monthly courts in 
 those villages which were visited by Eliot or the 
 other Indian missionaries ; and the chiefs were 
 constituted judges, for the trial of petty causes, 
 both civil and criminal ; their powers being sub- 
 stantially the same as those of justices of the 
 peace. An Indian constabulary was also estab- 
 lished, to serve warrants and summonses, and 
 execute the orders and judgments of these 
 Indian courts. Once in three months, one of 
 the magistrates of the Colony and the Indian 
 chiefs held a County Court for the Indians.* 
 
 In 1656, Daniel Gookin, one of the Assist- 
 ants, was appointed Superintendent of all those 
 Indians who had submitted to the English 
 jurisdiction. This office, filled for many years 
 by Gookin, and by others, was continued until 
 the number of Massachusetts Indians had 
 dwindled into insignificance. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 27 
 
 Middlesex County having been one of the 
 principal theatres of these attempts to civilize 
 the Indians, it is proper to introduce here the 
 following portions of the seventh chapter of 
 Gookin's Historical Collections of the Indians, 
 which, though printed in 1792, have had but 
 little circulation among the great body of the 
 people. General Gookin wrote in 1674, when 
 the work of Eliot and himself had attained all 
 the success which was vouchsafed to it. There 
 were then under Eliot's supervision fourteen 
 "praying Indian towns," including eleven hun- 
 dred souls, and two Indian churches, as General 
 Gookin's narrative will now show. It will be 
 seen that the style of this Puritan Saint was 
 one of peculiar felicity, reminding the reader of 
 the grace with which Blackstone, nearly a cen- 
 utry later, wrote his celebrated Commentaries. 
 
 §. 1. The first town of praying Indians in 
 Massachusetts is Natick. The name signifieth a 
 place of hills. It lieth upon the Charles Kiver, eigh- 
 teen miles south-west from Boston, and ten miles 
 north-west from Dedham. It hath twenty-nine fam- 
 ilies, which, computing five persons to a family, 
 amount to one hundred and forty-five persons. The 
 town contains about six thousand acres. The soil is 
 good and well watered, and produceth plenty of 
 grain and fruit. The land was granted to the Indians, 
 at the motion of Mr. Eliot, by the General Court of 
 
28 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 Massachusetts ; and in the year 1651, a number 
 of them combined together, and formed a town, which 
 is the place of the greatest name among the Indians,* 
 and where their principal courts are held. 
 
 As soon as the Indians had fixed their settlement, 
 they applied to Mr. Eliot for a form of civil govern- 
 ment ; and he advised them to adopt that which 
 Jethro proposed to Moses for the Israelites in the 
 wilderness, Exod. xviii. 21. Accordingly, on the 
 sixth of August, about one hundred of them met to- 
 gether, and chose one ruler of a hundred, two rulers 
 of fifties, and ten rulers of tens. After this they 
 entered into the following covenant. 
 
 "We are the sons of Adam. We and our fore- 
 fathers have a long time been lost in our sins ; but 
 now the mercy of the Lord beginneth to find us out 
 again. Therefore, the grace of Christ helping us, 
 we do give ourselves and our children to God, to be 
 his people. He shall rule us in all our affairs, not 
 only in our religion and affairs of the church, but 
 also in all our works and affairs in this world. God 
 shall rule over us. The Lord is our jndge ; the 
 Lord is our lawgiver ; the Lord is our king ; he will 
 save us. The wisdom which God hath taught us in 
 his book, that shall guide us, and direct us in the 
 way. Jehovah, teach us wisdom to find out thy 
 wisdom in the Scriptures. Let the grace of Christ 
 help us, because Christ is the wisdom of God. Send 
 thy spirit into our hearts, and let it teach us. Lord, 
 take us to be thy people, and let us take thee to be 
 our God." 
 
 •Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. 3, p. 246; voL 
 
 4, pp. 112, 334; vol. 5, 227. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 29 
 
 §. 2. This town consisteth of three long streets ; 
 two on the north side of the river; and one, on the 
 south ; with house lots to every family. There is a 
 handsome large fort, of a round figure, palisaded 
 with trees ; and a foot-bridge over the river, in form 
 of an arch, the foundation of which is secured with 
 stone. There is also one large house built after th Q 
 English manner. The lower room is a large hall 
 which serves for a meetingdiouse, on the Lord's day, 
 and a school-house on the week days. The upper 
 room is a kind of wardrobe, where the Indians hang 
 up their skins, and other things of value. In a cor- 
 ner of this room Mr.^Eliot has an apartment partition- 
 ed off, with a bed and bedstead in it.* The nth or 
 houses in this town are generally after their old 
 mode before described ; though some they have built 
 in this and other of the praying villages, after the 
 English form. But these being more chargeable to 
 build and not so warm, and cannot be removed so 
 easily as their wigwams, wherein there is not a nail 
 used, to avoid annoyance by fleas, and themselves 
 being generally artists in building and furnishing 
 their own wigwams : for these and like reasons, they 
 do incline to keep their old fashioned houses. 
 
 §. 3. In this town was the first church of Indians 
 imbodied, in the year of our Lord 16G0. Unto this 
 
 The preceding portion of this chapter was prepared 
 by the Committee that edited Gookiu's narrative for the 
 Massachusetts Historical Society, to supply the place of a 
 lost leaf in the original manuscript. These foot notes 
 are mine. 
 
30 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 church* some pious Indians of other places, hoth men 
 and women, are since joined. * * * 
 
 There are many Indians that live among those 
 that have subjected to the gospel, that are catechised, 
 do attend public worship, read the scriptures, pray in 
 their family morning and evening ; but being not 
 yet come so far, as to be able or willing to profess 
 their faith in Christ, and yield obedience and subjec- 
 tion unto him in his cburch, are not admitted to par- 
 take in the ordinances of God, proper and peculiar to 
 the church of Christ, which is a garden enclosed, as 
 the Scripture saith. 
 
 §. 4. The manner practiced by these Indians in 
 the worship of God, is thus. Upon the Lord's days, 
 fast days, and lecture days, the people assemble to- 
 gether at the sound of a drum, when one of their 
 teachers, if they have more than one, begins with 
 solemn and affectionate prayer. Then, after a short 
 pause, either himself or some other thereunto ap- 
 pointed, readeth a chapter distinctly out of the old or 
 new testament. At the conclusion thereof a psalm, 
 or part of a psalm, is appointed, rehearsed, and 
 solemnly sung. Then the minister catechises and 
 prays before his sermon ; and so preacheth from some 
 text of Scripture. Then concludeth with prayer, and 
 a psalm, and a blessing pronounced. Sometime, 
 instead of reading the chapter, some persons do 
 answer some parts of the catechism 
 
 ♦Governor Hutchinson says that in 1(>70 there were 
 between forty and fifty communicants iu this church. 
 History of Massachusetts, vol. 1, page 156, note. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 31 
 
 la all these acts of worship, (for I have heen often 
 present with them,) they demean themselves visibly 
 with reverence, attention, modesty and solemnity . 
 the menkind sitting by themselves* and the women- 
 kind by themselves, according to their age, quality, 
 and degree, in a comely manner. And for my own 
 part, I have no doubt, but am fully satisfied, accord- 
 ing to the judgment of charity, that divers of tbem 
 do fear God and are true believers ; but yet I will 
 not deny but that there may be some of them hypo- 
 crites, that profess religion, and yet are not sound 
 hearted. But things that are secret belong to God ; 
 and things that are revealed, unto us and our child- 
 ren. 
 
 §. 5. Their teachers are generally chosen from 
 among themselves, — except some few English 
 teachers, — of the most pious and devout men among 
 them. If these did not supply, they would generally 
 be destitute. * * From this church and town of 
 Natick hath issued forth, as from a seminary of 
 virtue and piety, divers teachers that are employed 
 in several new praying towns ; of which we shall 
 hear more, God willing, hereafter. 
 
 In this town they have residing some of their 
 principal rulers, the chief whereof is named Waban, 
 who is now above seventy years of age. He is a 
 person of great prudence and piety : I do not know 
 any Indian that excels him. Other rulers there are 
 living there, as Nattous and Piam Boohan, and 
 
 *Suck was the ancient Jewish custom. 
 
32 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 others. These are good men and prudent, but infe- 
 rior to the first. The teachers of this town are 
 Anthony and John Speen, which are grave and pious 
 men. They have two constables belonging to this 
 place, chosen yearly ; and there is a marshal-general 
 belonging to all the praying Indian towns, called 
 Captain Josiah, or Pennahannit. He doth attend 
 the chief courts kept here, but he dwells at another 
 place, called Nashobah. 
 
 I have been the larger in speaking of this place, 
 because it is the chiefest town and eldest church ; and 
 what is said of this doth agree to all the rest in 
 divers things. 
 
 §. 6. The next town is Pakemit, or Punkapog.* 
 The signification of this name is taken from a spring, 
 that ariseth out of red earth. This town is situated 
 south from Boston, about fourteen miles. There is a 
 great mountain, called the Blue Hill, lieth north- 
 east from it about two miles : and the town of Ded- 
 ham, about three miles north-west from it. This is 
 a small town, and hath not above twelve families in 
 it ; and so about sixty souls. This is the second 
 praying town. The Indians that settled here, re- 
 
 ♦Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. 1, p. 8S4. 
 
 Punkapog is now in Stoughtoii. It was the only town 
 of Eliot's converts which was not within the jurisdiction 
 of this County. From 1G43 to 1793 it formed part of Suf- 
 folk County. Since the present County of Norfolk was 
 created in 171)3, (the old County of that name lying North 
 of the Merrimack having ceased to exist in 1680,) it has 
 been In Norfolk County. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 33 
 
 moved from Neponsit mill. The quantity of land 
 belonging to this village, is about six thousand acres ; 
 and some of it is fertile, but not generally so good as 
 in other towns. Here they worship God, and keep 
 the Sabbath, in the same manner as is done at Natick, 
 before declared. They have a ruler, a constable, and 
 a school-master. Their ruler's name is Ahawton ; 
 an old and faithful friend to the English. Their 
 teacher is William Ahawton, his son ; an ingenious 
 person and pious man, and of good parts. Here was 
 a very able teacher, who died about three years since. 
 His name was William Awinian. He was a very 
 knowing person, and of great ability, and of genteel 
 deportment, and spoke very good English. His 
 death was a very great rebuke to this place. This 
 town hath within this ten years, lost by death several 
 honest and able men ; and some have turned apostates, 
 and removed from them : which dispensations of God 
 have greatly damped the flourishing condition of this 
 place. Here it was that Mr. John Eliot, junior, be- 
 fore mentioned, preached a lecture once a fortnight, 
 for sundry years, until his decease. In this village, 
 besides their planting and keeping cattle ynd swire, 
 and fishing in good ponds, and upon Neponsit River 
 which lieth near them ; they are also advantaged by 
 a large cedar swamp ; wherein such as are laborious 
 and diligent, do get many a pound, by cutting and 
 preparing cedar shingles and clapboards, which sell 
 well at Boston and other English towns adjacent. 
 
 §. 7. Hassanamesit is the third town of pray- 
 ing Indians. The name signifieth a place of 
 
34 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 small stones. This place lieth about thirty-eight 
 miles from Boston, west-southerly ; and is about two 
 miles to the eastward of Nipmuck River;* and near 
 unto the old road way to Connecticut. It hath not 
 above twelve families ; and so, according to our com- 
 putation, about sixty souls ; but is capable to receive 
 hundreds, as generally the other villages are, if it 
 shall please God to multiply them. The dimensions 
 of this town is four miles square ; and so about eight 
 thousand acres of land. This village is not inferior 
 unto any of the Indian plantations for rich land and 
 plenty of meadow, being well tempered and watered. 
 It produceth plenty of corn, grain and fruit ; for 
 there are several good orchards in this place. It is 
 an apt place for keeping of cattle and swine ; in 
 which respect this people are the best stored of any 
 Indian town of their size. Their ruler is named 
 Anaweakin ; a sober and discreet man. Their 
 teacher's name is Tackuppa-willin, his brother; a 
 pious and able man, and apt to teach. Their aged 
 father, whose name I remember not, is a grave and 
 sober christian, and deacon of the church. They 
 have a brother that lives in the town, called James, 
 that was bred among the English, and employed as a 
 press-man in printing the Indian Bible; who can 
 read well, and, as I take it, write also. The father, 
 mother, brothers, and their wives, are all reputed 
 pious persons, and the principal studs of the town. 
 Here they have a meeting-house for the worship of 
 
 ♦Bkickstone River. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 35 
 
 God after the English fashion of building, and two 
 or three other houses after the same mode ; hut they 
 fancy not greatly to live in them. Their way of liv- 
 ing is by husbandry, and keeping cattle and swine; 
 wherein they do as well, or rather better, than any 
 other Indians, but yet are very far short of the 
 English both in diligence and providence. In this 
 town was the second Indian church gathered, about 
 three years since, in summer, 1671. The pastor of 
 this church, is Tackuppa-willin ; the ruling elder, 
 Piambow ; the deacon, father to the pastor. There 
 are in full communion in this church, and living in 
 the town, about sixteen men and women, and about 
 thirty baptized persons ; but there are several others, 
 members of the church, that live in other places. 
 This is a hopeful plantation. The Lord give his 
 blessing to it. The way of their worship and civil 
 order, is here as in other Indian towns before 
 mentioned.* 
 
 §. 8. Okommakamesit.f alias Marlborough, is sit- 
 uated about twelve miles north-north-east from Has- 
 sanamesit, about thirty miles from Boston westerly. 
 This village contains about ten families, and conse- 
 
 *Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. 4, pp. 192, 34S. 
 The town of Grafton includes Hassanamesit. In 1731. 
 this and much other territory of ancient Middlesex was 
 set off to form the County of Worcester. It was incor- 
 porated as a town in 1735. 
 
 fMassachusetts Colony Records, vol. 4, pp. 192, 317, 
 348, 363. The town of Hudson embraces part of this 
 territory. 
 
36 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 quently about fifty souls. The quantity of land apper- 
 taining to it is six thousand acres. It is much of it 
 good land, and yieldeth plenty of corn, being well 
 husbanded. It is sufficiently stored with meadow, and 
 is well wooded and watered. It hath several good 
 orchards upon it, planted by the Indians : and is in 
 itself a very good plantation. This town doth join 
 so near to the English of Marlborough, that it was 
 spoken of David in type, and our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 the antitype, Under his shadow ye shall rejoice : but 
 the Indians here do not much rejoice under the 
 English men's shadow ; who do so overtop them in 
 their number of people, stocks of cattle, &c that the 
 Indians do not greatly flourish, or delight in their 
 station at present. Their ruler here was Onomog, 
 who is lately deceased, about two months since ; which 
 is a great blow to that place. He was a pious and 
 discreet man, and the very soul, as it were, of that 
 place. Their teacher's name is [Solomon*]. Here 
 they observe the same decorum for religion and civil 
 order, as is done in other towns. They have a con- 
 stable and other officers, as the rest have. The Lord 
 sanctify the present affliction they are under by rea- 
 son of their bereavements ; and raise up others, and 
 give them grace to promote religion and good order 
 among them. 
 
 §. 9. Wamesitf is the fifth praying town; and 
 
 ♦Hutchinson says his name was Solomon. 
 
 fMassachusetts Colony Records, vol. :>, p. 301, vol. 
 •1, part L, pp. 268, 106, 131; part 2. pp. 16. 431. This 
 territory is now a part of Lowell. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 37 
 
 is situated upon the Merrimack River, being a neck 
 of land, where Concord River falleth into Merrimack 
 River. It is about twenty miles from Boston, north- 
 north-west, and within five miles of Billerica, and as 
 much from (jhelmsford : so that it hath Concord 
 River upon the west-north-west ; and Merrimack 
 River, upon the north-north-east. It hath about 
 fifteen families ; and consequently, as we compute, 
 about seventy-five souls. The quantity of land be- 
 longing to it is about twenty-five hundred acres. 
 The land is fertile, and yieldeth plenty of corn. It 
 is excellently accommodated with a fishing place ; and 
 there is taken a variety of fish in their seasons, as 
 salmon, shads, lamprey eels, sturgeon, bass and divers 
 others. There is a great confluence of Indians, that 
 usually resort to this place in the fishing seasons. 
 Of these strange Indians divers are vicious and 
 wicked men and women ; which Satan makes use of 
 to obstruct the prosperity of religion here. The ruler 
 of this people is called Numphow. He is one of the 
 blood of their chief sachems. Their teacher is called 
 Samuel ; son to the ruler, a young man of good parts, 
 and can speak, read, and write, English and Indian 
 competently. He is one of those that were bred 
 up at school, at the charge of the Corporation for the 
 Indians. These Indians, if they were diligent and 
 industrious, — to which they have been frequently 
 excited, — might get much by their fish, especially 
 fresh salmon, which are of esteem and good price at 
 Boston in the season ; and the Indians being stored 
 with horses of a low price, might furnish the market 
 
38 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 fully, being at so small a distance. And divers other 
 sort of fish they might salt or pickle, as sturgeon 
 and bass ; which would be much to their profit. But 
 notwithstanding divers arguments used to persuade 
 them, and some orders made to encourage them ; yet 
 their idleness and improvidence doth hitherto prevail. 
 
 At this place, once a year, at the beginning of 
 May, the English magistrate [Gookin,] keeps his 
 court, accompanied with Mr. Eliot, the minister; who 
 at this time takes his opportunity to preach, not only 
 to the inhabitants, but to as many of the strange 
 Indians, that can be persuaded to hear him ; of which 
 sort, usually in times of peace, there are considerable 
 numbers at that season. And this place being an 
 ancient and capital seat of Indians, they come to 
 fish ; and this good man takes this opportunity to 
 spread the net of the gospel, to fish for their souls. 
 Here it may not be impertinent to give you the rela- 
 tion following. 
 
 May 5th, 1674, according to our usual custom, Mr. 
 Eliot and myself took our journey to Wamesit or 
 Pawtucket ;* and »rriving there thai evening, Mr. 
 
