E
 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 MAY TREAT MORRISON 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 ALEXANDER F MORRISON
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 junbrtfr aixtr Jfifiietjj 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PERMANENT 
 
 AN HISTOKICAL ADDEESS 
 
 CHAKLES FKAKCIS ADAMS, JR. 
 
 JULY 4TN, 1874. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 WRIGHT & POTTER, STATE PRINTERS, 
 79 MILK STREET (CORNER OF FEDERAL). 
 
 1874.
 
 r \ 
 H 4 8 W 5 
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 FULL in sight of the spot where we are now gathered, 
 almost at the foot of King-Oak Hill, stands that portion of 
 the ancient town of Weymouth, known from time immemo- 
 rial as the village of Old Spain. When or why it was first 
 so called is wholly unknown, scarcely a tradition even 
 remains to suggest to us an origin of the name. None the 
 less Old Spain well deserved a portion at least of that familiar 
 t* title, for, next to the town of Plymouth, it is the oldest set- 
 is, tlement in Massachusetts. And when we speak of the oldest 
 g settlements in Massachusetts, we speak of communities which 
 may fairly lay claim to a very respectable degree of antiquity : 
 not of the greatest, it is true, for all antiquity is relative, 
 5 and that of America scarcely deserves the name by the side 
 jj of what England has to show ; but what is the antiquity of 
 5 England compared with that of Rome? and Rome, again, 
 s seems young and crude when we speak of Greece ; while even 
 ^ those who fought upon the ringing plains of windy Troy are 
 ', but as prattling children in presence of the hoary age of the 
 * Pharaohs. The settlement of Old Spain and of Weymouth is, 
 u. therefore, ancient only as things American are ancient; but 
 ^ still two hundred and fifty years of time carry us back to events 
 g and men which seem sufficiently remote. When the first Euro- 
 pean made his home in Old Spain, when the earliest rude 
 hut was framed on yonder north shore of Phillips Creek, 
 the modern world in which we live was just assuming shape. 
 Few now realize how little of that which makes up the vast 
 accumulated store of human possessions which we have inher- 
 ited from our fathers which to us is as the air we breathe, 
 had then existence . The Reformation was then young, Luther 
 and Calvin and Erasmus were men of yesterday ; the life-and- 
 
 433019
 
 death struggle with Catholicism still tortured eastern Europe. 
 The thirty years war in Germany was just commenced, and 
 the youthful Gustavus Adolphus had yet to win his spurs. 
 The blood of St. Bartholomew was but half a century old, 
 and the murder of Henry IV. was as near to the men of 1622 
 as is that of Abraham Lincoln to us. The great Cardinal- 
 Duke was then organizing modern France ; Charles I. had 
 not yet ascended the English throne ; Hampden was a young 
 country gentleman, and Oliver Cromwell an unpretending 
 English squire. While men still believed that the sun moved 
 round the earth, Galileo and Kepler were gradually ascertain- 
 ing those laws which guide the planets in their paths ; Bacon 
 was meditating his philosophy; Don Quixbte was a newly 
 published work, with a local reputation ; and Milton, not yet 
 a Cambridge pensioner, was making his first essays at verse. 
 Shakespeare had died but six years before, and, indeed, the 
 first edition of his plays did not appear until the very year in 
 which Weymouth was settled. Thus, in 1622, our world of 
 literature, of science, almost of history, was yet to be created. 
 Hardly a single volume of our current English literature was 
 then in existence, and people might well con their Bibles, 
 for, in the English tongue, there was little else to read. 
 
 Meanwhile the North American continent was an unbroken 
 wilderness, with here and there, few and far between, from 
 the St. Lawrence to the Gulf, scattered specks of struggling 
 civilization, hundreds of leagues apart, dotting the skirts 
 of the green, primeval forest. It was at not the least 
 famous of these scattered specks, at the neighboring town 
 of Plymouth, that the history of Weymouth opened on a 
 day towards the latter part of the month of May, in the year 
 1622. The little colony had then been established in its new 
 home some seventeen months. They had just struggled 
 through their second winter, and now, sadly reduced in num- 
 ber, with supplies wholly exhausted, and sorely distressed in 
 spirit, the Pilgrims were anxiously looking for the arrival of 
 some ship from England. The Mayflower had left them, 
 starting on her homeward voyage a year before, and once 
 only during their weary sojourn, in the month of the previ- 
 ous November, had these homesick wanderers on the sandy 
 Plymouth shores been cheered by any tidings from the living
 
