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 Copy 2 
 
 An 9ltltireSfi in Recognition of 
 Six CatletS erected to do Honor to 
 
 Governor HENRY VANE 
 Mistress ANNE HUTCHINSON 
 Governor JOHN LEVERETT 
 Governor SIMON BRADSTREET 
 Mistress ANNE BRADSTREET 
 Governor JOHN ENDECOTT 
 
 Given in The First Church in Boston on 
 Forefathers' Day, December Twenty-first 
 Nineteen Hundred and Four 
 
1 
 
An 9ltltlttS!Si in Recognition of 
 Six Cablets erected to do Honor to 
 
 Governor HENRY VANE 
 Mistress ANNE HUTCHINSON 
 Governor JOHN LEVERETT 
 Governor SIMON BRADSTREET 
 Mistress ANNE BRADSTREET 
 Governor JOHN ENDECOTT 
 
 Given in The First Church in Boston on 
 Forefathers' Day, December Twenty-first 
 Nineteen Hundred and Four 
 By James Eells, Minister to the Church 
 

 GEO. H. ELLIS CO., PRINTERS, 272 CONGRESS ST., BOSTON. 
 
» 
 
 IN the year 1669 there was printed " New 
 England's Memorial," by Nathaniel Morton, 
 Secretary to the Colony of New Plymouth. From 
 that ancient book 1 quote the following : — 
 
 "In the year 1630 it pleased God of his rich 
 grace to Transport into the Bay of the Massachu- 
 setts divers honorable Personages, and many 
 worthy Christians, whereby the Lord began in a 
 manifest manner and way to make known the 
 great thoughts which he had of Planting the Gos- 
 pel in this remote and barbarous Wilderness, and 
 honoring his own Way of Institutional Worship, 
 causing such and so many to adhere thereto, and 
 fall upon the practice thereof Amongst the rest, 
 
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a chief one amongst them was that Patern of 
 Piety and Justice, Mr. John Winthrop, the first 
 Governour of that Jurisdiction, accompanied with 
 divers other precious Sons of Zion, which might 
 be compared to the most fine gold. Amongst 
 whom I might also name that Reverend and 
 Worthy man, Mr. John Wilson, eminent for Love 
 and Zeal ; he likewise came over this year, and 
 bare a great share of the difficulties of these new 
 beginnings with great cheerfulness and alacrity of 
 spirit. . . . But it pleased God to exercise them 
 with much sickness, and being destitute of housing 
 and shelter and lying up and down in Booths, 
 some of them languished and died ; yea, it pleased 
 God to take away amongst the rest, that blessed 
 Servant of Christ, Mr. Isaac Johnson with his 
 Lady, soon after their arrival, with sundry other 
 Precious Saints. This sickness being heavy upon 
 them, caused the principal of them to propose to 
 the rest to set apart a day to seek the Lord for 
 
 4 
 
the aswauging of his displeasure therein, as also 
 for direction and guidance in the solemn enterprise 
 of entering into Church-fellowship ; which solemn 
 day was observed by all. . . . The first that began 
 the work of the Lord above mentioned, were their 
 honored Governour, Mr. John Winthrop, Mr. 
 Johnson afore-named ; that much-honored gentle- 
 man Mr. Thomas Dudley, and Mr. John Wilson, 
 aforesaid. These four were the first that began 
 the honorable Church of Boston, unto whom 
 were joined many others." 
 
 These four men first signed the Covenant 
 under which this church was gathered on July 
 30, 1630. The Covenant is inscribed upon yon- 
 der window, and is as follows : — 
 
 " In the name of our Lord Jesus Christy and in 
 obedience to his holy will and divine ordinance^ — 
 
 " We, whose names are hereunder written, 
 being by His most wise and good providence 
 
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brought together into this part of America, in the 
 Bay of Massachusetts ; and desirous to unite our- 
 selves into one Congregation or church under 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, our head, in such sort as 
 becometh all those whom he hath redeemed and 
 sacrificed to himself, — do hereby solemnly and 
 religiously (as in his most holy presence) promise 
 and bind ourselves to walk in all our ways ac- 
 cording to the rule of the gospel, and in all 
 sincere conformity to his holy ordinances, and in 
 mutual love and respect each to other, so near 
 as God shall give us grace." 
 