 ♦Governor Hutchinson says, "Pawtucket, at the falls 
 in Merrimack River, was the place of another set of pray- 
 ing Indians. The Pennacook Indians had come down 
 the river, and built a fort at Pawtucket, and were great 
 opposers, and obstinately refused to pray to God; but 
 being concerned in the expedition against the Mohawks, 
 they were mosl of them cul off, and since that lime the 
 Pawtuket Indians were, at least several of them, become 
 
 praying Indians, and Jethro was sent to preach Christ 
 
 to them." Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, vol. l, 
 p. 157, note. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 39 
 
 Eliot preached to as many of them as could be got to- 
 gether out of Mat. xxii. 1-14. — the parable of the 
 marriage of the king's son. We met at the wigwam 
 of one called Wannalancet, about two miles from the 
 town, near Pawtucket falls, and bordering upon the 
 Merrimack river.* This person, Wannalancet, is the 
 eldest son of old Passaconaway, the chiefest sachem of 
 Pawtucket. He is a sober and grave person, 
 and of years, between fifty and sixty. He hath been 
 always loving and friendly to the English. Many 
 endeavors have been used several years to gain this 
 sachem to embrace the christian religion ; but he hath 
 stood off from time to time, and not yielded up him- 
 self personally, though for four years past he hath 
 been willing to hear the word of God preached, and 
 to keep the Sabbath. — -A great reason that hath kept 
 him off, I conceive, hath been the indisposition and 
 averseness of sundry of his chief men and relations to 
 pray to God ; which he foresaw would desert him, in 
 case he turned a christian. But at this time, May 
 6th, 1674, it pleased God so to influence and over- 
 come his heart, that it being proposed to him to give 
 his answer concerning praying to God, after some 
 deliberation and serious pause, he stood up and made 
 a speech to this effect. 
 
 Sirs, you have been pleased for four years last past, 
 in your abundant love, to apply yourselves partic- 
 ularly unto me and my people, to exhort, prtss, and 
 persuade us to pray to God. I am very thankful to 
 
 *Near the site of the stately mansion of Frederick 
 Ayer. 
 
4 o HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 you for your pains. I must acknowledge, said he, I 
 have, all my days, used to pass in an old canoe (al- 
 luding to his frequent custom to pass in a canoe upon 
 the river) and now you exhort me to change and 
 leave my old canoe, and embark in a new canoe, to 
 which I have hitherto been unwilling: but now I 
 yield up myself to your advice, and enter into a new 
 canoe, and do engage to pray to God hereafter. 
 
 This his professed subjection was well pleasing to 
 all that were present, of which there some English 
 persons of quality ; as Mr. Richard Daniel, a gentle- 
 man that lived in Billerica, about six miles off: and 
 Lieutenant Henchman, a neighbor at Chelmsford ; 
 besides brother Eliot and myself, with sundry others, 
 English and Indians. Mr. Daniel before named 
 desired brother Eliot to tell this sachem from him, 
 that it maybe, while he went in his old canoe, he 
 passed in a quiet stream : but the end thereof was 
 death and destruction to soul and body: But now he 
 went into a new canoe, perhaps he would meet with 
 storms and trials ; but yec he should be encouraged 
 to persevere, for the end of his voyage would be 
 everlasting rest. Moreover he and his people were 
 exhorted by brother Eliot and myself, to go on and 
 sanctify the sabbath, to hear the word, and use the 
 means that God hath appointed, and encourage their 
 hearts in the Lord their God. Since that time, 1 
 hear this sachem doth persevere, and is a constant 
 and diligent hearer of God's word, and sanetirteth 
 the sabbath, though he doth travel to "Wamesit meet- 
 ing every sabbath, which is above two miles ; and 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 41 
 
 though sundry of his people have deserted him, since 
 he subjected to the gospel, yet he continues and 
 persists.* 
 
 In this town they observe the same civil and re- 
 ligious orders, as in other towns, and have a coustable 
 and other officers. 
 
 This people of Wamesit suffered more in the late 
 war with the Mohawks, than any other praying 
 town of Indians : for divers of their people were slain ; 
 others, wounded ; and some, carried into captivity : 
 which providence hath much hindered the prosperous 
 estate of this place. t 
 
 §. 10. NashobahJ is the sixth praying Indian 
 town. This village is situated in a manner in the 
 centre between Chelmsford, Lancaster, Groton, and 
 Concord. It lieth from Boston about twenty-five 
 miles, west-north-west. The inhabitants are about 
 ten families, and consequently about fifty souls. The 
 dimensions of this village is four miles square. The 
 land is fertile, and well stored with meadows and 
 woods. It hath good ponds for fish adjoining it. 
 
 *The beautiful Eliot Church stands very near the site 
 of the wigwam in which Wannalaucet worshiped two 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 fThe war with the Mohawks, or Maquas, who lived 
 near the lakes of Northern New York, began in 16G3, and 
 lasted till 1G71, and was very destructive to tne Indian 
 tribes of Middlesex. 
 
 ^Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. 4, pp. 192, 348. 
 This territory is now partly in Concord and partly iu 
 Littleton. 
 
42 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 The people live here, as in other Indian villages, upon 
 planting corn, fishing, hunting, and sometimes labor- 
 ing with the English. Their ruler of late years was 
 John Ahatawance, a pious man. Since his decease, 
 Pennahannit is the chief. Their teacher is named 
 John Thomas, a sober and pious man. His fathei 
 was murthered by the Maquas in a secret manner, as 
 he was fishing for eels at his wear, some years since, 
 during the war. He was a pious and useful person ; 
 and that place sustained a great loss in him. In this 
 village, as well as in other old Indian plantations, 
 they have orchards of apples, whereof they make 
 cider ; which some of them have not the wisdom and 
 grace to use for their comfort, but, are prone to abuse 
 unto drunkenness. And although the laws be strict 
 to suppress this sin, and some of their own rulers are 
 very careful and zealous in the execution of them ; 
 yet such is the madness and folly of man naturally, 
 that lie doth eagerly pursue after that which tendeth 
 to his own destruction. I have often seriously con- 
 sidered what course to take, to restrain this beastly 
 sin of drunkenness among them; but hitherto cannot 
 reach it. For if it were possible, as it is not, to pre- 
 vent the English selling strong drink; yet they hav- 
 ing a native liberty to plant orchards and sow grain 
 as barley and the like, of which they may and do 
 make strong drink and doth inebriate them : so that 
 nothing can overcome and conquer this exorbitancy, 
 but the sovereign grace of God in Christ; which is 
 in the only antidote to prevent and mortify the poison 
 of sin. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 43 
 
 Near unto this town is a pond, wherein at some 
 seasons there is a strange rumbling noise, as the In- 
 dians affirm ; the reason thereof is not yet known. 
 Some have conceived the hills adjacent are hollow, 
 wherein the wind being pent, is the cause of this 
 rumbling, as in earthquakes. 
 
 At this place they attend civil and religious order, 
 as in the other praying towns : and they have a con- 
 stable and other officers. 
 
 This town was deserted during the Maquas' war, 
 but is now repeopled, and in a hopeful way to pros- 
 per. 
 
 §. 11. Magunkaquog* is the seventh town where 
 praying Indians inhabit. The signification of the 
 place's name is a place of great trees. It is situated 
 partly within the bounds of Natick, and partly upon 
 the land granted by the country. It lieth west 
 southerly from Boston, about twenty-four miles, near 
 the midway between Natick and Hassanamesitt. 
 The number of its inhabitants are about eleven fam- 
 ilies, and about fifty-five souls. There are, men 
 and women, eight members of the church at Natick, 
 and about fifteen baptized persons. The quantity of 
 of land belonging to it is about three thousand acres. 
 
 *The town of Ashland now embraces this territory, 
 which also bore the name of Pennahannit. Mrs. Stowe, 
 in "Old Town Folks", has improved the name into Ma- 
 gunco. Sir Charles Henry Frankland once lived a 
 gunco. See his Life, by the Rev. Elias Nason. Ashland 
 was incorporated in 1746, having previously formed part 
 of Hopkinton. 
 
44 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 The Indians plant upon a great hill, which is very 
 fertile. These people worship God, and keep the 
 sabbath, and observe civil order, as do the other towns. 
 They have a constable and other officers. Their 
 ruler's name is Pomhaman ; a sober and active man, 
 and pious. Their teacher is named Job ; a person 
 well accepted for piety and ability among them. 
 This town was the last setting of the old towns. 
 They have plenty of corn, and keep cattle, horses, and 
 wine, for which the place is well accommodated. 
 
 Having given the foregoing account of what 
 he calls "the seven old praying towns," General 
 Gookin proceeds to mention what he calls "the 
 seven new praying towns," among the Nipmuck 
 Indians. But as all these lay outside of the 
 present limits of Middlesex, and had but a brief 
 life at the best, they are omitted here.* The 
 whole number of praying Indians in these four- 
 teen towns was eleven hundred. 
 
 For many years the praying Indians were 
 in a situation strikingly resembling that of the 
 blacks of our times. The Colonists entertained 
 towards them the same prejudices that have 
 been entertained towards our Frcedmen. Dur- 
 ing the first months of King Phillip's War, the 
 Colonial authorities felt the same reluctance to 
 accept the praying Indians as soldiers, that was 
 felt in 1 86 1 towards the blacks. But several 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 45 
 
 companies of these praying Indians were after- 
 wards formed, which rendered very important 
 services in bringing that conflict to a successful 
 termination. "Military necessity, "strengthened 
 by the advice of Eliot and Gookin, led to the 
 reception of these Indian soldiers, just as the 
 same necessity led President Lincoln to the 
 Emancipation Proclamation and the enlistment 
 of colored troops. Thus does History repeat 
 itself. Middlesex County, containing so many 
 praying Indians, and so many frontier towns 
 which suffered from the allies of Phillip, nat- 
 urally took a leading part in bringing these 
 Christian Indian soldiers into the field. 
 
 The situation of the praying towns of 
 Middlesex during Phillip's War was such that, 
 as Gookin declares, "the Indians in them might 
 have been improved as a wall of defence about 
 the greatest part of the Colony ;" — for Wamesit 
 bordered upon the Merrimack River, and the 
 six other villages lay in Littleton, Marlborough, 
 Grafton, Ashland, Natick and Stoughton, the 
 distance from one to another being only twelve 
 or fourteen miles. 
 
 Gookin further observes that, "had the sug- 
 gestions and importunate solicitations of some 
 persons, [particularly Eliot and himself,] who 
 had knowledge and experience of the fidelity 
 
46 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 and integrity of the praying Indians, been 
 attended and practiced in the beginning of the 
 war, many and great mischiefs might have been 
 (according to reason) prevented ; for most of 
 the praying towns, in the beginning of the war, 
 had put themselves into a posture of defence, 
 and had made forts for their security against the 
 common enemy ; and it was suggested and pro- 
 posed to the authority of the country, that some 
 Englishmen, about one third part, might have 
 been joined with those Christian Indians in each 
 fort, which the praying Indians greatly desired, 
 that thereby their fidelity might have been better 
 demonstrated, and that with the assistance and 
 company of some of those English soldiers, they 
 might daily scout or range the woods from 
 town to town, in their several assigned stations, 
 and hereby might have been as a living wall to 
 guard the English frontiers, and consequently 
 the greatest part of the Jurisdiction, which, with 
 the blessing of God, might have prevented the 
 desolations and devastations that afterward en- 
 sued. This was not only the suggestion of some 
 English, but the earnest desire of some of the 
 most prudent Christian Indians." 
 
 But notwithstanding many signal services 
 rendered to the Colony by praying Indians 
 during Phillip's War, the animosity of the com- 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 47 
 
 mon white people against them became so in- 
 tense that "the very name of a praying Indian 
 was spoken against. " 
 
 Because much mischief was done by the 
 partisans and allies of Phillip, and because some 
 Indians proved false and perfidious, the masses 
 of the Colony treated all the Indians as false and 
 perfidious. "Things growing to this height," 
 says Gookin, on August 30th, 1675, the Govern- 
 or and Council, against their own reason and 
 inclination, were put upon a kind of necessity, 
 for gratifying the people, to disband all the pray- 
 ing Indians, and to make and publish an order 
 to confine them to five of their own villages, 
 and not to stir above one mile from the centre 
 of such place, upon peril of their lives." The 
 five villages thus designated were the seven old 
 praying towns already described, except those of 
 Marlborough and Magunkog. 
 
 The fortified Indian village at Marlborough, 
 which might have been the most serviceable to 
 the whites of all the praying towns, was the first 
 to be disrupted, and that, too, by the military 
 
 *See Gookin's Historical Account of the Doings and 
 Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New. England in 
 the years 1675, 1676, 1677, in the second volume of the 
 Collections of the American Antiquarian Society, p. 436. 
 This volume being now a scarce one, liberal extracts 
 from it will be made in this portion of my narrative. 
 
48 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 authorities of the Colony, who should have seen 
 most clearly the importance of maintaining such 
 a frontier post.* 
 
 "By this order the poor Christian Indians 
 were reduced to great sufferings, being hindered 
 from hunting and looking after their cattle, 
 swine, and getting in their corn, or laboring 
 among the English to get clothes, and many 
 other ways incommoded ; also, were daily ex- 
 posed to be slain or imprisoned, if at any time 
 they were found without their limits. And 
 there wanted not some English (ill willing to 
 them,) and took occasion to seize upon them, 
 and take away their guns, and detain them to 
 this day, and to bring them to prison." 
 
 "Upon the 19th day of October, 1675, the 
 Court passed an order to send troopers t'o fetch 
 down all the Wamesit and Pakemit Indians ; 
 this was suddenly done, and, to be feared, in a 
 hurry of temptation. The reason of this sud- 
 den motion, as 1 was informed, was a report 
 brought to the Court that a haystack, belonging 
 to Lieut. James Richardson of Chelmsford, was 
 set on fire and burnt the day before. This fact 
 was charged upon some of the Indians of 
 
 *See Gookin, in American Antiquarian Society's 
 Collections, 2nd volume, pp. 455-402. See, also Hudson's 
 History of Marlborough. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 49 
 
 Wamesit ; but they were innocent, as was after- 
 wards cleared ; for some skulking Indians of 
 the enemy, that formerly lived near Groton, the 
 principal whereof was named Nathaniel, he and 
 his party did this and other mischief afterward, 
 in burning several houses at Chelmsford. And 
 one principal design of the enemy was to begin 
 a difference between the English and praying 
 Indians living at Wamesit, so that they might 
 either be secured by the English or necessitated 
 to fly to the enemy. This Nathaniel was after- 
 ward taken at Cochecho, and executed at 
 Boston, who confessed the same. Moreover, 
 Lieut. Richardson, whose hay was burnt, was a 
 person well beloved of those Indians at 
 Wamesit and their great friend, who did not 
 apprehend (as he told me) that any of the 
 Wamesit men had burnt his hay. But others 
 were of a contrary mind, willing to give credit 
 to any report against praying Indians, and ac- 
 cordingly, by their solicitations" to the General 
 Court, obtained an order for a troop of horse 
 (as I said before) to march up to Wamesit, and 
 bring down those Indians of Wamesit to 
 Boston. This matter might have been 
 accomplished as well by two men as forty 
 troopers ; for the Indians, upon the least mes- 
 sage by the Court, would readily have obeyed." 
 
50 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 "Upon the 20th of October, 1675, Mr. 
 Joseph Cook of Cambridge was sent down (by 
 Cornet Oakes, that commanded the troops,) unto 
 the Court to inform them that the Wamesit 
 Indians were upon the way coming down to 
 order, and that they might be there on the mor- 
 row ; withall he acquainted the Court that they 
 were in number about 'one hundred and forty-five 
 men, women and children, whereof about 
 thirty-three were men that were all unarmed ; 
 that many of them were naked, and several of 
 them decrepid with age, sundry infants, and all 
 wanted supplies of food, for they were fain to 
 leave most they had behind them, except some 
 small matters they carried upon their backs. 
 Upon this information, the Court took the 
 matter into more deliberate consideration, and 
 sent back Mr. Cook, with an order to return all 
 the women and children, and old men back to 
 their place, and to bring down only the able 
 men ; which order was put into execution." 
 
 The 15th of November, 167$, there befell 
 another great trial to the poor praying Indians 
 at Wamesit ; they lived very near to Lieut. 
 Thomas Henchman, about two miles from 
 Chelmsford, and were under the guard and care 
 of Lieut. Richardson, appointed thereunto by 
 the Council. The antecedents to this affliction 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 51 
 
 of the Indians was this. A barn belonging to 
 Richardson, being full of hay and corn, was set 
 on fire and consumed. This was done by some 
 skulking rogues of the enemy, that formerly 
 lived about Groton, as we afterward understood ; 
 but the English at Chelmsford imputed the fact 
 to the Wamesit Indians, as they had formerly 
 done by the same man's hay, and thereby 
 brought much trouble upon the poor Christians. 
 Upon this occasion, about fourteen armed men 
 from Chelmsford, pretending to scout and look 
 out for the enemy, but as I was informed, it was 
 moved among them and concluded, that they 
 would go to the wigwams of the Wamesit Indians, 
 their neighbors, and kill them all ; in pursuance 
 whereof they came to the wigwams, and called 
 to the poor Indians to come out of doors, which 
 most of them readily did, both men, women and 
 children, not in the least suspecting the English 
 would hurt them. But two of the English being 
 loaded with pistol-shot, being not far off, fired 
 upon them and wounded five women and child- 
 ren, and slew outright a lad of about twelve 
 years old, which child's mother was also one of 
 the wounded ; she was a widow, her name 
 Sarah, a woman of good report for religion. 
 She was daughter to a Sagamor, named Sagamor 
 John, who was a great friend to the English, 
 
52 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 who lived and died at the same place. Her two 
 husbands, both deceased, were principal Saga- 
 mores, one named John Tohatooner, and 
 the other Oonamog, both pious men, and rulers 
 of the praying Indians, one at Marlborough, the 
 other at Nashobah ; her last husband died 
 before the war, the first long before." 
 
 Lorgin and Robbins, the perpetrators of 
 these murders, "were seized and committed to 
 prison, and afterward tried for their lives, but 
 were cleared by the jury, to the great grief and 
 trouble generally of magistracy and ministry 
 and other wise and godly men. The jury pre- 
 tended want of clear evidence ; but some feared 
 it was rather a mist of temptation and prejudice 
 against these poor Indians that darkened their 
 way. This cruel murder and fight occasioned 
 most of these poor Christian Indians to fly away 
 from their wigwams not long after, but carried 
 little or nothing with them ; but for fear, rather 
 exposed themselves and families to the hardships 
 and sufferings of hunger and cold, than to be 
 under the harsh dealings of cruel men. But as 
 soon as the Council were informed that the 
 
 *When the Rev. Wilkes Allen wrote his History of 
 Chelmsford it Is said he incorporated therein an account 
 of these atrocities, but the town omitted that account, 
 
 deeming it discreditable to the town. Thus is history 
 warped for purposes of local pride. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 53 
 
 Indians were fled, they sent out orders to Lieut. 
 Henchman to send after them, and endeavour to" 
 persuade them to return ; but their fears so 
 prevailed that they refused to return." 
 
 "About the 5th of February, 1676, a petition 
 from the Wamesit Indians (living near Chelms- 
 ford) was presented to the Council by the hands 
 of Jerathmel Bowers (one of their guardians,) 
 the purport whereof was, to desire earnestly 
 that they might be moved from the place where 
 they were ; declaring they feared to stay, 
 because (in all probability) other Indians would 
 come and do mischief shortly, and it would be 
 imputed to them, and they should suffer for it. 
 The Council answered their petition, that they 
 would endeavor to remove them speedily. But 
 there was greater delay about it than was in- 
 tended, by reason of divers other momentous 
 occasions intervening. So that, within a few 
 days after, these poor Indians of Wamesit find- 
 ing themselves in great danger, being threat- 
 ened by some of their English neighbors), they 
 all ran away into the woods towards Pennakook ; 
 only they left behind six or seven aged persons, 
 blind and lame, which, not long after, were 
 destroyed by some cruel and wicked men, in a 
 secret manner, who set fire to the wigwam 
 where they kept, and burnt them all. The 
 
54 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 authors of this fact were not openly known, nor 
 so clearly witnessed thereof, as to proceed 
 against them by "authority ; but two persons 
 were suspected strongly to be the actors, one of 
 whom shortly after was slain at Sudbury ; the 
 other is yet alive, who, if guilty, which his own 
 conscience knows, the Lord give him repentance 
 for this so inhuman and barbarous fact, or else 
 undoutedly the just God will in due time avenge 
 this innocent blood. This fact, when heard of, 
 was deservedly abhorred by all sober persons. 
 Those poor Christian Indians of Wamesit escap- 
 ed clear away, and joined themselves with 
 Wannalancet, who had withdrawn himself in the 
 beginning of the war. They suffered much in 
 their peregrination (as we afterward understood,) 
 and sundry of them died by sickness, whereof 
 two were principal (and I hope pious) men ; the 
 one named Numphow, their chief ruler, and the 
 other Mystic George, a teacher of them ; besides 
 divers other men, women and children, through 
 famine and sickness lost their lives. The rest 
 of them, in August 1676, came in with Wan- 
 nalancet to Major Waldron, and the rest of the 
 committee at Cocheco, who were appointed to 
 treat and make peace with such as came in and 
 surrendered ; these Wamesit Indians, as well as 
 Wannalancet and his people, had not been in 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 55 
 
 hostility against the English, nor had done them 
 any wrong, only fled away for fear, and 
 for wrongs suffered from some English ; so 
 that there lay no just block in the way unto 
 their reconciliation, so they were accepted ; 
 and yet, afterward, when they were sent to 
 Boston, accusations came against some of them 
 by English captives escaped, that some of them 
 were in arms against the English, (how true 
 those charges were God only knows, for 'tis very 
 difficult, unless upon long knowledge, to dis- 
 tinguish Indians from one another,) however, 
 the testimony of the witnesses against them 
 was admitted, and some of them condemned to 
 death and executed, and others sent to islands 
 out of the country ; but some few were pardoned 
 and reconciled, whereof Wannalancet and six 
 or seven of his men were a part, and the Warn- 
 esit Indians, Sam Numphow (hardly escaped,) 
 Symon Betokam, Jonathan, George, a brother 
 to Sam Numphow, and a very few other men, 
 but several women and children, who now lived 
 among the rest." 
 
 As with the Nationalists during the late 
 Civil War, so with the Colonists during Phillip's 
 War, their necessities finally overcame their 
 prejudices. As the blacks of our time were 
 called in to save the Union, so were the reds of 
 
56 HISORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 the Colonial era called in to save the towns of 
 Middlesex from the allies of Phillip. It was not 
 however, until a body of the enemy lay strongly 
 entrenched within twenty miles of Lancaster, 
 Groton and Marlborough, and was making daily 
 incursions upon the different towns, that the 
 Council resolved to arm and send forth a com- 
 pany of the praying Indians from Deer Island, 
 under the conduct of Samuel Hunting and 
 James Richardson, the one made a captain, the 
 other his lieutenant for this service. " 
 
 "Upon the 21st of April, 1676, Captain 
 Hunting had drawn up and ready furnished his 
 company of forty men, at Charlestown. They 
 were ordered by the Council at first to march 
 up to Merrimack river near Chelmsford, and 
 there to settle a garrison near the great fishing- 
 places, where it was expected the enemy would 
 come at this season to get fish for their neces- 
 sary food ; and from this fort to keep their 
 scouts abroad daily, to seize the enemy ; and if 
 they should be overpowered by greater numbers, 
 their garrison and fort was for their retreat, until 
 assistance might be sent them." 
 
 *So soon as we condescended to improve our pray- 
 ing Indians in the war, from that day forward we always 
 prospered ; until God pleased to tear the rod in pieces, 
 partly by conquest, partly by tire, sickness and death. 
 Apostle Eliot's Journal. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 57 
 
 "From this time forward, our Christian 
 Indian soldiers were constantly employed in 
 all expeditions against the enemy, while the war 
 lasted ; and after the arrival of the ships from 
 England, which was in May, arms were bought 
 to furnish the rest of the able men ; and then 
 Capt. Hunting's company was made up to the 
 number of eighty men ; those did many signal 
 services in the summer of 1676. At Wesha- 
 kum, and at or near Mendon, at Mount Hope, 
 at Wachusett, and several other places, they 
 were made use of as scouts before the army, and 
 at such time when the army lay still and staid at 
 their quarters ; in which scoutings they took 
 several captives, and slew many of the enemy, 
 and brought their scalps to their commanders." 
 
 In the course of this War, John and Daniel 
 Hoare, members of the historic family of 
 Middlesex of that name, were so unfortunate as 
 to be imprisoned on divers charges of crime in 
 connection with the Indians. The following 
 are the prayers of a petition sent by them to the 
 Colonial authorities in September, 1676. 
 
 1. That all indictments that are presented 
 against the said Daniel Hoare, either jointly 
 with others or particularly respecting himself, by 
 the Grand Jury, we may have copies of and 
 testimonies that are sworn to in what may con- 
 cern our case. 
 
58 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 2. That we may have summonses from the 
 Secretary, for such witnesses as we may or shall 
 stand in need of for our justification in any 
 crime that is or may be charged against him to 
 the end the cause of both parties may legally 
 come before the Judges to the end true and 
 equal justice may be done betwixt our Sovereign 
 Lord the King and the prisoners respectively. 
 
 3. That all jurors that may be summoned 
 or impanneled on the petty jury may be such as 
 are allowed by the laws and statutes of the 
 realm of England — those in the respective 
 County and neighborhood where the fact 
 charged is pretended to have been committed. 
 
 4. That he may know what time he may 
 be called to answer that so we may summons 
 our witnesses accordingly — there being no time 
 specified in the mittimus. 
 
 5. That your prisoner may have liberty to 
 go and attend on the solemn worship of the Lord 
 our God in Boston, both on the Lord's Days and 
 lecture days, while the Lord gives opportunity. 
 
 The Hoar family has furnished the country 
 several lawyers of eminent ability — notably 
 Judge E. R. Hoar, Senator Hoar, their late 
 father, and the present editor of the American 
 Law Review. But this petition shows that legal 
 acumen was not wanting in this family two 
 
 *From manuscript notes of John Wlngate Thornton, 
 Esq., appended to Ins private copy of the narrative of his 
 ancestor, General Gookin, so often quoted in these pages. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 59 
 
 centuries ago. It is a curiousity in our judicial 
 history, all the more valuable because of the 
 unfortunate loss by fire of the records of the 
 Colonial Court of Assistants, before which 
 Hoar and his associates were brought to trial. 
 
 Daniel Hoare and three others were con- 
 victed "for murdering of a certain parcel of 
 Indians" and sentenced to death. This fact is 
 the more remarkable because the Hoar family 
 were friendly to the Indians 
 
 In connection with the rough manner in 
 which the Wamesit Indians were hurried 
 from their own homes to Boston, the still more 
 brutal incidents attending their return should 
 not be omitted. While they lay in prison at 
 Charlestown, thirty-three of them "were sent tor 
 before the General Court at Boston, and charged 
 with burning a stack of hay at Chelmsford, 
 belonging to James Richardson. ::: ' * But no 
 proof appeared, and it was afterward discovered 
 that they were all innocent, and that the enemy 
 did it. The issue of this examination and 
 charge was, that three of the company, viz. one 
 named Will Hawkins, a Narragansett Indian, 
 that used constantly to work about Salem, and 
 was now, since the war, retired to Wamesit, and 
 two others that were not praying Indians, nor 
 properly belonged to Wamesit, but retired thither 
 
60 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 since the war ; these three were condemned to 
 be sold for slaves, and sent out of the country, 
 and accordingly committed to prison in order to 
 their disposal out of the country ; afid afterward 
 were sent away. But all the rest, being thirty, 
 were to return back to Charlestown to continue 
 under restraint still. A vote passed in the 
 House of Deputies, as I heard, finding all the 
 Wamesit Indians guilty of burning the hay ; 
 but it was not consented to by the magistrates." 
 "The rest of the Wamesit Indians, being 
 about twenty in number, were sent back to their 
 wives and children at Wamesit. But as they 
 passed home, being under the guard of Lieu- 
 tenant James Richardson, and a file of soldiers," 
 Gookin relates that they marched through 
 Woburn while the train band of that place was 
 exercising. "Lieutenant Richardson and his 
 Indians, with their guard, made a halt and he 
 held out his handkerchief as a flag of truce, 
 whereupon the Captain and officers of the band 
 sent to Richardson, who showed them his com- 
 mission from the Council to conduct those Indi- 
 ans safely to their homes ; whereupon the 
 Captain and officers gave very strict charge to 
 all the soldiers not to shoot a gun until all the 
 Indians were past and clear, nor yet to give 
 any opprobious words. But notwithstanding 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 61 
 
 this strict prohibition, when the Indians were 
 passing by, a young fellow, a soldier named 
 Knight, discharged his musket and killed one 
 of the Indians stone dead, being very near him. 
 The person slain was a stout young man, very 
 nearly allied to the principal praying Indians 
 of Natick and Wamesit.*" 
 
 Since the War of 1676, the remnants of the 
 five confederacies of New England Indians have 
 generally professed Christianity — the Church of 
 Rome attracting those of Maine, while the rest 
 of them accepted, more or less heartily, the 
 Protestant faith. The Narragansetts, the Po- 
 kanokets, and the Pequots, had been substan- 
 tially harried out of existence ; while of the 
 Pawtuckets and the Massachusetts a mere 
 wreck remained. 
 
 In 1677, tne Indians in Massachusetts, 
 including the praying natives, were grouped by 
 the General Court in four villages of their own, 
 Natick, Stoughton, Grafton and Wamesit.f But 
 their lands were wanted by their white neighbors, 
 and they found no rest. One by one these 
 villages became extinct. Natick, which was the 
 earliest, was also the last, of the praying towns. 
 
 *See Gookin, in American Antiquarian Society's 
 Collections, 2nd volume, pp. 4G2-521. See, also, Cowley's 
 History of Lowell, and Shattuck's History of Concord. 
 
 fMassachusetts Colony Records, vol. 5, p. 136. 
 
62 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 John Dunton, who visited Natick in 1705, 
 has left vis a lively account of the village and of 
 the Indian King and Queen. On his arrival 
 there, he says, he "stept up and kissed the 
 Indian Queen, making two very low hows, 
 which she returned very civilly. The sachem 
 was very tall, and well limbed, but had no beard, 
 and a sort of a horse-face. The Queen was 
 well shaped and her features might pass pretty 
 well; she had eyes as black as jet, and teeth as 
 white as ivory; her hair was very black and long, 
 and she was considerably up in years ; her dress 
 peculiar, she had sleeves of moose-skin, very 
 finely dressed, and drawn with lines of various 
 colors, in Asiatic work, and her buskins were of 
 the same sort ; her mantle was of fine blue-cloth, 
 but very short, and tied about her shoulders 
 and at the middle with a zone, curiously wrought 
 with white and blue beads, into pretty figures ; 
 her bracelets and her necklace were of the same 
 sort of beads, and she had a little tablet upon 
 her breast, very finely decked with jewels and 
 precious stones ; her hair was combed back and 
 tied up with a border which was neatly worked, 
 with gold and silver. " 
 
 The Indian town government of Natick 
 outlived that of the church, but finally passed 
 
 ♦Life and Errors of John Dunton, p. 158. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 63 
 
 into the control of the white inhabitants. The 
 records of the town, originally kept in the Indian 
 language alone, were now kept in both English 
 and Indian, and the town offices were divided 
 between the two races, the whites taking the 
 lion's share, and "the reds the lamb's. Finally 
 the lamb's share, following the law of <( the 
 survival of the fittest," passed to the whites 
 with the lion's. The number of the tribe in 
 1749, was 166 ; in 1763, was 37 ; in 1797, was 
 20 ; and in 1826 the tribe was extinct. 
 
 Not only have all these towns of praying 
 Indians vanished into gloom, but five or six 
 generations of white men have affected to look 
 with pity upon the labors of Eliot and Gookin 
 as fated to be fruitless, however well meant. 
 Eliot and Gookin can bear all this, and more 
 than this ; they can bear it for two thousand 
 years, as they have already borne it for two 
 hundred years. 
 
 Shallow, self-complacent men may the- 
 orize as they please ; it will be found at last that 
 Eliot and Gookin were right, and that the 
 hopes which they indulged, of the capacity of 
 the Indians for civilization, were well founded, 
 and might have been realized, but for events 
 over which they and their Indian clients had no 
 control. 
 
64 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 Although great numbers of Indians have 
 perished by wars of dispossession and imported 
 diseases since the colonization of this Continent 
 by Europeans, and some tribes have become 
 extinct, two facts may now be regarded as set- 
 tled : first, that the number of Indians inhabit- 
 ing America at the time of Columbus has been 
 grossly exaggerated ; second, that in those 
 localities where the Indian occupation has been 
 permanent and free from the incursions of the 
 whites, the Indians have steadily increased in 
 numbers, and they have partially recovered from 
 their former immense losses. 
 
 The great Dakota tribe, for example, has 
 been steadily increasing ever since it first be- 
 came known. 
 
 Since this narrative was begun, the Bible 
 and Tract Distributing Society have published 
 an able Lecture by Stanley Pumphrey, of Eng- 
 land, on Indian Civilization, which demonstrates 
 the soundness of Eliot and Gookin's plans, 
 although neither they nor their plans are any- 
 where named therein. The greater part of 
 Mr. Pumphrey's lecture is devoted to a com- 
 parison from his personal examination between 
 the present condition of the tribes in the Indian 
 
 *On Indian Civilization, see Mallory's Calender of 
 the Dakota Nation. » 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 65 
 
 Territory — Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws, 
 Choctaws, etc. — with that at the time of their 
 inspection by Commissioners John D. Lang 
 and Samuel Taylor thirty-five years ago. The 
 result shows a most gratifying and surprising 
 advance. The array of facts and figures proves 
 that in agricultural wealth, good order in self- 
 government, education, and even religion, those 
 Indians who have been left for even a compara- 
 tively short period without being driven to 
 desperation by governmental injustice and white 
 incursions, can stand a favorable comparison 
 with our average frontier population. 
 
 The New York Nation ( No. 642 ) com- 
 mends this lecture as "one of the recent works 
 about our native American race which show 
 sense instead of sentiment, and observation of 
 facts instead of theorizing about the red man 
 being ferce natures and withering at contact with 
 the white." Referring to the increase in our 
 Indian population, the Nation adds : "This 
 truth, when appreciated by the people and Con- 
 gress, will do much to require a permanent 
 improvement in our Indian policy. While the 
 civilization of the race seemed hopeless and their 
 extinction imminent, their claims might be 
 slighted, but not when they certainly can be 
 made a considerable and useful part of the com- 
 
66 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 raunity. The plan hitherto has been a mere 
 temporary adjustment of pressing difficulties 
 for the supposed advantage of Government or 
 selfish greed of speculators ; now it must be the 
 preservation, reclamation, and final elevation to 
 citizenship of the race entrusted to our national 
 custody. If that race can furnish, with no 
 unreasonable delay, , a goodly number of tax- 
 paying citizens, it is obviously better than to 
 expend both citizens and treasure in wars 
 occasioned by unjust coercion, dishonoring our 
 character both for integrity and good judgment." 
 No one has yet attempted to trace the 
 many correspondences in the lives of the Rev. 
 John Eliot and the Rev. John Wesley. But in 
 their zeal for the salvation of men, and especially 
 of the Indians ; in their lives of unremitting 
 toil as preachers ; in their devotion to learning 
 and to literary labor ; in that genius which 
 makes man supreme above his accidents, and 
 enables him to project plans of usefulness and 
 beneficence which live for ages, — in these and 
 in many other things, Eliot and Wesley were 
 remarkably alike. The mild Calvinism of Eliot 
 could not have been offensive to the Arminian- 
 ism of Wesley who gave such a wealth of love 
 to Whitefield. It is a wonder the great Meth- 
 odist body have not claimed Eliot as an earlier 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 67 
 
 Methodist — as one born, like the apostle of old, 
 "out of due time." 
 