 Underneath it are four tablets erected to the 
 memory of these *' Founders of this Church," the 
 first of which reads : — 
 
JOHN WINTHROP 
 
 FOR MANY YEARS GOVERNOR 
 
 OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY 
 
 THE CHARTER OF WHICH HE BROUGHT OVER 
 
 IN 1630 
 
 A PURITAN LEADER 
 
 MODERATE AND MAGNANIMOUS 
 
 WHO MADE RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF HIS DAILY LIFE 
 
 AND SPENT HIS STRENGH AND SUBSTANCE 
 
 IN THE CAUSE OF NEW ENGLAND 
 
 BORN 1587 DIED 1649 
 
JOHN WILSON 
 
 BORN 1588 DIED 1667 
 THE FIRST PASTOR OF THIS CHURCH 
 
 HE FULFILLED 
 
 A MINISTRY OF THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS 
 
 A MAN OF MODEST MIEN 
 
 OF STERN CONVICTIONS 
 
 A DEVOTED FRIEND 
 
 WHOSE SIMPLE PIETY AND AMIABLE SPIRIT 
 
 GREATLY ENDEARED HIM TO 
 
 THE PEOPLE OF HIS PARISH. 
 
 "a sea OF GLASS MINGLED WITH FIRE.'* 
 
It is good for the community that the names 
 of these honored and sturdy citizens should be 
 set forth in enduring fashion. It is good for us 
 of this church to worship ever in their august and 
 silent presence, — 
 
 " Lest we forget, lest we forget." 
 
 On either side of these four are ranged three 
 other tablets, and in every instance these memo- 
 rials have been erected through the generosity 
 and filial interest of descendants from those 
 whose names appear. 
 
 The first tablet bears this inscription : — 
 
 II 
 
THOMAS DUDLEY 
 
 FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS 
 
 GOVERNOR OR DEPUTY GOVERNOR 
 
 OF THE 
 
 massachusetts bay colony 
 
 as governor he signed 
 
 the charter of harvard college 
 
 born in england i576 
 
 died in roxbury 1653 
 
 "a man of approved wisdom 
 and of much good service 
 to the state." 
 
ISAAC JOHNSON 
 
 A MAN OF FIDELITY AND PROMISE 
 
 WHOSE EARLY DEATH IN 163O 
 
 FOLLOWING HARD UPON THAT OF HIS WIFE 
 
 THE LADY ARBELLA 
 sister to 
 The Earl of Lincoln 
 cast deep gloom upon the colony 
 
 "this GENTLEMAN WAS A PRIME MAN 
 AMONGST US, HAVING THE BEST ESTATE 
 OF ANY, ZEALOUS FOR RELIGION, AND THE 
 GREATEST FURTHERER OF THIS PLANTATION. 
 
SIR HENRY VANE 
 
 THE YOUNGER 
 
 KNT OF RABY CASTLE 
 
 IN THE COUNTY OF DURHAM ENGLAND 
 
 SOMETIME MEMBER OF THIS CHURCH 
 
 BORN 1613 
 
 BEHEADED ON TOWER HILL JUNE I4 1662 
 
 HE CAME TO THIS COLONY 
 
 AND WAS CHOSEN GOVERNOR IN 1636 
 
 UPON HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1 63 7 
 
 HE BECAME CONSPICUOUS IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE 
 
 A MEMBER OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 
 
 ASSOCIATED WITH CROMWELL, PYM, HAMPDEN 
 
 HE WAS A FOE TO EVERY TYRANNY 
 A LIFELONG CHAMPION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 
 
 "young in YEARS, BUT IN SAGE COUNSEL OLD." 
 