 The biographer of the immortal Wesley, 
 referring to his employment of lay preachers, 
 says : "The step he took was momentous ; and 
 marvelous is the fact that the very Church, 
 which so branded him for such a departure from 
 Church order, is now actually copying his 
 example." He thinks it a notable incident, that 
 in May, 1869, "Dr. Jackson, Bishop of London, 
 formally authorized eight laymen to read prayers, 
 and to read and explain the Holy Scriptures, 
 and to conduct religious services for the poor in 
 schools, and mission rooms, and in the open 
 air.*" Yet this was no more than Eliot had 
 done several generations before. 
 
 The catholicity of Eliot was exemplified in 
 the visit which he received from the Rev. Gabriel 
 Druillettes, the Roman Catholic missionary to 
 the Indians on the Kennebec River, of which 
 visit another Roman Catholic missionary gives 
 the following account : — 
 
 Dans ce voyage le Pere visita, a Roxbury, 
 le ministre Eliot, appele par les Anglais l'apotre 
 des sauvages. Ce ministre dut etre fort etonne 
 en voyant le missionnaire Jesuite, qui parlait 
 la langue sauvage aussi bien que les sauvages 
 
 *Tyermau's Life of Wesley, vol. 1, p. 371. 
 
68 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 eux-memes et dont "l'habit et l'equipage le 
 rapprochaient plus d'un sauvage que d'un 
 Francais de mediocre condition." Cependant 
 il le regut avec bienveillance; "Le Ministre," 
 ecrit le Pere, "nomme maitre Heliot, qui ensei- 
 gnait quelques sauvages, me retint chez lui, a 
 cause qua la nuit me surprenait, et me .traita 
 avec respect et affection, et me pria de passer 
 l'hiver avec lui." 
 
 II visita anssi quelques bourgades sauvages. 
 II put s'entretenir longuement avec ces sauvages 
 parcequ'ils parlaient la meme langue que les 
 Abenakis."* 
 
 How great was the joy of these saintly men, 
 on finding that the language of their copper- 
 colored converts, on the Merrimack, and on the 
 Kennebec, was one and the same. 
 
 When the Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury, a graduate 
 of the Theological Seminary at Andover, and 
 the first Indian missionary of the American 
 Board, began his labors among the Chickasaws 
 and Choctaws, on the Yazoo River, in 1818, he 
 remembered "the Apostle of the Indians," and 
 called the town Eliot. f 
 
 •Histolre des Abenakis, depuis 1G03 jusqu'anos jours. 
 Par L'Abbe J. A. Maurault. 
 
 tSee Bartlett's Historical Sketch of the Missions of 
 the American Board among the North American Indians. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 63 
 
 The generous General Gookin was severely 
 densured by the General Court for licensing the 
 "Imitation of Christ," of Thomas A'Kempis, of 
 which Joseph Cook, the exponent of modern 
 Orthodoxy, says : — "A sweet aroma breathes 
 from it as from the earliest and most modest of 
 the spring blossoms. A Romish work, if you 
 please, but none the worse for that, so far as its 
 devotional side is concerned. It it adopted 
 everywhere by Protestantism, and linked, there- 
 fore, to all ages, Romish and Protestant, back to 
 the day when there was neither Romanist nor 
 Protestant." This book was a favorite one of 
 John Wesley, and strongly recommended by 
 him to the Methodists. 
 
 In the early days of Middlesex, the affairs 
 of the County were managed with great pru- 
 dence and economy. There were checks upon 
 expenditures, which, had they been continued, 
 might have saved us from the losses and 
 disgraces incident to the County Tweedism of 
 more recent years. The regulations touching 
 these affairs are found in the fourth volume of 
 the Colony Records, (pages 184-186,) and 
 deserve perusal and reperusal. 
 
 In 1685, power for the probate of wills and 
 the settement of estates was conferred upon the 
 County Courts. This business, which had been 
 
•jo HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 very loosely done before, continued to be 
 transacted in a slip-shod manner until the 
 time of Sir Edmund Andross. Whatever errors 
 are chargeable to Governor Andross, we owe to 
 him the method of procedure which' has been 
 practiced ever since his time in the probate of 
 wills and in the granting of administrations. It 
 is a modification of the practice which obtained 
 at Doctors' Commons in England, with which 
 Andross was familiar. 
 
 In the general rehabilitation of damaged 
 reputations in our times, and when the dust has 
 been brushed away from so many famous urns, 
 I wonder that no advocate has yet moved to set 
 aside the verdict of the people against Sir Ed- 
 mund Andross. All the judgments of History 
 are subject to perpetual appeal. Sir Edmund 
 had the misfortune to be "born out of due time." 
 Like Daniel Webster on another occasion, he 
 spoke and acted, "not as a Massachusetts man, 
 or as a Northern man, but as an American," 
 struggling for an American Union : and under 
 his ill-starred administration, all the Colonies from 
 Nova Scotia to Maryland were united under one 
 government. This is not the place to white- 
 wash this long-departed and much-defamed 
 Governor. I only allude to him to foretell the 
 coming of one who will do for Andross what 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 71 
 
 Walpole did for Richard the Third, and what 
 Mr. Froude has done for Henry the Eighth. 
 
 The Courts of Common Pleas for this 
 County were held by the Deputy Governor and 
 Assistants until October, 1692, when a Court, 
 consisting of a Chief Justice and sundry Justices 
 of the Peace, was held for a single term, and its 
 first regular term after its organization under the 
 Province Charter seems to have been held De- 
 cember 1 3, 1692. For several terms however, 
 after that, for some reason, three or more Jus- 
 tices of the Peace sat with the regular Judges 
 when they held the court, though this custom 
 was soon discontinued. 
 
 The first County Court House in Cam- 
 bridge* was burned in 1671, with a volume of 
 the County Court Records — 1663-167 1. 
 
 The following roll of the Judges of the old 
 Middlesex Court of Common Pleas, with the 
 dates showing when they began, and when they 
 ceased, to serve, prior to the Revolution, was 
 prepared by Judge Washburn, formerly of 
 Lowell ; but I have taken the liberty to correct 
 various errors, and supply various omissions, 
 made by him, he not having the\)riginal records. f 
 
 ♦The present County Court House in East Cambridge 
 was erected in 181G. Prior to that time the County 
 buildings at Cambridge were located at Harvard Square. 
 
 ■(•Judicial History of Massachusetts, pp. 337-344. 
 
72 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 John Phillips, December 7, 1692, to 1715. 
 
 James Russell, December 7, 1692, to 1709. 
 
 Joseph Lynde, December 7, 1692, to 1719. 
 
 Samuel Haymau, December 7, 1692, to 1702. 
 
 Jonathan Tyng, July, 1702, to 1719. 
 
 Francis Foxcroft, June, 1709, to 1719. 
 
 Jonathan Remington, December, 1715, to 1733. 
 
 Jonathan Dowse, June, 1719, to 1741. 
 
 Charles Chambers, June, 1719, to 1739. 
 
 Francis Fulham, June, 1719, to 1755. 
 
 Thomas Greaves, 1733, to 1738, and from 1739 to 1747. 
 
 Francis Foxcroft, March 1737, to 1764. 
 
 Samuel Dauforth. July 1741, to Revolution. 
 
 Chambers Russell, August 1747, to 1752. 
 
 Andrew Boardman, April 1752, to 1769. 
 
 William Lawrence, June 1755, to 1763. 
 
 John Tyng, September 17(13, to Revolution. 
 
 Richard Foster, March 1764, to 1771. 
 
 Joseph Lee, May, 1769, to Revolution. 
 
 James Russell, May, 1771, to Revolution.* 
 
 Charlestovvn, in which the first Courts were 
 held in Middlesex, continued to be one of the 
 regular places for holding courts till 1775. 
 Regular terms of the Courts were held at Con- 
 cord, from 1692 to 1859, and at Groton from 1778 
 to 1796. Lowell, I may here add, became one 
 of the places for holding Courts in 1837. 
 
 ♦Whitmore says the last term of this Court was held 
 May 21, 1774. Mass. Civil List, p. S8. Washburn says, 
 Commissions were issued, on November 2, 1775, to John 
 Tyng, of Dunstable, Henry Gardner, of Stowe, Samuel P. 
 Savage, of Weston, and John Remington. The Post- 
 Revolutionary Judges of this Court will appear elsewhere 
 in this Manual. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 73 
 
 The military events which took place in 
 Middlesex during the War of the Revolution — 
 the expedition of Major Pitcairn to Concord and 
 the battle of Bunker Hill — belong to National 
 History rather than to County Annals ; and (like 
 the fight at Sudbury and the massacre at Bloody 
 Brook in Phillip's War), they have been told too 
 often to require rehearsal here. I prefer paths 
 less trodden by others — some of them, indeed, 
 never traversed before — away from the noise of 
 the bugles of battle, "the thunder of the cap- 
 tains, and the shouting." 
 
 The Revolutionary War was followed by 
 even greater stagnation in business than has 
 occurred since the Civil War. The States and 
 the Nation, municipal corporations and indi- 
 viduals, were groaning under the burden of debt. 
 Thousands of farmers, though owning extensive 
 farms, were destitute of money, and powerless 
 to save their farms from mortgages or from 
 seizure under process of law. These and other 
 evils were keenly felt by the people. The 
 Commonwealth was in commotion. 
 
 Middlesex County was profoundly stirred ; 
 still more were Worcester and the Western 
 Counties, which sprang from her prolific loins. 
 
 Conventions were held at Groton and at 
 Concord, as well as at Worcester and other 
 
74 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 towns ; and organized movements were made to 
 prevent the sitting of the courts, and thereby 
 delay the entry of judgments against im- 
 pecunious defendants. 
 
 How great was the distress, was partly 
 indicated by the fact that, whereas only 120 
 actions were entered at the November term of 
 the Court of Common Pleas in 1782, (which I 
 assume to have been about an average number,) 
 — no less than 360 actions were entered at the 
 March term of that Court in 1786. 
 
 At three terms of the Court of Common 
 Pleas, in 1784, there were entered 978 writs, 
 and in the following year, 845 writs. 
 
 On the 1 2th of September, 1786, during 
 Shay's Rebellion, an insurgent iorce of two 
 hundred men took possession of the court house 
 at Concord to prevent the sitting of the Court 
 of Common Pleas there, in which they succeeded. 
 
 But the General Court at once passed a 
 resolve providing that all actions and appeals 
 which should have been returned and 
 entered at that time, should be returned and 
 entered at the November term of the same 
 Court. So that the insurgents gained little by 
 thus obstructing the Court. 
 
 As other counties suffered more than Mid- 
 dlesex so in other counties the resistance to the 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 75 
 
 foreclosure laws was greater than in Middlesex : 
 yet there is not a town of old Middlesex but 
 might boast — 
 
 "Some village Hampden that with dauntless hreast 
 The little tyrant of his fields withstood." 
 It has long been the custom to treat the 
 
 "Shay's Rebellion" as a movement of knaves 
 and fools. This is a shallow view of it. There 
 was great and wide-spread distress. The natu- 
 ral reaction of the Revolution came with a force 
 a thousand-fold augmented by the burdens and 
 the evils which that Revolution involved. Those 
 who have suffered, or are now suffering, from 
 the results of our Civil War, will appreciate the 
 sentiments which found wild expression in 
 "Shay's Rebellion." If Shays, Wheeler, Par- 
 sons and Day, are to be stoned by any body, 
 they certainly ought not to be stoned by those 
 who passed the Savings Bank Stay Law of 
 1878, which is said to have been drawn by 
 Charles R. Train, Attorney General of the 
 State, and Counsel for the Home Savings Bank, 
 and which is facetiously entitled "An Act for 
 the better Protection of Depositors in Savings 
 Banks."* 
 
 It is the fashion of our times to complain 
 of the rule of "rings," — and there is cause for 
 
 *See chapter 73 of the Acts of 1878, and the criticisms 
 of the Nation and New York Tribune thereon. 
 
76 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 these complaints. But the evil is not of 
 modern origin. One has only to look over the 
 lists of office-holders prior to the Revolution to 
 see that the offices were generally in the hands 
 of a few families and that these families were 
 closely allied by marriages. The influence of 
 the pressure of this oligarchy, more offensive 
 than that of King or Parliament, in producing 
 the Revolution, has never yet been adequately 
 set forth. I may add that one of the most 
 clearly articulated causes of Shay's Rebellion 
 was the disgust of the people on realizing that 
 the Tory Gentry who bore rule before the 
 Revolution had merely given place to a money- 
 lending oligarchy that possessed none of the 
 grace, but ten-fold the rapacity, of the ancient 
 regime. 
 
 In the Constitutional Convention of 1788, 
 the votes of a majority of the Middlesex Dele- 
 gates — 17 to 25 — were given against the 
 adoption of the Federal Constitution. The 
 Delegates from the ancient towns of Cambridge, 
 Charlestown, Concord, Nenvton, Framingham, 
 Lexington, Sherborn, Sudbury, Maiden, Wes- 
 ton, Medford, Stow, Waltham, Dracut, Dunstable, 
 and Lincoln, voted for the Constitution ; while 
 Billerica, Chelmsford, Tewksbury, Watertown, 
 Woburn, Reading, Marlborough, Hopkinton, 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 77 
 
 Westford, Groton, Shirley, Pepperell, Townsend, 
 Bedford, Holliston, Acton, Carlisle, Wilmington, 
 Littleton, Ashby, Natick, Stoneham and East 
 Sudbury voted against it. 
 
 The vote of the whole Convention was 187 
 to 168, — only a majority of 19 in favor of the 
 Constitution, in Massachusetts. Had the Con- 
 stitution been submitted to a vote of the people 
 of Massachusetts, it is highly probable that 
 it would have been rejected. 
 
 Seldom has a greater result depended upon 
 so small a cause. The change of ten Delegates 
 from the Valley of the Merrimack would prob- 
 ably have defeated the adoption of the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States. Such a change 
 would clearly have placed Massachusetts against 
 that scheme of government ; and Madison, 
 looking anxiously out of his Virginia home, 
 wrote : "The decision of Massachusetts, in 
 either way, will decide the vote of this State." 
 
 Those views of State Rights and State 
 Sovereignty which culminated in our Civil War, 
 were as strenuously maintained by thousands of 
 the men of Middlesex and other Northern 
 Counties, in 1789, as in Charleston or any other 
 Southern City in 1861. 
 
 There is an ancient saying, "Happy are the 
 people whose annals are barren." The County 
 
yS HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 Annals of Middlesex, since Shay's Rebellion, 
 have been sufficiently dull, though lit up now 
 and then by the flames of a burning Convent 
 at Charlestown, or a burning Court House at 
 Concord. The changes in the County Courts 
 or in the County offices have not been great, 
 and these are stated elsewhere in this Manual. 
 The County has shared liberally in all the move- 
 ments of the State and the Nation in peace 
 and war ; but these movements are beyond the 
 scope of this sketch. Even the development of 
 canals, railroads and manufactures, in which Mid- 
 dlesex was among the foremost, belongs properly 
 to other narratives than this, and there has been 
 no lack of writers to record that development 
 with all desirable fullness of detail. 
 
 In 1792, the Proprietors of the Middlesex 
 Merrimack River Bridge were incorporated ; 
 they built the first bridge across the Merrimack 
 at Pawtucket Falls, where from time immemorial 
 there had been a toll ferry. 
 
 On June 22, 1793, the Proprietors of the 
 Middlesex Canal were incorporated ; they con- 
 structed a canal from the Merrimack, where 
 Lowell now stands, to what is now Boston. The 
 sum of $1,164,200 was assessed to pay for it.* 
 
 ♦See "Historical Sketch of the Middlesex Canal," 
 printed in 1843 by Caleb Eddy. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 79 
 
 In 1805, the Middlesex Turnpike Corpora- 
 tion was established, which opened a turnpike 
 road from Tyngsborough through Chelmsford, 
 Billerica and Bedford to Cambridge. 
 
 Some persons delight to recount the "first 
 things" that have taken place in their places of 
 abode. Were Middlesex people thus minded, 
 they might boast of the first printing-press in 
 the United States, the first college in America, 
 the first canal for the transportation of freight 
 and passengers, the first canal for water power, 
 the first battle of the Revolution, the first 
 American-made broadcloth, the first carding- 
 machine, the first power-loom, the first Protes- 
 tant mission, the first New England Convent, and 
 an almost endless catalogue of other first things. 
 With Middlesex County are identified the 
 inventive labors of Francis Cabot Lowell in 
 cotton machinery, of Morse in telegraphy, of 
 Goodyear in India rubber, of Howe in sewing 
 machinery, and other lesser lights in the fir- 
 mament of inventive genius, of whom it is not 
 too much to say that they are among the 
 greatest benefactors of the nation and of the 
 human race. 
 
 CHARLES COWLEY. 
 
FINANCIAL REFORMS 
 
 IN THE 
 
 COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 
 
 By the annexation of Charlestown and 
 Brighton to Boston in 1874, the County of 
 Middlesex lost a population of forty thousand 
 persons and a valuation of thirty-five million 
 dollars. Nevertheless, in 1874, the County 
 Commissioners called upon the General Court 
 for an appropriation of #225,000 — being $25,- 
 000 more than the appropriation of the 
 previous year — for County expenditures. There 
 being no apparent cause for this extraordinary 
 increase, the author of this article, being then 
 a member of the House of Representatives, 
 introduced the following order : — 
 
 Ordered, that a Special Committee be ap- 
 pointed, consisting of the present Committee 
 on "County Estimates," with an addition of one 
 
82 FINANCIAL REFORMS IN 
 
 member from each county, to investigate the 
 county appropriations asked for, and ascertain 
 whether a reduction can be made consistent 
 with public interest, and if any legislation is 
 necessary in county matters. 
 
 Of the twenty-one Representatives compos- 
 ing this Committee, eighteen reported favorably 
 to the appropriation asked for by the County 
 Commissioners - Mr. Charles Alden of Ashland 
 and the present writer made a minority report 
 reducing this appropriation $33,000. Convinced 
 that $192,000 was sufficient for all the legitimate 
 expenditures of Middlesex County, the House, 
 by an overwhelming vote, rejected the majority 
 report, and adopted that of the minority, In 
 the minority report, it was said, "while we do 
 not object to appropriating as much for criminal 
 costs this year as was used last year, we can see 
 no reason for appropriating a dollar, providing 
 the business of our courts is conducted as 
 economically and judiciously as those of other 
 counties. Our criminal business should be 
 remunerative instead of burdensome. 
 
 Suffolk County, with a population of 
 270,802 in 1870, yielded a revenue from this 
 scource in 1873 of $12,138.03. Worcester 
 County, with a population of 192,71s in 1870, 
 yielded a revenue in 1S73 of $5,174.97. Mid- 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 83 
 
 dlesex County, with a population of 274,353 in 
 1870, was at a loss in 1873 of $11,681.31." 
 
 At hearings before this committee Amos 
 Stone, the County Treasurer, stated that the 
 annual cost of all the criminial prosecutions in 
 this county exceeded the income therefrom by 
 about $30,000. Startling as the statement 
 seemed, it was true. Of the many thousand 
 dollars paid by sureties on forfeited recogniz- 
 ances, not a dollar had been paid into the county 
 treasury since 1S64. All the moneys collected 
 on forfeited recognizances in Middlesex for ten 
 years in succession had mysteriously disap- 
 peared : while Suffolk had yielded from this 
 source over eighty thousand dollars, during the 
 same period. Although this fact was elicited 
 in evidence at a hearing before a Legislative 
 Committee four years ago, nobody has been 
 hung, or put upon trial, for these embezzle- 
 ments. 
 
 For a long term of years the Middlesex 
 County Commissioners made no returns to the 
 Treasury for their services in locating roads for 
 towns or for costs on petitions for highways not 
 granted ; while in Worcester, the youngest of her 
 virtuous daughters, thousands of dollars were 
 returned, through her County Commissioners. 
 What became of these dues, imperative by the 
 
84 FINANCIAL REFORMS IN 
 
 law to collect, is unknown to me, nor could I 
 learn from the blind records of these commissi- 
 oners. Is it likely they were not collected ? Is 
 it not more likely they were collected and 
 divided? 
 
 It was found that the County Commission- 
 ers had paid George W. Young and others 
 $2,250 for "lobbying" the Legislature, chiefly in 
 opposition to the annexation of Charlestown — 
 an expenditure contrary alike to law and public 
 policy. 
 
 The railroads of our times have so nearly 
 superseded post-roads for general transportation, 
 the expenditures of the County for highways 
 might be expected to be diminished to almost 
 the vanishing point. In fact, however, these 
 expenses were augmented during the ten years 
 above mentioned as follows : — 
 
 1864, - $3,273-95 
 
 1865, - - - $2,835.65 
 
 1866, _ $5,153.22 
 
 1867, $7.485-44 
 
 1868, $6,797.42 
 
 1869, . $18,848.49 
 
 1870, --------- $24,936.64 
 
 1871, $21,552.12 
 
 1872, - - - $30,231.07 
 
 1873, --------- $37,739.07 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 85 
 
 From these amounts should properly be 
 deducted such sums as were legally collectable 
 from the localities specially benefited. After 
 making these deductions, the following sums 
 were taxed to the County for Highways : — 
 1864, ---------- $2; 707.00 
 
 1S65, --------- $2,476.54 
 
 1866, ---------- $4,015.00 
 
 1867, --------- $5,659.00 
 
 1 80S, ---------- $4,170.00 
 
 1869, --------- $17,223.75 
 
 1870, ---------- $12,371.85 
 
 1871, --------- $15,776.75 
 
 1872, ---------- $27,832.62 
 
 1873, --------- $31,660.71 
 
 1874, ---------- $31,622.39 
 
 1875, --------- $18,494.51 
 
 1876, ---------- $14,384.15 
 
 1877, --------- #8,640.69 
 
 The testimony of the County Treasurer 
 
 before the Committee was doubtless true, "that 
 these extraordinary expenditures were not for 
 new roads, but mostly for widening and beauti- 
 fying streets in villages in the lower part of the 
 county." These expenditures being under the 
 direct control of the County Commissioners, 
 they cannot escape the censure which is due 
 for having thus unjustly taxed the cities of 
 
86 FINANCIAL REFORMS IN 
 
 Cambridge, Charlestown, Lowell, and the 
 northern and western towns in the County, for 
 the comfort and convenience of villages in 
 Southern Middlesex. 
 
 The cost of Tyngsboro Bridge across 
 Merrimack River being considered, it was found 
 that the estimated cost was $35,000. Responsi- 
 ble contractors offered to build that bridge and 
 furnish good and satisfactory bonds for its 
 completion, for that sum ; nevertheless, for 
 some unexplained reason, the County Commis- 
 sioners completed that bridge, and taxed the 
 treasury over $92,000 for that "little job." 
 
 The General Statutes, chapter 43, section 
 2, provide, that "No petition for the laying out, 
 altering, or discontinuing, a highway, shall be 
 proceeded upon by the commissioners, until the 
 petitioners cause a sufficient recognizance to be 
 given to the county, with surety to the satisfac- 
 tion of the commissioners, for the payment of 
 all costs and expenses which shall arise by reason 
 of such petition and the proceedings thereon, if 
 the petitioners shall not finally prevail." 
 
 Whether any money from this scource was 
 paid into the county treasury in the long period 
 during which Mr. Leonard Huntress was the 
 controlling mind of the board, 1 know not ; but 
 during the period covered by the investigations 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 87 
 
 of this committee, not a dollar is reported from 
 this source. Yet Mr. Huntress himself testified 
 that "ten or a dozen" such cases occurred every 
 year. 
 
 It appears that in 1874, the year of the 
 investigation, a small sum ($83.70) was paid 
 into the treasury as required by this law. 
 According to Mr. Huntress's statements before 
 the Committee, there were then outstanding 
 claims in favor of the County from this scource. 
 
 In view of the apparent irregularities in 
 County affairs, the House appointed another 
 special committee for the prosecution of this 
 investigation, consisting of John Cummings, of 
 Woburn, S. O. Lamb, of Greenfield, Jonathan 
 Johnson, of Lowell, W. C. Parker, Jr., of New 
 Bedford, and Wm. G. Bassett, of East Hampton. 
 
 The report of this Committee 1 was made 
 to the General Court in 1875, and is House 
 Document No. 18 of that year. It should be 
 read by all who would understand how rank 
 were the abuses in County administration. 
 
 I do not charge, I have never charged, the 
 Sheriff, or the Treasurer, or the Clerk of the 
 Courts, with peculation, or with any irregularity 
 in their own accounts. But I cannot forbear 
 to censure the Sheriff for not scrutinizing more 
 closely the acts of some of his deputies and 
 the master of the House of Correction. 
 
8S FINANCIAL REFORMS IN 
 
 The County Commissioners for those years 
 of fraud and corruption, the Clerk of the 
 Courts, and the Sheriff, had every reason to 
 know that moneys were often being paid on 
 forfeited recognizances which never reached the 
 Treasury. With such delinquencies existing 
 before their eyes, they ought, as faithful public 
 servants, to have made some active and even 
 aggressive effort to correct these wrongs, and 
 secure to the County what belonged to it. 
 
 Mr. Kimball's pretence that the moneys 
 collected for forfeited recognizances were paid 
 into the treasury under another head, — "fines 
 and costs," — will not stand examination. Mr. 
 Stone is right, and he is wrong as to this. On 
 Mr. Stone's testimony, the blame belongs to the 
 District Attorneys — Isaac S. Morse and John 
 B. Goodrich — and also to Sheriff Kimball. 
 
 Thousands of dollars, which had accumu- 
 lated in the hands ol Trial Justices and Clerks 
 of Courts for unclaimed witness fees, were 
 paid into the County Treasury in consequence 
 of this investigation ; and moneys from this 
 scource are still coming in constantly, which, 
 but for that investigation, would never have 
 been accounted for. 
 
 Two years after these investigations were 
 made, Mr. Adams concocted and published in 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 89 
 
 the Boston Herald an excuse or explanation of 
 the discrepancies in the books of the House of 
 Correction, which the Herald* treated with 
 the small respect it deserved. He would have 
 us believe (as a friend of mine puts it,) "that 
 just before the Legislative Committee began 
 this investigation, his own vigilance was "quick- 
 ened" (like Mrs. Tilton's conscience) and he 
 began a thorough investigation of himself by 
 himself, and had pretty much concluded the 
 work when the Committee called upon him." 
 
 Since the probing of the management of 
 the Middlesex House of Correction in 1874, the 
 County Treasury has received about 130 per 
 cent, more from convict labor than the average 
 receipts of the ten preceding years ; and it is to 
 be noted that those ten preceding years were 
 years of extraordinary general prosperity, whic^Hp 
 ever since 1874 the county has groaned under 
 "hard times." 
 
 Mr. Stevens, the present District Attorney, 
 has effected several wholesome reforms in the 
 administration of his office. The successors of 
 Mr. Huntress have also shown good sense by a 
 marked departure from his works and ways, 
 and have evinced a disposition to follow the 
 footsteps of Josiah B. French and Daniel S. 
 *See Boston Herald, October 17, 21, and 20, 1877. 
 
90 FINANCIAL REFORMS IN 
 
 Richardson, who tolerated no abuses while they 
 were County Commissioners. But my complaint 
 is, that the system is wrong, and that similar 
 abuses may at any time revive. 
 
 One of the recommendations of this Com- 
 mittee was a law — which I hope to see enacted — 
 as follows : — 
 
 "In all cases in which there has been here- 
 tofore, or is hereafter, any failure on the part of 
 any trial justice, sheriff, deputy sheriff, jailer, 
 constable, or any other officer, to pay into the 
 county treasury any money which by law ought 
 to be paid, it shall be the duty of the connty 
 treasurer to take appropriate legal steps to 
 compel such payment ; and it shall be the duty 
 of the several district attorneys within their 
 districts, if applied to for this purpose, to take 
 charge of such legal proceedings as may be 
 appropriate." 
 
 Among the good points of this report, I 
 quote the following : — 
 
 "The accounts of the House of Correction, 
 at Cambridge, have been kept in an astonishingly 
 imperfect manner. The manufacture of brushes 
 has been carried on there, the help consisting of 
 the prisoners confined. The jail and house of 
 correction are two institutions in one. There has 
 been but one bank account for both, and that 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 91 
 
 kept in the name of Mr. Harrington, the keeper 
 of accounts. This account has been wholly a 
 private one, and his own personal relations with 
 the bank have been identical with those of the 
 institutions. If, when he made returns, and 
 paid over all moneys which, according to his 
 accounts, were due the treasurer, a balance 
 remained in the bank, it is plain Mr. Harrington 
 must have considered it as belonging to him. 
 So that, if any discrepancy occurred in the 
 returns, Mr. Harrington was enriched by the 
 amount of such discrepancy. From the books, 
 it is impossible to ascertain whether the manu- 
 facturing department has been run at a profit or 
 at a loss to the county." 
 
 The subject of convict labor in this and 
 other similar institutions in this State is to be 
 further investigated, under the following resolve : 
 
 "Resolved, That the Bureau of Statistics 
 of Labor is hereby authorized to make a full 
 investigation as to the kind and amount of work 
 performed at the penal institutions of this State, 
 and as to all the facts pertaining to the same." 
 {Approved April 6, 1 878. 
 
 In the days of our fathers, when inter-State 
 trade was carried on by post-roads, it may have 
 been a matter of public convenience to have a 
 board of County Commissioners to direct and 
 
92 FINANCIAL REFORMS IN 
 
 manage the County highways. But no such 
 board is now required. The interests of the 
 County demand that the Commissioners be 
 abolished. They are absolutely irresponsible 
 for their acts, upon which there is no check 
 whatever. There is no other body like them in 
 our republican system. They are petty Kings. 
 In a County like this with its large expenditures, 
 the people owe it to themselves that they should 
 at least provide the safeguard of an Auditor of 
 Accounts. I would suggest, in lieu of these 
 Commissioners, the establishment of a County 
 Committee consisting of (say) twelve men 
 chosen annually by a convention consisting of the ■ 
 mayors of all the cities and the chairmen of the 
 selectmen of all the towns in the County. This 
 would seem to render "ring rule" impossible and 
 secure a prudent management of our affairs. 
 
 I desire to record my hearty appreciation 
 of the manner in which County Treasurer Stone 
 aided this work of investigation, as well as of 
 his general high merit as a public officer. 
 
 JONATHAN JOHNSON. 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 COUNT! OP MIDDLESEX. 
 
 On October 20th, 1877, a convention was 
 held in Lowell, of citizens of Middlesex favor- 
 able to the reconstruction of the county lines. 
 Charles Cowley presided, an informal discus- 
 sion took place, and a committee was appointed 
 to take steps to agitate the subject, and to call 
 another and larger convention thereafter. The 
 following is the substance of the remarks of the 
 
 Chairman :— . 
 
 When this county was first established in 
 1643, it had no definite boundaries. Essex had 
 Norfolk on the North, and Suffolk on the South, 
 while Middlesex included all those towns 
 between Essex and the Connecticut River 
 Hampshire, which was established in 1662, and 
 
96 RECONSTRUCTION OF 
 
 which originally included Hampden, Franklin 
 and Berkshire, took from Middlesex by far the 
 greater part of her original territory. The sep 
 aration of the Colony of New Hampshire from 
 the Colony of Massachusetts, in 1680, took from 
 Middlesex the larger part of the territory which 
 remained to her upon the incorporation of 
 Hampshire. The adjustment of the boundary 
 line between these two colonies, in 1743, took 
 off another large slice of the " sacred 'soil." 
 Finally the incorporation of Worcester in 1731 
 cut off the greater part of all that then remained 
 of ancient Middlesex, after the successive 
 mutilations just mentioned. Should the project 
 to establish the County of Lincoln, which has 
 from time to time been urged ever since the 
 separation of Worcester, succeed, the limits of 
 Middlesex would be further curtailed ; and in be- 
 half of that project, there is much to be said.* 
 
 Old Middlesex has thus so often been mu- 
 tilated, that it is but a fragment of what it was ; 
 yet it seems to me eminently desirable that it 
 should be materially abridged still further. 
 What, for example, have Ashby, Holliston 
 Maiden and North Reading in common with 
 Lowell or with Newton, which they have not 
 
 at^* S w Shatt " tk ' s History of Concord, pp. 144-147- 
 Mass. House Document, No. 324, 1874. ' 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 97 
 
 with Worcester, Dedham, Salem and Lawrence? 
 Holliston's contiguity to Dedham plainly indi- 
 cates her true place as in Norfolk, if that- 
 County is to remain as it is. Maiden should go 
 to Boston for her judicial business, and North 
 Reading to Lawrence. Several other towns of 
 Middlesex would be benefited by a reconstruc- 
 tion of the county system. 
 
 If I had the power, I would make Boston 
 the county seat of a great Metropolitan County, 
 which should include all the municipalties as 
 far North as Woburn, as far West as Newton, 
 and other municipalities within the same dis- 
 tance from Boston ; and in Boston all their jury 
 trials should be held. 
 
 The completion of our system of railroads 
 involves the expediency, — nay, even the neces- 
 sity, — of such a reconstruction of county lines 
 as will group municipalities into counties with 
 special reference to their facilities for intercom- 
 munication by rail. 
 
 Such a reconstruction of Middlesex would 
 leave Lowell as the sole county seat.* The 
 Court House at East Cambridge would furnish 
 ample accommodations for the Superior Crim- 
 inal Courts of Suffolk ; and to Suffolk the other 
 
 *See Judge Ames' Letter, House Doc. No. 324, 1874. 
 
98 RECONSTRUCTION OF 
 
 County buildings in Cambridge should be trans- 
 ferred. Suffolk needs them all. 
 
 Were Lowell made the centre and sole 
 seat of our county life and business, no such 
 abuses as those brought to light in 1874 could 
 long exist undiscovered, or unchecked. Well 
 compacted together as the different parts of the 
 county would be, a sense of county pride would 
 be created. County affairs would be better 
 discussed and cared for. All county transac- 
 tions would be more certain to be known, re- 
 ported and understood, and the best security 
 would be obtained for prudence and economy in 
 county government. 
 
 Mr. A. P. Bonney, of this city, suggested, 
 many years ago, that the County Commissioners 
 be abolished ; that all County institutions in 
 the State be place under one Board ; and that 
 highways be laid out or discontinued by com- 
 misioners appointed by the Superior Court, upon 
 petition of parties interested, and at the expense 
 of the towns concerned. 
 
 That suggestion I think was a good one. 
 And I think there should be a County Auditor ; 
 the worthlessness of the present system of 
 auditing county bills being too palpable for 
 discussion. 
 
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 
 
 99 
 
 But I have no very sanguine hope for any 
 immediate reform. Much discussion will be 
 necessary, and the work will require time. 
 Now that the abnormal or revolutionary period of 
 our national political history has passed, atten- 
 tion will ere long be given to State and County 
 affairs, — too long sadly neglected. I trust the 
 effort here and now begun will lead to wider 
 and larger efforts hereafter, until such changes 
 shall have been effected in our county affairs 
 as shall enable us to recall with satisfaction 
 the initiatory work of this day. 
 