 THIS TABLET IS ERECTED IN HIS HONOUR BY 
 
 THE RT.-HON. HENRY DE VERE VANE 
 
 LORD BARNARD OF RABY CASTLE 1 9O4 
 
When Henry Vane reached this colony, he 
 was but twenty-four years of age. His coming 
 was greeted with enthusiasm. At once he en- 
 tered heart and soul into the affairs of the com- 
 monwealth, and at the first election after his 
 arrival he was chosen governor. His adminis- 
 tration was a stormy one, for it was mainly 
 occupied with the controversy over Mistress 
 Anne Hutchinson's heresies. His mystic tem- 
 perament and liking for theology urged him 
 deep into that strife, and allied his sympathies 
 with the unfortunate lady who soon after was to 
 be banished from the colony. His greater work 
 and longer life were spent in England ; and 
 Fiske writes of him, " It is pleasant to remember 
 that the man who did so much to overthrow the 
 tyranny of Strafford, who brought the military 
 strength of Scotland to the aid of the hard- 
 pressed Parliament, who administered the navy 
 with which Blake won his astonishing victories, 
 
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who dared even withstand Cromwell at the 
 height of his power when his measures became 
 too violent, — it is pleasant to remember that this 
 admirable man was once the chief magistrate of 
 an American Commonwealth." His career in 
 the home land was the enlarging of his efforts 
 here, — the establishing of an imperishable free- 
 dom, dear alike to English and American 
 hearts. It is surely fitting and significant that 
 this tablet should be set here by Lord Barnard, 
 who inherits the castle to which Henry Vane was 
 assigned when he was made a knight of the Eng- 
 lish realm. It is in line with that growing ex- 
 pression of kinship and sympathy between 
 England and America, which is the most 
 natural and beautiful and fateful of all inter- 
 national movements of the present day. From 
 the castle yonder comes to the church here this 
 noble gift, at once a token of cordial interest 
 and the expression of greater things. 
 
 H 
 
I have said that during Vane's administration 
 occurred the lamentable trial and banishment of 
 Anne Hutchinson. The tablet bearing her name 
 reads thus : — 
 
 THIS TABLET IS PLACED HERE 
 IN HONOR OF 
 
 ANNE HUTCHINSON 
 
 BORN IN LINCOLNSHIRE ENGLAND ABOUT I592 
 RECEIVED INTO THE MEMBERSHIP 
 
 OF THIS CHURCH 1634 
 
 BANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 BY DECREE OF COURT 1 637 
 
 KILLED BY THE INDIANS AT PELHAM, N.Y. 1 643 
 
 A " BREEDER OF HERESIES*' 
 
 " OF READY WIT AND BOLD SPIRIT " 
 
 SHE WAS A PERSUASIVE ADVOCATE OF THE 
 
 RIGHT OF INDEPENDENT JUDGMENT. 
 
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For the strife of which this lady was the storm- 
 centre we have small understanding and scarcely 
 the vocabulary to-day. It was, in effect, a pro- 
 test against the prevalent orthodoxy in matters 
 of faith, — a debate which ranged the little com- 
 munity and the church into two bitter-voiced 
 sides. Vane and Cotton were her advocates ; 
 Wilson, Dudley, her opponents. She was a 
 gentlewoman of mental ability and great sym- 
 pathy. She attended her neighbors in their sick- 
 nesses, and eased many a pain-wracked body, 
 and tenderly cared for the little children in the 
 severe conditions into which they were born. 
 Her friends were many, and her influence wide 
 in consequence. But, when it came to such a 
 pass that soldiers would not go out to fight the 
 Indians unless they were led by officers and chap- 
 lain who adopted Mistress Hutchinson's theo- 
 logical views, the matter became of politically 
 vital importance, and she was summoned before 
 
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the Court. The Court banished her as danger- 
 ous to the community, and the record of our 
 church bears this entry: "The 22d of the ist 
 Month 1638. Anne, the wife of our brother 
 William Hutchinson, having on the 15th of this 
 month been openly, in the public congregation, 
 admonished of sundry errors held by her, was on 
 the same 2 2d day cast out of the church for 
 impenitently persisting in a manifest lie, then ex- 
 pressed by her in open congregation." And so 
 she was banished and excommunicated. She went 
 to Rhode Island, and later settled on some land 
 which is near what is now Stamford, Connecticut, 
 where she was cruelly massacred by the Indians. 
 Whatever may have been her " sundry errors " of 
 thinking and precept, I am proud to have upon the 
 walls of this church which cast her out this lasting 
 monument to her spotless, helpful, and sincere life. 
 It is a tribute to personal qualities which are always 
 so much greater than theological opinions. 
 