 Since the foregoing remarks were made, 
 two terms of the Supreme Court, and two terms 
 of the Superior (Criminal) Court, have been 
 held in Middlesex. The expenses incurred, by 
 parties residing in Northern Middlesex, in 
 divorce suits alone, in travelling day after day, 
 with counsel and witnesses, to and from Cam- 
 bridge, in December, 1877, must have exceeded 
 six hundred dollars. These are cases which 
 could and should be heard near where the parties 
 reside ; and the parties are the least able to 
 bear unnecessary expense. The April term of 
 the Supreme Court involved searcely less un- 
 
ioo RECONSTRUCTION OF 
 
 necessary expense ; although this term was 
 meant by law to have been held in Lowell 
 exclusively. 
 
 The deserted and abused wives who come 
 to Lowell to eke out a subsistence for them- 
 selves and their children by working in the 
 factories, deserve the sympathy of Courts as 
 well as of all right-feeling people, and their 
 path to freedom from the (to them) oppressive 
 bonds of matrimony ought to be made easier 
 rather than harder, in everv practicable way. 
 
 The oppression (I use that word advisedly) 
 endured by defendants residing in Northern 
 Middlesex, whose causes were heard at the 
 terms of the Superior Court above mentioned, 
 was even greater than that endured by parties 
 to causes of divorce at the above-mentioned 
 terms cf the Supreme Court. It is high time 
 these Courts were required to sit at Lowell for 
 the transaction of such business as belongs to 
 the people in that large region of which Lowell 
 is the natural centre. Transfer Cambridge to 
 Suffolk, and you can cure this evil by making 
 Lowell the sole shire town or city of the County. 
 
CIVIL LIST 
 
 OF THE 
 
 COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 
 
 The functions of Register of Deeds, 
 originally called "Recorder for Sales of Lands 
 and Mortgages," were originally combined with 
 those now performed by Registers of Probate, 
 and by the Clerks of the County Courts : and 
 to find the record of any particular fact 
 during the early years of the County, one may 
 now have to examine the books in these three 
 different offices. 
 
 According to Massachusetts Colony Rec- 
 ords,* Thomas Danforth, (afterwards Assistant 
 and Deputy Governor,) was appointed by the 
 General Court as Recorder for Sales of Lands 
 and Mortgages in Middlesex, May 26, 1652. 
 ♦Compare volume 3, p. 276, with volume 4, p. 90. 
 
104 CIVIL LIST OF THE 
 
 But the first certificate on the records reads, 
 "Recorded by me, Thomas Danforth ; Recorded 
 ye 20th of ye 6th mo. 165 1."* 
 
 REGISTERS OF DEEDS. 
 
 The following are the names of Mr. Dan- 
 forth's successors, with the dates of the first 
 certificates signed by them. 
 
 Lawrence Hammond July 27, 1686. 
 
 Samuel Phipps April 10, 1693. 
 
 Francis Foxcroft April 14, 1721. 
 
 John Foxcroft . March 22, 1766. 
 
 Ebenezer Bridge April 3, 1776. 
 
 Thadeus Mason March 31, 1781. 
 
 William Winthrop December 28, 1784. 
 
 Samuel Bartlett June 12, 1795. 
 
 William F. Stone September 13, 1821, 
 
 Caleb Hayden April 1, 1846. 
 
 Mr. Hayden died April 6, 1865, and was 
 succeeded by Charles B. Stevens, the present 
 incumbent. The records of this office now fill 
 1477 volumes. 
 
 In 1855, a special registry was established 
 for the city of Lowell and the towns of Northern 
 Middlesex. The Registers for this Northern 
 
 ♦Although the letter y was used as the equivalent of 
 th, the words in which it was so used were always pro- 
 nounced in the usual way. "Ye" was pronounced as 
 "the," "yra" as "them," etc. 
 
COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 105 
 
 District have been — ^A. B. Wright, 1855 ; Itha- 
 mar A. Beard, 1868, and Joseph P. Thompson, 
 1874. These records now fill 130 volumes. 
 
 JUDGES OF PROBATE. 
 
 James Russell, 
 
 appointed June 18, 
 
 1692.* 
 
 John Leverett, 
 
 it 
 
 October 23, 
 
 I702. ,r ' 
 
 Francis Foxcroft, 
 
 << 
 
 July 8, 
 
 1708.* 
 
 Jonathan Remington, " 
 
 September 30, 
 
 1725.* 
 
 Samuel Danforth, 
 
 n 
 
 December 20, 
 
 1745." 
 
 John Winthrop, 
 
 if 
 
 September 6, 
 
 1775. 
 
 Oliver Prescott, 
 
 it 
 
 
 1779. 
 
 James Prescott,f 
 
 It 
 
 February 7, 
 
 1805. 
 
 Samuel P. P. Fay, 
 
 it 
 
 May 9, 
 
 1821. 
 
 W. A. Richardson, 
 
 it 
 
 April 7, 
 
 1856. 
 
 The office of Judge of Probate was super- 
 seded, in 1858, by that of Judge of Probate and 
 Insolvency. William A. Richardson was ap- 
 pointed to the latter office July 1, 1858. He 
 resigned, and was succeeded by George M. 
 Brooks, the present incumbent, May (3, 1872. 
 
 *Theseflve dates are "old style." 
 
 See Volume 193, General Records, in the Registry 
 of Probate, pp. 1-5. 
 
 fHe was removed from office in 1821 by impeachment 
 for acts which, though proper to be prohibited by law in 
 a Judge of Probate, involved no moral turpitude. Pres- 
 cott was Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas 
 from June 3rd, 1805, until that Court was abolished 
 in 1811. 
 
io6 
 
 CIVIL LIST OF THE 
 
 REGISTERS OF PROBATE. 
 
 Samuel Phipps, appointed June 18, 1692. 
 
 Thomas Swan, 
 Nicholas Fessenden, 
 Daniel Foxcroft, 
 Thomas Foxcroft, 
 Francis Foxcroft,* 
 Samuel Danforth,f 
 Andrew Boardman, 
 Wm. Kneeland, 
 James Winthrop, 
 James Foster, 
 Isaac Fiske, 
 Alonzo V. Lynde, 
 Alfred A. Prescott, 
 
 October 23, 1702. 
 ' September 15, 1705. 
 ' December 28, 1709. 
 1 December 9, 171 5. 
 July 3, 1729. 
 July 9, 1 73 1. 
 December 20, 1745. 
 May 29, 1769 
 September 6, 1775. 
 May 26, 181 7. 
 October 29, 1817. 
 July 1, 1851. 
 March 10, 1853. 
 
 Joseph H. Tyler was elected Register of 
 Probate and Insolvency, November 10, 1858, 
 and reelected in 1863, 1868, and 1873, for 
 the term of five years. 
 
 ASSISTANT REGISTERS. 
 
 The office of Assistant Register of Probate 
 and Insolvency, created in 1858, has been filled 
 as follows : — By Isaac F. Jones from January 1, 
 1859, till his death July 13, 1873 ; by 
 Charles F. Brooks, from July 14, 1873, to Jan- 
 
 *Soq of the Judge of that name. 
 fAfterwards Judge of Probate. 
 
COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 107 
 
 uary 21, 1874; and from thence by Samuel H. 
 Folsom, the present incumbent. 
 
 SHERIFFS. 
 
 
 Timothy Phillips, 
 
 appointed May 27, 
 
 1692. 
 
 Samuel Gookin, 
 
 << 
 
 October 23, 
 
 1702. 
 
 Edmund Goffe, 
 
 << 
 
 December 9, 
 
 1715. 
 
 Samuel Gookin, 
 
 << 
 
 December 12, 
 
 1728. 
 
 Samuel Dummer, 
 
 << 
 
 September 27, 
 
 1729, 
 
 Richard Foster, 
 
 t< 
 
 July 9, 
 
 I73I- 
 
 Richard Foster, 
 
 «< 
 
 November 20, 
 
 1761. 
 
 David Phips, 
 
 <« 
 
 March 7, 
 
 1764. 
 
 Loammi Baldwin, 
 
 << 
 
 
 1780. 
 
 Joseph Hosmer, 
 
 i< 
 
 
 1794. 
 
 William Hildreth, 
 
 <t 
 
 
 1808. 
 
 Nathaniel Austin, 
 
 << 
 
 
 1813. 
 
 Benjamin F. Varnum, " 
 
 
 1831. 
 
 Samuel Chandler, 
 
 <« 
 
 
 1 841. 
 
 Fisher A. Hildreth, 
 
 11 
 
 
 1852. 
 
 John S. Keyes, 
 
 11 
 
 
 1854. 
 
 Charles Kimball, 
 
 11 
 
 
 i860. 
 
 COUNTY 
 
 TREASURERS, 
 
 
 Ebenezer Bridge, 
 
 appointed 
 
 1787. 
 
 John L. Tuttle, 
 
 " 
 
 
 1808. 
 
 John Keyes, 
 
 11 
 
 
 1 8 14. 
 
 Stedman Buttrick, 
 
 " 
 
 
 1838. 
 
 Amos Stone, 
 
 « 4 
 
 
 1855. 
 
108 CIVIL LIST OF THE 
 
 CLERKS OF COURTS. 
 
 Prior to 1790, Thadeus Mason held the 
 office of Clerk of the Courts of Common Pleas 
 and Quarter Sessions, together with the office 
 of Register of Deeds. But in that year, these 
 offices were wisely separated. Since then the 
 Clerks of Courts have been as follows : — 
 Abraham Biglow, ... - 1790 
 Elias Phinney, - 1832 
 
 Seth Ames, 1850 
 
 John O. A Griffin, - - - 1859 
 
 James Dana, - *859 
 
 Benjamin F. Ham, - i860 
 
 Theodore C. Hurd, - - - - 1871 
 
 In 1863, Marshall Preston, who had filled 
 the office of Assistant Clerk ever since it was 
 created, resigned, and John J. Sawyer succeed- 
 ed him. John L. Ambrose was added as Sec- 
 ond Assistant Clerk in 1874. 
 
 DISTRICT ATTORNEYS. 
 
 The office of prosecuting attorney is of 
 modern origin. Why a public defender was 
 not provided at the same time, it is dificult to 
 understand. The Law, it is said, favors the 
 accused ; and there would seem to be even 
 stronger reasons for the employment of a pub- 
 lic defender, than for the employment of an 
 
COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 109 
 
 official prosecutor. It was, (naturally enough,) 
 not without considerable opposition that the 
 latter office became a fixed part of our judicial 
 machinery. 
 
 On October 7th, 1807, Samuel Dana was 
 appointed Attorney for the State in Middlesex, 
 and he resigned October 14th, 181 1, to take the 
 place of Chief Justice of the Circuit Court of 
 Common Pleas, then ^newly established in lieu 
 of the old Court of Common Pleas. 
 
 The successors of Mr. Dana have been 
 as follows : — 
 
 Timothy Fuller, - - - 181 1. 
 
 Asahel Stearns, - - - - 18 13. 
 
 Asahel Huntington, - 1830. 
 
 Albert H. Nelson, - - - - 1845. 
 
 Charles R. Train,* - 1848. 
 
 Asa W. Farr, - - - - 185 1. 
 
 Charles R. Train,* - - - 1853. 
 
 IsaacS. Morse, - 1855. 
 
 John B. Goodrich, - 1872. 
 
 George Stevens, - 1874. 
 
 The Province ol Massachusetts had no 
 sooner become a State than a reorganization 
 took place in its judiciary. The Court of Com- 
 
 *Train was twice removed from this office : first by 
 Governor Boutwell ; and afterwards (having been reap- 
 pointed by Governor Washburn) by Governor Gardner. 
 
no CIVIL LIST OF THE 
 
 mon Pleas was deprived of its criminal juris- 
 diction in 1782, was reconstructed in 181 1, and 
 again in 1821 and finally superseded in 1859 by 
 the Superior Court. 
 
 The General Sessions of the Peace, of 
 which, from 1782 to 18 11, all the Justices of 
 the Peace in the County were members , exer- 
 cised the criminal jurisdiction previously be- 
 longing to the Common Pleas, as well as the 
 functions now performed by the County Com- 
 missioners. It was reconstructed in 181 1, when 
 Joseph P>. Varnum of Dracut became its Chief 
 Justice,* with four Associate Justices. Its 
 criminal jurisdiction was taken from it in 1821 ; 
 and in 1828 it was superseded by the County 
 Commissioners, which board, it is to be hoped, 
 is destined, at no distant day, to be abolished in 
 its turn. 
 
 *He was succeeded in 1819 by Joseph Locke, after 
 wards Judge of the Police Court of Lowell. 
 
ADVERTISEMENTS. 
 
 PRINTING! 
 
 Local Histories, Historical Sermons, Orations 
 and Addresses, Town Reports, Books and Pamphlets, 
 of all kinds, are printed by the 
 
 T^er^kllow rfiqtir^ Co, 
 12 MIDDLE ST., LOWELL, 
 
 In the best style and at moderate prices. Also, 
 Commercial and Financial Printing of every kind, 
 Lawyers' Briefs, Blanks, and Legal Documents of 
 every description. 
 
 CHARLES COWLEY, 
 COUNSELLOR AT LAW, 
 
 12 MIDDLE ST., LOWELL. 
 
1 1 8 AD VER TISEMENTS. 
 
 Including Pensions for all surviving sol- 
 diers of the War of 1812, or their Widows, 
 Pensions for soldiers disabled in the War of 
 the Rebellion, Pensions for the Widows of 
 Soldiers who died in the service, Bounties, 
 Additional Bounties, Arrears of Pay, Prize 
 Money, etc., etc., collected at the Army and 
 Navy Claims Agency, 
 
 NO, 12 MIDDLE STREET, 
 LOWELL, MA.SS. 
 
 THE LOWELL BOILER WORKS, 
 
 Which, for many years, were located on 
 Button Street, have been removed to Waldo 
 Street, on the Framingham Railroad, under 
 the management of the subscriber. 
 
 New and second-hand Boilers, Heaters, 
 Shells, Flues, Tubes, etc., built, bought, sold or 
 exchanged on liberal terms. 
 
 Address,— JOHN COWLEY, 
 ]S[o. ITS L^wreqce £ti'eet, Lowell, JVla^. 
 
AD VER TISEMENTS. 1 1 9 
 
 HISTORY Of MIDDLESEX COUNT!. 
 
 BY 
 
 §A5¥9UEL ADAMS DRAKE. 
 
 If a sufficient number of subscribers are obtained to 
 guarantee the publication without loss, we propose to 
 issue at an early day, A History of Middlesex County, 
 from the earliest times to the present day. It will con- 
 tain a general history of the county from the first set- 
 tlement, and will show the rise, growth, and progress of 
 its Religious, Educational, Agricultural and Manufactur- 
 ing interests ; its participation in the stirring scenes at 
 the outbreak of the Revolution, and its literary and 
 intellectual life. 
 
 The work will also .contain a carefully prepared epito- 
 me of the History of every Town in the County, 
 compiled from original sources by the best informed 
 persons, who have made an especial study of local history ; 
 the whole to be under the supervision of Mr. Drake. The 
 Town Histories will form au especially valuable feature 
 of the work. 
 
 The work will be published in two large royal octavo 
 volumes, of about 500 double column pages each. The 
 type will be clear long primer size. It will be printed on 
 fine tiuted paper at the celebrated University Press, of 
 Cambridge, and will contain many fine illustrations eu- 
 graved on wood and steel, and a full and carefully 
 prepared index. 
 
 Price, Cloth, Bevelled, £7.60 per volume. 
 Half Morocco, Marbled Edges, $10.00 per vol. 
 
 Estes& Lauriat, 301 Washington St. Boston. 
 
120 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 IN" PRESS. 
 
 "TWO MONTHS 
 
 IN 
 
 LOWELL JAIL 
 
 FOR 
 
 WANT OF BAIL." 
 
 BY NATHANIEL ALLEN. 
 
 Containing the Experiences of an Inno- 
 cent Man who was falsely accused of setting 
 Fire to the Elevator Building in Lowell, January 
 20th, 1878, and held to bail by Judge Crosby 
 upon the testimony of perjured witnesses : 
 with Sketches of the Jail, the Jailer, and the 
 Jail-Birds. 
 
 The Author is not content to tell the Story 
 of his own Wrongs merely, but he seeks the 
 Reformation of the entire Jail System. 
 
A D VER TISEMENTS. 1 2 1 
 
 ZION'S WATCHMAN 
 
 Is the title of a new evangelical undenomina- 
 tional monthly just started in Lowell by the 
 Rev. C. E. Preston. It is printed by the 
 Penhallow Printing Company in the usual 
 handsome style of that establishment. It is 
 long since Middlesex County could boast of a 
 religious journal, and Zion's Watchman promises 
 to be of historical as well as of religious interest. 
 Parish histories are to be one feature of it. 
 
 Office, 342 Middlesex St. Lowell. 
 
 Terms, 50 cents per annum. 
 
 BOILERS FOR SALE. 
 
 One new 4 feet, horizontal cylinder boiler 
 16 1-2 feet long, with 50 tubes ; one new 24 
 inch upright boiler, 5 feet long, with 24 tubes ; 
 one 30 inch, upright boiler, 7 feet long, with 35 
 new tubes ; one 24 inch boiler, 10 feet long, with 
 cast-iron heads ; one 30 inch fire box boiler, 8 
 feet long, with 26 tubes. 
 
 Also, two 7 feet boiler shells, one 25, the 
 other 17 feet long Also, one 30 inch heater, 8 
 feet long. Also, one large soap kettle, and 
 two jacket kettles. Also, one double screw 
 press, with 13 plates. Address John Cowley, 
 178 Lawrence Street, Lowell, Mass. 
 
122 ADVERTISEMENTS. 
 
 12 MIDDLE STREET, LOWELL, MASS. 
 
 Benjamin H. Penhallow, the founder of 
 this establishment, was born in Portsmouth, 
 and was the descendant in the fourth generation 
 from Samuel Penhallow who was born in Corn- 
 wall, England, in 1665, who immigrated to 
 Charlestown, Mass., in 1686 ; who afterwards set- 
 tled in Portsmouth, N. H.; who held the office 
 of Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Judi- 
 cature and other conspicuous public trusts, and 
 who died in 1726. In the same year in which 
 he died, his "History of the Wars of New Eng- 
 land with the Eastern Indians," was published. 
 It was republished in 1824, in the first volume 
 of the N. H. Historical Collections, with a 
 memoir of Judge Penhallow. 
 
 Several of the early years of Mr. Penhallow's 
 life were spent in the Sandwich Islands, and he 
 established the first printing office in that 
 Kingdom. In 1846, when thirty years old, he 
 founded the Penhallow Printing Establish- 
 ment in Lowell, which his skill and industry 
 raised to a high place among the Book and Job 
 Offices of New England. 
 
 *For the history and genealogy of the Penhallow 
 Family see X. E. Historical and Genealogical Register, 
 January 1878. pp. 21-35. 
 
NEW COUNTY PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Leaves from a Lawyer's Life Afloat 
 and Ashore. By Charles Cowley. [In press.] 
 
 Among the many matters touched upon, more or 
 less fully, in this book, are the Southern Blockade ; 
 Lord Nelson; Steamships; the Blockade-Runners; our 
 Blockading Fleets in general ; the South Atlantic 
 Blockading Squadron in particular ; Admiral Dupont ; 
 Admiral Dahlgren ; Operations under their commands 
 respectively ; — Battle of Port Royal ; Capture of the 
 Sea Islands ; Captain Small ; Battle of Sooessionville ; 
 General Stevens ; General Hawley ; General Pember- 
 ton ; Colonel Lamar ; Bombardment of Fort Pulaski ; 
 Capture of the Ram Atlanta; Commodore Ingraham's 
 attempt to raise the Blockade of Charleston ; — 
 General Vogdes; Occupation of Folly Island; Battle 
 between Dupont's Iron-Clads and the forts at Charles- 
 ton ; Storming of Fort Wagner ; General Strong ; 
 Bombardment of Fort Sumter ; Life in the Monitors ; 
 the Naval Pickets ; Legal Questions growing out of 
 the Blockade ; Attempt to capture Fort Johnson, 
 (which has not hitherto found a place in history.) 
 
124 NEW COUNTY PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 When the Army of General Sherman had "sung 
 the chorus from Atlanta to the Sea," the Fleet of 
 Admiral Dahlgren cooperated with him in various 
 movements. These are recorded in this book, as well 
 as the operations of the Fleet Brigade during the 
 Broad River Expedition; the Battles of Honey Hill 
 and Boyd's Neck ; the capture of Savannah, Charles- 
 ton, etc. Life in the Charleston Race-Course Prison 
 is described ; General Hardee ; Senator Wilson at the 
 graves of Calhoun and Hayne ; the Freedmen ; the 
 Southern People ; and many points are discussed 
 touching the Law of Naval Courts-Martial. 
 
 Equally interesting are the "Leaves" from the 
 author's life ashore, since the close of the War. He 
 discusses Points in the Law of Patents ; Marriage ; 
 Divorce; Divorce Bureaux, their Operators, aud their 
 Victims ; Alimony ; Libel and Privilege, and gives 
 various Notable Cases. 
 
 Some, perhaps, will find more interesting mat- 
 ter in his Notes of Foreign Travel, especially those 
 outside of the usual track of European tourists, in the 
 Valley of the Severn, etc. 
 
 History of Cambridge. By Lucius R. Paige. 
 An admirable history of the intended capital of 
 Massachusetts, excellently arranged, and written with 
 candor and impartiality. The sixteenth chapter con- 
 tains interesting information touching the County 
 Buildings in Cambridge. The Rev. Dr. Paige has 
 made excellent use of the County records, as well a 
 of the Colony and State records. The claim of 
 
NEW COUNTY PUBLICA TIONS. 125 
 
 Mayor Green, which is countenanced by Dr. Pai^e, 
 that Cambridge introduced into this State the system 
 of graded schools, in lieu of the district system, will 
 not stand the test of chronology. Judge Cowley 
 says, Lowell adopted this system, September 3rd, 
 1832. Dr. Paige says, Cambridge adopted it on 
 October 6, 1834. Compare Cowley's History of 
 Lowell, pp. 104-105, with Paige's History of Cam- 
 bridge, p. 377. 
 
 Lowell Historical Collections. [In Press.] 
 The Old .Residents' Historical Society have 
 published three numbers of their Collections. The 
 fourth number will complete a volume. It is much 
 to be wished that this Society, now so firmlj' estab- 
 lished, would enlarge the sphere of its usefulness, 
 and become a County Society ; or, at least, admit to 
 membership ladies and gentlemen of historical pur- 
 suits or tastes, without requiring residence for a 
 quarter of a century in Lowell. 
 
 History of Dunstable. By Rev. Elias 
 Nason. 
 This volume, which treats of the Massachusetts 
 Dunstable, is a worthy companion for Fox's History 
 of the New Hampshire town of the same name. The 
 author's various works have established for him a 
 bright reputation as a writer ; but at page 56, we ob- 
 serve, he has fallen into error. The tragic death of 
 Whitney, which he places "about'' 1734, occurred full 
 thirty years later, during the French and Indian War. 
 
1 26 NE W COUNTY PUBLIC A TIONS. 
 
 History of Billerica. By Rev. Henry A. 
 Hazen. [In Press.] 
 
 This book will be warmly welcomed by all who 
 are interested in that ancient town — the mother of 
 Tewksbury, ( whose history the book includes, ) and 
 grand-mother of Lowell. Will no one undertake a 
 similar labor of love for Chelmsford ? or for Dracut ? 
 
 Browne's Divorce and its Consequences- 
 Thoroughly Revised and greatly Enlarged 
 By Charles Cowley. 
 
 A lady, who is herself an excellent writer, says : 
 "Browne's Divorce has thrilled me while reading it, 
 with alternate emotions of exquisite pleasure and of 
 real pain. I once heard Mr. Cowley make what is 
 called the closing argument in a case where a man 
 was charged by a woman with an indelicate as- 
 sault Mr. Sweetser had made a powerful appeal for 
 the defendant, and had torn the character of the un- 
 fortunate plaintiff to tatters. It seemed a hard task 
 indeed to reply ; but Mr. Cowley proved more than 
 a match for his antagonist. He thoroughly dissected 
 the defendant in a manner which, merciless though it 
 was, was felt to be just. 
 
 Heaven spare me from such a dissecting knife. 
 It is no wonder that Browne gave up the ghost when 
 this extinguishing delineation of his domestic life 
 came before the world. The style is that of a master. 
 There are passages worthy of Gibbon; there are others 
 that resemble Macaulay ; and there are spurts of wild 
 rollicking fun, that make you roar as you read. 
 
NE W COUNTY PUBLIC A TIONS. 127 
 
 Withal, now and then, there are touches of tender- 
 ness that often compel tears. Is it possible that a 
 writer of such refined sensibility deliberately polluted 
 his bright, sparkling pages with a lascivious acrostic? 
 Or was the Cubas sonnet inserted merely to show 
 Browne's utter rotteness ? Or, lastly, did it slip into 
 the book without the author's discovering its half- 
 concealed impurity?* 
 
 It reminds me, however, of Van Laun's criti- 
 cism of Balzac : 'If we are shocked at times, it is by 
 the revelation of the truth, not by the wanton crea- 
 tion of the writer ; if we are disgusted, it is by our- 
 selves or by human nature !' 
 
 Had the weird and wonderful Balzac read Judge 
 Cowley's thrilling narrative, it would doubtless have 
 presented to his vivid imagination the same mournful 
 procession of ideas which, as he tells us, always filled 
 his mind at the word Adultery : — 'Tears, shame, 
 hatred, terror, secret crimes, bloody wars, families 
 without a head, were personified before me, and 
 started up suddenly as I read the sacramental word, 
 Adultery.' " 
 
 History of Lexington. By Charles Hudson. 
 
 "It is a town history ; written for the town ; 
 
 published by the town. It is the plea of the town ; 
 
 in behalf of the town, in matters in which the town 
 
 *It was even thus. As soon as the wantonness of this 
 sonnet was discovered, it was expunged. All the later 
 editions are free from it. 
 
128 NEW COUNTY PUBLICA TIONS. 
 
 is greatly concerned. What the town does not claim 
 in this volume, therefore, cannot reasonably be claim- 
 ed for the town hereafter." 
 
 So says Mr. Dawson, who pronounces it one of 
 the very best of town histories. With his usual pas- 
 sion for criticism, referring to the events of April 19, 
 1775, Mr. Dawson ironically commends the effort of 
 Mr. Hudson "to show that although his townsmen, 
 after their blustering show of resistance, actually ran 
 away, ingloriously, they did not do so without firing 
 a single shot — the necessity of all which is apparent, 
 since that could not be called a Battle in which all 
 the firing was done by one of the parties and all the 
 running by the other." 
 
 The same historical iconoclast declares that the 
 Patriots at Lexington were "very much such a party 
 as those with which the Chinese were wont to oppose 
 the progress of the allies, when they, too, assembled 
 by the way-side, sounded their horns, beat their gongs, 
 and — ran away." 
 
 Semi-Centennial Report of the Overseers 
 of the Poor of Lowell. 
 
 This valuable collection of historical, statistical 
 and legal matter in relation to the city farm, alms- 
 house, work-house, reform school, insane hospital, and 
 the care of the poor in Lowell, is the first report ever 
 issued by this board. The changes in the organiza- 
 tion of this important body and the names of all its 
 members, are included. Animal reports are now 
 issued. That for 1877 was prepared by Dr. Allen, 
 
NE IV CO UNT\ T PL 'BLICA TIONS. 1 29 
 
 whose long experience on the Board of State Charities 
 give weight to his suggestions. That for 1876 was 
 written by Judge Charles Cowley, who prepared this 
 semi-centennial report, and who also initiated the 
 salutary change in the organization of this board, 
 which was effected by the Revised Charter of Lowell, 
 and which has since been followed in other cities. 
 
 History of Marlborough. By Chas. Hudson. 
 
 The author's contributions to the history of his 
 native town, Marlborough, and his adopted town, 
 Lexington, as well as of the town of Hudson, which 
 honored itself no less than him by taking his name, 
 deserves the thanks of all who are interested in 
 local history. 
 
 Mr. Hudson devotes much, hut not too much 
 space to the history of the Indian town which Eliot 
 and Gookin established in Marlborough, and rather 
 extenuates the conduct of the white settlers towards 
 what the apostle Eliot called "the ruins of the red 
 men" who were their neighbors ; but we think the 
 best way for the historian is to relate facts just as 
 they occurred. History is not eulogy. The histo- 
 rian is a judge, and not an advocate. 
 
 As there never were any "Natick and Wamesit 
 tribes" Mr. Hudson's statement, (page 53) that "the 
 Indians at Marlborough were a branch" of those 
 tribes, requires correction. If he means that they 
 were a branch of the Pawtucket tribe, which ren- 
 dezvoused where Lowell now stands, we should like 
 to see the evidence of it. 
 
130 NEW COUNTY PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Memoir of Ephraim Heald. By Ephraim 
 
 Brown. [In Press.] 
 
 The career of Major Heald was as full of wild 
 adventure and of peril as that of Daniel Boone or 
 that of Colonel Crocket; and he was morally far 
 superior lo either of them All that was striking, 
 perilous, romantic, or heroic in Middlesex County life 
 in primitive times, is illustrated abundantly in him. 
 As scout, trapper, hunter and pioneer, he had more 
 varied and stranger experiences than any other fron- 
 tiersman whose life has been recorded. 
 
 The author is the Major's grandson ; and in his 
 own career as an inventor and otherwise, he has 
 displayed ingenuity equal to that which his grand- 
 sire exhibited in his contests with Indians, moose, 
 bears, and panthers. 
 
 The Wrong Lawyer Disbarred ; or Fraud 
 in the Courts Exposed. By Causidicus. 
 
 Ten years ago, John D. Howe was disbarred. 
 About the same time, Samuel J. Randall was also 
 disbarred. Heniy C. Hutchins's conduct in connec- 
 tion with the Browne Divorce has for some time 
 been under consideration by the Judges of the Sup- 
 reme Court. Thus far he has been spared ; but 
 John F. Dearington, whose ease was brought before 
 the Court "on the same day'* with that of Hutch- 
 ins, was disbarred; and this pamphlet states the 
 causes. The petition of George C. Browne, which 
 is here printed in full, is one of painful interest. 
 
NE W CO UNTY P UBLICA TIONS. 1 3 1 
 
 Causidicus argues that, "compared with the 
 mal-practices of Dearington, the offence of Hutch- 
 ins was as a mountain to a mole hill." But al- 
 though Middlesex County, especially Newton, was 
 formerly the theatre of the Browne family's pranks, the 
 Suffolk Bar Association, (if it has any higher pur- 
 pose than eating and drinking) would seem to be 
 the body that ought to move upon Mr. Hutchins's 
 works. Who is Causidicus? People who read the 
 Rev. B. F. Clark's pamphlets on the controversy 
 between George F. Farley, Asahel Huntington and 
 Samuel Parker, have surmized that Mr. Clark is 
 Causidicus ; but he is not. 
 
 Cyclopedia of Marriage and Divorce : 
 Combining Law, History, Poetry, and 
 Biography. By Charles Cowley. [In Press.] 
 
 Designed to embody the Elements of Law, the 
 Romance of History, the Gems of Biography, and 
 the Pearls of Poetry. In this Cyclopaedia as in 
 human life, Tragedy is interwoven with Comedy ; 
 blood and tears, with mirth and joy. 
 
 History of Lowell. By Charles Cowley. 
 Second Revised Edition. Illustrat 
 
 Town histories are of the most useful of literary 
 productions, though they seldom bring to their au- 
 thors much fame, or any emolument. Mr. Cowley's 
 labors are of an exceptional character, as his very 
 entertaining volume has proved an entire success, 
 and gained for him an enviable position among our 
 best known writers. This is in part due to the good 
 
1 32 NEW COUNTY PUBLIC A TIONS. 
 
 fortune that was his in having so fair a suhject upon 
 which to labor. Lowell has an unparalleled place in 
 the history of New England's larger communities. 
 The singularity of her origin, marking as it does 
 the opening of a novel and a mighty form of Ameri- 
 can industry : her rapid growth in numbers, wealth, 
 and reputation, so that her name quickly became 
 known to remote peoples, who knew hardly more of 
 America than that it contained Lowell ; the activity, 
 the intelligence, and boldness of her population, 
 embracing, as it does, almost every form of mental 
 and physical power, because conscripted from numer- 
 ous localities ; the political weight of her leading 
 men of all parties, and their daring action at im- 
 portant crisis ; the enlightened and practical patriot- 
 ism of her people during the late war ; — all these 
 things, and others that might be mentioned, combine 
 to make of Lowell one of the most interesting 
 subjects on which a man of good talents could wish 
 to concentrate his time and attention. 
 
 Such a man is Mr. Cowley, and it is the sim- 
 plest justice to say, that h'is history of the place of 
 his residence owes much of its unquestioned excel- 
 lence to his capacity to treat of public affairs in a 
 vigorous and vivacious manner. His style is clear 
 and strong. He has labored most industriously 
 and honestly to bring together, within reasonable 
 compass, every thing that can illumine the history 
 of the opulent and energetic community of which 
 he writes, and he places that history before his 
 readers in a very attractive manner. 
 
NEW COUNTY PUBLIC A TIONS. 133 
 
 Such .another collection of facts in illustration 
 of the origin, growth, and character of what is in 
 its way a model city, it would he impossible to find. 
 Not a fact of importance is omitted, and there is a 
 great deal told that will be of the first usefulness to 
 the historian of modern Massachusetts, if such an his- 
 torian she is ever to have. There is much that 
 relates to individuals, men of note, — as Kirk Boott, 
 Dr. Ayer, Gen. Butler, Mr. Warland, W. S. Bobin- 
 son, "Warrington," the Abbotts, George Well man, 
 Thomas Hopkinson, General Schouler, John P. 
 Bobinson, B. W. Ball, and others, and this sort of 
 reading is much liked. Lowell's part in the civil war, 
 which does her the utmost honor, is faithfully and min- 
 utely told. He can speak with decided effect on this 
 branch of his subject, as he served himself, and had 
 the honor of being wounded in one of those bitter 
 and bloody engagements which took place near 
 Charleston in the last year of the war, in which so 
 many good lives and so many useful limbs were 
 sacrificed to little purpose. — Hon. Charles C. Haze- 
 well, in the Boston Traveller. 
 
 The Case of Charles Cowley vs Charles 
 R. Train, William F. Slocum and Law- 
 rence McLaughlan. 
 
 This remarkable case has been printed for the 
 use of the Legislature, the Suffolk Bar Association 
 and the Supreme Judicial Court, in which it is now 
 pending. It is painful enough to read that the At- 
 torney-General of Louisiana has been indicted for 
 
134 NEW CO UNTY P UBLICA TIONS. 
 
 murder in his own Parish. It is more painful to 
 see the Attorney-General of Massachusetts accused 
 of the crimes which are here alleged against him 
 and William F. Slocum. Train was once District 
 Attorney for Middlesex. He has also represented 
 this County in the General Court and in Congress. 
 Slocum was once Trial Justice at Newton. He was 
 one of those magistrates who pocketed the moneys 
 paid to them for fines and forfeited recognizances 
 and whose "irregularities" were exposed hy the 
 Legislative Committee on County Frauds, 
 
 The public have an interest in it for the further 
 reason, that it is contended in behalf of Train 
 and Slocum, that, as the attorneys of the Rev # 
 Joseph B. Clark, they were privileged to suborn 
 Minon, Smith, McLaughlan and other witnesses 
 to commit perjury. 
 
 Famous Divorces of all Ages. By Charles 
 Cowley. 
 
 Divorces are morally, if not legally, the most 
 interesting branch of Criminal Jurisprudence. 
 