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Another tablet bears this inscription : — 
 
 SIR JOHN LEVERETT 
 1616-1679 
 
 ARRIVED AT BOSTON 
 
 SEPTEMBER 4, I 633 
 
 JOINED THE FIRST CHURCH 
 
 JULY 14, 1639 
 
 CAPTAIN IN Cromwell's service 1656 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL OF THE 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY 
 
 1663-1673 
 
 GOVERNOR OF THE 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY 
 
 FROM 1673-1678 
 
 KNIGHTED BY KING CHARLES II 
 
 AUGUST 1676 
 
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As a boy, he lived in Old Boston, England. 
 He was baptized by John Cotton in St. Botolph's 
 Church. His father was one who defeated many 
 designs to molest Mr. Cotton for non-conformity ; 
 and, when Cotton came to this new land, the 
 Leveretts came with him. John Leverett, the 
 soldier, saw much fighting against the Indians. 
 John Leverett, the trusted commissioner of the 
 colony, was sent to the settlements of Maine to 
 declare them to be under the jurisdiction of 
 Massachusetts, and was one of four persons se- 
 lected by the General Court to keep the First 
 Charter safe and secret during the troublous politi- 
 cal times. John Leverett, the governor, was he 
 who withstood the insolent Edmund Randolph face 
 to face, — answered insolence for insolence, as the 
 only language Randolph could be made to under- 
 stand, — and by sturdy dignity and the power of a 
 righteous cause, both in America and in England, 
 accomplished much good service to the State. 
 
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Side by side are two tablets to Simon Brad- 
 street and his " dear wife " Anne. 
 
 SIMON BRADSTREET 
 
 ONE OF THE HISTORIC FOUNDERS OF THE 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY 
 
 "the NESTOR OF NEW ENGLANd" 
 
 GOVERNOR OF THE COLONY 1679 tO 1686 
 
 AND ON THE DOWNFALL OF ANDROS 
 
 AGAIN 1689-1692 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED COLONIES 
 
 1653 AND AGAIN 1663 AND 1664 
 
 HE HELD MANY OFFICES OF 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY AND TRUST 
 
 AND WAS THE SEVENTH TO SIGN THE 
 
 COVENANT OF THIS CHURCH. 
 
 BORN AT HORBLING ENGLAND 
 
 MARCH 1603 
 
 DIED AT SALEM MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 MARCH 27 1697. 
 
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Bradstreet was the last survivor of that little 
 group which had founded the colony. Six months 
 after Leverett, the grand old soldier of the Com- 
 monwealth died, Bradstreet was chosen to fill his 
 place. At that time he was seventy-six years old, 
 and held in peculiar reverence. Although a 
 strict Puritan in faith and decidedly opposed to 
 all " heresy and schism," he was imbued with a 
 spirit of gentle charity and was guided by a some- 
 what better religious influence than marked his 
 associates. When Anne Hutchinson was ar- 
 raigned, Mr. Bradstreet was all for persuasion and 
 not for force. He frequently took grounds in 
 favor of freedom of speech, and often voted, in 
 opposition to the magistrates, against the im- 
 posing of fines upon offenders who " spoke words 
 in contempt of government." When the witch- 
 craft delusion played such havoc with the sanity 
 of men's opinions, he preserved a human heart 
 and a steady temper. A chronicler of that epi- 
 
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demic mentions, " the few men of understanding, 
 judgment and piety, inferior to few if any in 
 New England, that do utterly condemn the pro- 
 ceedings, and do freely deliver their judgment 
 that these methods will utterly ruin and undo 
 poor New England " ; and among the first of 
 these few men mentioned he sets the name of 
 Simon Bradstreet. He lived out a long career 
 as judge, legislator, governor, ambassador, and 
 royal councillor, dying at last in great honor at 
 the age of ninety-four, — the white-haired and 
 wise-tongued Nestor of the Puritan common- 
 wealth. On his tomb in the ancient burial-place 
 in Salem were cut these words : " He was a man 
 of deep discernment, whom neither wealth nor 
 honor could allure from duty. He poised with 
 equal balance the authority of the king and the 
 liberty of the people. Sincere in religion and 
 pure in his life, he overcame and left the world." 
 
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ANNE BRADSTREET 
 
 1612-1672 
 
 FAITHFUL DAUGHTER OF 
 
 GOVERNOR THOMAS DUDLEY 
 
 DEVOTED WIFE TO 
 
 GOVERNOR SIMON BRADSTREET 
 
 ANCESTRESS OF MANY ILLUSTRIOUS AMERICANS 
 
 '* MIRROR OF HER AGE ; GLORY OF HER SEX.' 
 
 JOHN NORTON 
 
 GENTLEWOMAN, SCHOLAR, PUBLICIST, 
 
 POET 
 WITH HER AMERICAN POESY BEGINS. 
 
 "joined TO THE CHURCH IN BOSTON 
 
 1630. 
 
The most of her girlhood was probably spent in 
 the castle of the Earl of Lincoln, as her father 
 was steward of those estates. And, when at the 
 early age of sixteen she married Bradstreet, it was 
 the beginning of that pathetic process by which 
 many a tender woman's life was lifted from the 
 genial soil of England and thrust into the harsher 
 surroundings of the New World. Her history is 
 one of many a suffering, many a privation, — ac- 
 centuated by the scant privileges, the crude, 
 shaggy forms of society in the colony. Her 
 poetic temperament, which is always sensitive, 
 and her innate sympathy with the classic beauty 
 and rich associations of English life, received 
 many a shock. But she had no complaints to 
 make in public, no burdens to add to those which 
 her fellows were so bravely carrying. One must 
 read between the lines to find the plaintive 
 moments of her life. In an autobiographic 
 sketch she wrote : " After a short time I changed 
 
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my condition and was married, and came into 
 this country, where I found a new world and 
 new manners, at which my heart rose. But, after 
 I was convinced it was the way of God, I sub- 
 mitted to it, and joined to the church at Boston." 
 She is known in literature as the author of a 
 book of poems entitled " The Tenth Muse 
 lately sprung up in America," — a book which 
 was printed in London a year after the exe- 
 cution of Charles I. ; a book stilted in phrase, 
 exaggerated in expression, but, while guilty of 
 all the literary faults of the period, was never- 
 theless full of the spirit and words of genuine 
 poetry. In this way, I think, she found relaxa- 
 tion from her daily cares, and threw around her 
 an horizon wider far than the restrictions and 
 cramping demands of family and household. If 
 it be true, as Mr. Lowell declares, that " poetry 
 frequents and keeps habitable those upper cham- 
 bers of the mind that open toward the sun*s ris- 
 
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Yet his very firmness and integrity won the con- 
 fidence of his contemporaries, as the many 
 elections to the highest office within their giving 
 witness. " He was a faithful sentinel upon the 
 watch-towers of his country's interests, ever 
 jealous of her rights, ever zealous for her welfare. 
 He fulfilled all the trusts committed to his care 
 with an honesty of purpose and a fidelity that 
 knew no fear, having for his reward the approval 
 of his own strict conscience in a life well and 
 usefully spent." The point of view for the proper 
 estimating of any character must always be, not 
 whether the person meets requirements as you or 
 I see them, but whether he meets requirements as 
 he sees them. Judged thus. Governor Endecott 
 will not be found wanting ; for he followed the dic- 
 tate of his own conscience, whatsoever it might 
 cost him, whithersoever it might lead him. 
 The early years of his life in the colony were 
 spent in Salem; but shortly before he was elected 
 
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governor he came to Boston to live, and became 
 identified with this church. 
 
 It is not the simple standing in history of these 
 men which we admire from a safe distance, not 
 merely the memory of a past, however inspiring, 
 but the presence of a sense of duty, the presence 
 of God, the everlasting presence of the ideal in 
 the lives of men. We may deprecate the Puri- 
 tan's rigid interpretation of righteousness, but 
 that righteousness was the strong, red blood that 
 flowed in his brains. We stand aghast at his 
 grim notions of what pure and undefiled religion 
 should be ; but that religion was his life, and 
 we have not yet striven unto blood, and he had. 
 His was a time when God's clock marked an 
 advance for the sons of men. And when their 
 little ships dropped anchor along this coast, it was 
 the signal that God was about to speak, in words 
 made flesh, some other truth which hitherto men 
 had not been able to bear. No spirit less intense, 
 
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they " obtained a good report through faith, they 
 did not receive the promise, God having pro- 
 vided some better thing for us, that they without 
 us should not be made perfect." 
 
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