 '•The Annals of Criminal Jurisprudence," saj T s 
 Edmund Burke, "exhibit human nature in a variety 
 of positions, at once the most striking, interesting, 
 and affecting. They present tragedies of real life, 
 often heightened in their effect by the grossness of 
 the injustice, and the malignity of the prejudices, 
 which accompanied them. At the same time real 
 culprits, as original characters, stand forward on the 
 canvas of humanity as prominent objects for our 
 
NE W CO UNTY P UBLICA TIONS. i 
 
 53 
 
 special study. I have often wondered that the English 
 language contains no book like the Causes Cel- 
 ebres of the French, particularly as the openness of 
 our proceedings renders the records more certain and 
 accessible, while our public history and domestic con- 
 flicts have afforded so many splendid examples of the 
 unfortunate aud the guilty. Such a collection, drawn 
 from our own national sources, and varied by refer- 
 ences to cases of the continental nations, would 
 exhibit rnadi as he is in action and principle, and 
 not as he is usually drawn by poets and speculative 
 philosophers." 
 
 The Pilgrim Fathers. Oration delivered 
 before the City Council and Citizens of Low- 
 ell, December 22, 1876. By Hon. John 
 A Goodwin. 
 
 This oration contains many facts of Pilgrim history 
 which could not be found elsewhere, without referring to 
 perhaps a dozen authors, each differing more or less 
 from all the others ; and some facts that could be found 
 nowhere else. It is monumental to the author, and credit- 
 able to his associates in the City Council, at whose invi- 
 tation it was spoken. 
 
 Four historic visits were made to Plymouth, prior to 
 the coming of the Pilgrims, which Mr. Goodwin does not 
 mention. They were made as follows : — by Gosnold in 
 1602; by Pring in 1603; by Champlain in 1601; and by 
 Captain John Smith in 1614 
 
 History of Woburn. By Samuel Sewall. 
 
 The venerable author carefully narrates the history of 
 
 one of the most important towns in Middlesex County 
 
 from 1640 to 1860. The town of Burlington being an 
 
1 36 NE W COUNTY PUBLIC A TIONS. 
 
 off-shoot of Woburn, her history is included it that of her 
 municipal mother. Mr. Dawsou has noticed, in his His- 
 torical Magazine, that Edward Johnson, one of the 
 founders of this town, has been strangely confounded 
 with an illiterate carpenter who, also, is said to have 
 settled in "Woburn, about 1G37 ; as well as with a third 
 person of that name, a resident of another Colony, who 
 very probably wrote The Wonder-working Providence. 
 And he says, "There is no more reliable evidence of the 
 truth of this portion of the narrative than there is of the 
 truth of Sinbad the Sailor." 
 
 Indian and Pioneer Memories of the 
 Region of Lowell. By Charles Cowley. 
 
 The work is really the history of Lowell before Low- 
 ell was, and shows how much of interesting matter there 
 is to be told of that important section of country ere cot- 
 ton had been ginned at the South, or cottons manufac- 
 tured at the North. We are glad to see that Mr. Cowley 
 does justice to the Indians, a race vilely used by the 
 whites, who generally libel those whom they trample up- 
 on or destroy. Often rising to eloquence, just in its 
 opinions, and abounding with facts not easily to be ob- 
 tained, Mr. Cowley's pamphlet deserves high praise; and 
 we should think it might be usefully extended into a larger 
 and more elaborate work. — Boston Traveller. 
 
 Semi-Centennial Celebration in Lowell. 
 The pamphlet entitled, "Proceedings in the City of 
 Lowell at the Semi-Centennial Celebration of the Incor- 
 poration of the Town of Lowell, March 1, 1876," contains 
 materials of great value to the student of local history 
 and biography. It was one of the first of the series of 
 historic documents printed by the Penhallow Printing 
 Company under its present organization. That portion of 
 General Butler's oration (pages 37-41) in which he des- 
 
NEW COUNTY PUBLIC A TWNS. 137 
 
 cribes Lowell as he first saw it, from the summit of Chris- 
 tian Hill, in 1828, will be read with a keener interest hun- 
 dreds of years hence than it is now. It is as true to life 
 as is the outline of himself — << a slender boy of less than 
 ten years, with a foxskin cap c'osely drawn over his ears, 
 linsey-woolsey jacket tightly buttoned to his throat." 
 
 It is to be regretted that General Butler could not 
 spare the time for a careful revision of this oration. 
 Not a line of it was written with a pen ; but the words 
 were dictated to his type-writer as he paced his room, 
 when the beloved companion of his life was approaching 
 her end, and when he was never more burdened with pub- 
 lic and private labors and cares. It was his intention 
 that the fifth paragraph on page 37, should read thus : — 
 
 "To the left, a group of huts, part with mud walls 
 roofed with slabs, with here and there a small white 
 frame house near them, stood at a place called the 'Acre' 
 (which afterwards became the subject of an almost inter- 
 minable litigation) surrounding the spot where now the 
 magnificent edifice of the first Catholic Church rears its 
 illuminated cross for the adoration of its worshippers." 
 Maritime International Law. By John 
 
 A. Dahlgren, late Rear Admiral, U. S. 
 
 Navy. Edited by Charles Cowley, of the 
 
 Massachusetts Bar, formerly Judge- Advocate 
 
 on the Staff of the Author. 
 Tnese notes were left in an incomplete state, but they 
 have furnished the basis for a very excellent practical 
 treatise upon those parts of international law that naval 
 officers have to do with. The work of the editor, who 
 has given the treatise its finishing touches, is thoroughly 
 well done, aud we know no volume in which the topics 
 mentioned are more carefully considered. These topics 
 are : Law of Blockade ; Contraband of War ; Visitation 
 and Search ; Duties of Naval Commanders on Foreign 
 Stations. — Albany Law Journal. 
 
i sS NE W COUNTY PUBLIC A TIONS. 
 
 A Crosby Family. By Hon. Nathan Crosby. 
 An admirably monograph on an old Middlesex 
 County family of excellent repute. Another Lowell 
 gentleman, Mr James S. Russell, lias in preparation a 
 genealogy of the Russell and Potter families. 
 
 The Dialogues of Plato with Socrates 
 and Crito. Literally Translated by John 
 Curran-Keegan. [In Press.] 
 
 These two dialogues — one on Friendship, the other 
 on Citizenship — have borne a high reputation for two and 
 twenty centuries, and have been repeatedly translated by 
 "able hands." 
 
 Mr. Keegau is a grandson of the famous Irish orator, 
 John Philpot Curran, and graduated with honors at 
 Trinity College in his native city, (Dublin,) in the class 
 of 1877. He is now preparing for the Middlesex Bar, 
 where he will give a good account of himself. 
 
 The special merit of his translation of this classic is 
 that it is literal, and peculiarly adapted to beginners in 
 Greek. Lowell, which had the honor to publish the first 
 American edition of Goethe's Faust, is about to present 
 through the Penhallow Printing Company, the first 
 American translation of Plato's most famous work. 
 
 The Burning of the Convent. By Louisa 
 Whitney. 
 This is strictly a Middlesex County book, by a Mid- 
 dlesex County Lady. The same tleet which brought to 
 the British North American Colonies the Army of Count 
 Rochambeau to aid in the War of Independence, also 
 brought over a body of Irish Nuns, who had been educat- 
 ed in French Convents, to keep a boarding school for the 
 children of the more wealthy of the Colonists, the child- 
 ren of Protestants being preferred. These Nuns finally 
 established themselves iu a Convent on Mouut Benedict 
 
NE W COUNTY PUBLIC A TIONS. 1 39 
 
 in Charlestown. Ou the night of August 11th, 1834, that 
 Convent was destroyed by a mob, and the Author relates 
 how it was done. 
 
 The convent had stood fourteen years. In connection 
 wi'h Mrs. Whitney's sprightly narrative, one should not 
 fail to read Mr. Fronde's "Annals of an English Abbey," 
 in the third series of his Short Studies on Great Subjects. 
 Eulogy of Hon. Tappan Wkntworth. By 
 Nathan Crosby. 
 
 Judge Crosby's affectionate tribute to the memory ot 
 his friend is full in its details of his early life, but less so 
 touching the incidents of his later career. The notorious 
 ballot box frauds, by which William H. Loughlin was 
 foisted into the seat in the House of Representatives, 
 which unquestionably belonged to the subject of this 
 well merited eulogy, might well have been adverted to 
 by the learned Judge. But still, he may have been wise 
 in studying "the things that make for peace." 
 
 Mr. Wentworth was the legal adviser of Miss Rogers, 
 when she made that public-spirited offer to the city of 
 Lowell, of the gift of Fort Hill, which the short-sighted 
 city government of that day rejected. It is unquestion- 
 able, that the disgust excited in Mr. Wentworth's mind by 
 the blindness of that blundering body, found expression 
 in his will, in which Dartmouth College is magnificently 
 remembered, and Lowell is remembered to be forgotten. 
 
 It is to be hoped that, "in the sweet bye and bye," of 
 which Moody and Sankey so often sing, (if not sooner.) 
 Miss Rogers will renew her generous offer, and that the 
 city will promptly accept it. Fort Hill should be made a 
 Rogers Park, planted with noble trees, and laid out in 
 beautiful walks. Its summit should be crowned with a 
 bronze equestrian statue of General Butler as he appeared, 
 on the grandest night of his eventful life, when he took 
 possession of Federal Hill in Baltimore. 
 
140 NE W COUNTY PUBLIC A TIONS. 
 
 History of Groton. By Samuel A. Green. 
 Butler's History of Groton is so excellent a book, 
 that none but a very learned, or a very presumptuous 
 man, can be expected to add much to Butler's contribu- 
 tions, or to correct his many errors. Dr. Green has 
 given so many proofs of his unwearied industry, his ex- 
 haustive researches, and his sound judgment, in matters 
 of history, — notably, in his Centennial Oration at Groton, 
 — that we look for a rich treat from him in this work. 
 
 History of Concord. By Frederick Hudson. 
 
 It is devoutly to be wished, that this work may 
 shortly be published. It is true that Shattuck's History 
 of Concord (which included Bedford, Acton, Lincoln, 
 and Carlisle) is one of the very best local histories that 
 have come down to us from the last generation. But no 
 man like the late Mr. Hudson could travel the long path 
 of old Concord's history without finding many new facts, 
 and presenting many old facts in new and striking lights. 
 besides enriching bis pages with many admirable reflec- 
 tions and suggestions. 
 
 We are happy to learn that the work was in a state 
 nearly complete, when the terrible accident took place, by 
 which the author lost his life. 
 
 From 1G92 to 1859 Concord was a shire town of 
 Middlesex, and regular sittings of the courts were held 
 there. The first court house in Concord was built in 
 1719; the second was built in 1794 and burned in 1849; 
 the third, (now occupied by the Middlesex Mutual Fire 
 Insurance Company,) was built in 1851. 
 
 While the Courts were held at Concord, many memo- 
 rable trials took place there — such as that of Job Shat- 
 tuck, one of the leaders in Shay's Rebellion, in 1787; 
 that of the rioters who burned the Ursuline Convent at 
 Charlestown in 1835; that of the Phoenix Bank swindlers 
 in is 12; and that of Samuel Parker in 1818. The only 
 
NE W CO UNTYP UBLICA TIONS. 1 4 1 
 
 man ever put to death in Concord by sentence of the 
 law. was a burglar named Smith who was haiured. at 
 tbe commencement of the present century, by Sheriff 
 Hosmer. 
 
 Memoir of James C. Ayer. [In Press.] 
 
 The Phrenological Journal has lately published a 
 brief but excellent memoir of Nathan Allen, M. D., LL. D. 
 
 The forthcoming volume of Lowell Historical Collec- 
 tions will contain an autobiography of John O. Green, 
 M. D., President of the Old Residents' Association. 
 
 Dr. Ayer was never a practicing physician like Drs. 
 Allen and Green; but the immense fortune which he 
 accumulated, the world-wide business which his enter- 
 prize built up, the radical reforms which he, more than 
 any other man, effected, in the management of the great 
 manufacturing corporations of Lowell, and indeed of all 
 New England, and the prominence in which he stood 
 (though in a private station) before the community for 
 many years, — all call for the preparation and publication 
 of some record of his active and eventful career. The 
 malady from which he is now suffering, being probably 
 incurable, his. name no longer appears in its accustomed 
 place on the numerous manufacturing and banking corpo- 
 rations in which he was a large proprietor, ami he has 
 not been seen at any public assembly in Lowell since the 
 celebration of the semi-ceutenuial anniversary of its 
 incorporation, March 1, 1876. 
 
 Except that his uncle, Mayor Cook, gave him fatherly 
 counsel in the years of his boyhood after his own father 
 died, and excepting a little help from his father-in-law, 
 Senator Southwick, iu a critical period of his life, Dr. 
 Ayer is the sole architect of his own fortune. In his later 
 life, he has had able lieutenants, but they have been of his 
 own training. Moreover, he has had none of the 
 avenues opened to him, through which the common herd 
 
142 NEW COUNTY PUBLIC A TIONS. 
 
 of public men pass to distinction. The doors of Con- 
 gress, opened to hundreds of the most mediocre creatures 
 that ever brayed, were closed to him ; though he would 
 have won in the canvass of 1874, but for the discredit 
 Into which his party had fallen by its blind and blunder- 
 ing dealings with the South. 
 
 The salutary measures of legislation touching the 
 corporations, which were passed in consequence of the 
 agitations started by him, were passed without his per- 
 sonally entering the legislative halls. Lowell, which 
 year after year, for thirty jears, sent her annual quota of 
 hoodlums to the General Court, left the genius of Dr. 
 Ayer to create its own opportunities ; and as one of the 
 results of all this, his name is familiar in hundreds of 
 cities where Lowell is known only as the place where 
 Ayer's Almanac is printed, and Ayer's medicines prepared. 
 
 The Wrong Member of the Middlesex Bar 
 Convicted of Perjury. By Rev. B. F. 
 Clark. 
 This pamphlet, which first appeared in 1848, is about 
 to be republished with a commentary on the case. The 
 author gives pretty good reasons for the belief that the 
 late George F. Farley should have been convicted of per- 
 jury, instead of Samuel Parker, who, however, was finally 
 acquitted. Rufus Choate, Albert H. Nelson, Edward 
 Mellen, Asahel Huntington and Charles R. Train, all 
 figured prominently, (some of them not at all creditably.) 
 against Mr. Parker, and Franklin Dexter, John P. Robin- 
 son, Charles Allen, and Benjamin F. Butler for him. It 
 was one of the first cases in which Mr. Butler's genius 
 shone conspicuously. The conviction of Judge Prescott 
 <>n articles of impeachment, and the conviction of Mr. 
 Parker on the trumped up charge of perjury, were the 
 two greatest judicial outrages that have occurred in Mid- 
 dlesex since the hanging of the witches. 
 
NE IV COUNTY PUBLIC A TIONS. 143 
 Memoir of Joseph B. Varnum. 
 
 It is almost sixty years since Joseph Bradley Varnum, 
 by far the most conspicuous ligure in Northern Mid- 
 dlesex during the Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary 
 periods of our history, was buried "under arms," on the 
 banks of the Merrimack River. By the public at large, 
 he is well nigh forgotten ; by historical students, he is 
 known only as a member of either branch of Congress — 
 as Speaker of the House, and as President pro tern of the 
 Senate. But the effect ^of his impact on the polities 
 of Massachusetts was very gi*eat for more than thirty 
 years ; and in County affairs more particular^- he exercised 
 a controlling power. As a Legislator, as a General and 
 as a Judge, his life will well repa}- a perusal, and we 
 are happy to know that one of the most competent of his 
 numerous grandsons, now a citizen of Missouri, is en- 
 gaged upon this work. 
 
 Report of the Committee ox County Ex- 
 penditures. 
 
 This report, made three years ago, contains expo- 
 sures of corruption and long-coniinued, systematic 
 embezzlements, by numerous county officers, which are 
 perfectly astounding. We have had Trial Justices as 
 arrant knaves as the prisoners upon whom they i>a>sc<l 
 judgment. Some of our District Attorneys and Clerks of 
 Courts have been no better. This report was prepared 
 by "W. C. Parker, Jr., of New Bedford, and the friends of 
 "Retrenchment and Reform" can do no better than repub- 
 lish this report, with appropriate notes and comments. 
 Those officers who, while others were wallowing in corrup- 
 tion, kept their own feet in the straight and narrow path 
 of honor and probity, deserve the highest praise ; while 
 the "corruptionists" should be dealt with unsparingly. 
 In this respect, it is gratifying to know that the Police 
 Court of Lowell has been a pattern court. All moneys 
 
1 44 NE IV CO UNTY P UBLICA TIONS. 
 
 paid by defendants or their sureties for forfeited recog- 
 nizances in this Court, have actually reached the County 
 Treasury, and the Court is a source of income to the 
 public, instead of being the public burden which too 
 man}- similar tribunals are. 
 
 The Unwigged Judge : or Debauchery upon 
 the Bench. 
 
 A well known member of the Middlesex Bar is cred- 
 ited with having in preparation a story under this title, 
 founded on certain incidents in the life of a libertine who 
 was at one time Judge of the Police Court of Boston. 
 The book will doubtless relate the attempt to extort from 
 Vice- President Wilson the Consulate at Naples as "the 
 price of peace" touching certain old scandals about him. 
 This "operation'' is mentioned in a note to Cowley's 
 "Famous Divorces of All Age-.' 
 
 Other scenes there are, worthy of the pen of another 
 Hawthorne — particularly that where the judge sentences 
 to the House of Correction the frail CaVrie whom he has 
 himself debauched and ruined ; and that where, upon 
 an official visit to the Girls' Beform Schoolj the ermined 
 scoundrel meets, face to face, his own little cast-away, 
 foundling daughter. 
 
 Life of Brigham Young. 
 
 The late President of the Church of Jesus Christ of 
 Latter Day Saints was unquestionably the most extra- 
 ordinary man ever born in Middlesex County. Another 
 son of old Middlesex now purposes to publish his Life. 
 Some delay, however, is inevitable, on account of getting 
 many facts required to make the book complete; especi- 
 ally those relating to his missionary labors in his native 
 county nearly forty years ago. Another missionary. 
 Elder Cummings, afterwards organized a branch of the 
 Mormon Church in Lowell.