 5 
 
 world. On this particular day, however, the whole settlement 
 was alive with excitement. There had been great trouble with 
 the neighboring Indians, and the magistrates were on the point 
 of delivering one of them up to the emissaries of his sachem to 
 be put to death, when suddenly a boat was seen to cross the 
 mouth of the bay and disappear behind the next headland. 1 
 There had been rumors of trouble between the English 
 and the French, and the first idea of the settlers was that 
 some connection existed between the sachem's emissaries and 
 those on board the boat. The delivery of the prisoner was 
 consequently deferred. At the same time, a shot was fired 
 as a signal, in response to which the boat changed her course, 
 and came into the bay. When at last it touched the shore it 
 was found to contain ten persons, who announced themselves 
 as being in the service of one Mr. Thomas Weston, a London 
 merchant, well known to the elders of Plymouth. They 
 were cordially welcomed with a salute of three volleys of 
 musketry, and thus finished a somewhat dangerous voyage. 2 
 It appeared that they had been dispatched from England some 
 months before, on board a vessel named the Sparrow, which 
 belonged to Mr. Weston, and was bound to the fishing 
 grounds off the coast of Maine : they were, in fact, the fore- 
 runners of a larger party which Weston was organizing in 
 London, with the design of establishing a trading settlement 
 somewhere on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. They 
 brought with them letters to the Plymouth magistrates, but 
 they were wholly unprovided with either food or outfit. The 
 Sparrow was one of the fishing fleet which yearly visited 
 those waters, and apparently Weston's plan had been for 
 these people to leave her near the Dameriscove Islands, and 
 thence to find their way by sea to Plymouth, examining the 
 coast as they went along with a view to settlement. There 
 was something curiously reckless in the methods of those old 
 explorers. Weston himself afterwards sought to reach Plym- 
 outh in the same way, and encountered many strange adven- 
 tures by sea and land before he got there. In the present 
 case his messengers do not appear either to have been sea- 
 faring men, or especially selected for the work they had to 
 
 1 Winslow's Good Newes. Young's Chron. of Pilg., p. 291. 
 Plnnehas Pratt's Narrative, IV. Mass. Hist. Coll. v. 4, p. 478.
 
 do. It was not until they were actually leaving the Sparrow 
 for their voyage of one hundred and fifty miles in the North 
 Atlantic that they seemed to realize their own utter helpless- 
 ness, and the extreme vagueness of their errand. Fortunately 
 for them, however, the mate of that vessel was a daring fellow, 
 and volunteered to venture his life as their pilot. They accord- 
 ingly set sail in their shallop, skirting along the coast. They 
 touched at the Isle of Shoals and at Cape Ann, and thence 
 they ran for Boston harbor, where they passed some four or 
 five days exploring. They selected the southerly side of the 
 bay as the best place for the proposed settlement, as in these 
 parts there seemed to be the fewest natives, and made a bar- 
 gain with the sachem Aberdecest for what land they needed ; J 
 but, getting uneasy at the smallness of their number, they 
 determined to go to Plymouth, in hopes of getting news of 
 the larger enterprise. Disappointed in this, they landed to 
 await events. The shallop, accompanied by a Plymouth 
 boat in search of supplies, returned to the fishing fleet, and its 
 seven passengers were, for the time being, incorporated with 
 the colony, and fared no worse than others. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Weston had organized his larger expedition, 
 and it was already on the sea, having sailed from London 
 about the 1st of April. Thus Thomas Weston played a very 
 prominent part in the early settlement of Weymouth, as he 
 had already done in that of Plymouth. He was always called 
 a merchant, but in fact he was a pure sixteenth century adven- 
 turer of the Smith and Raleigh stamp, a man whose brain 
 teemed with schemes for the deriving of sudden gain from 
 the settlement of the new continent. We first get sight of 
 him in Ley den in connection with the Pilgrim .fathers, the 
 treasurer, the representative, the active, moving spirit of the 
 company of Merchant Adventurers of London, who then were 
 looking for the material with which to effect a settlement 
 within the Virginia patent. Mr. Treasurer Weston had some 
 acquaintance with the Leyden exiles, and, knowing how dis- 
 satisfied they were with their experience in Holland, he had 
 pitched on them as the best material for the work in hand. 
 They were then negotiating with the Dutch government for 
 
 1 Pratt's Narrative, IV. Mass. Hist. Coll., v. 4, pp. 478, 487.
 
 a grant of lands in what is now New York. Weston per- 
 suaded them to abandon this scheme, promising them, on the 
 part of his associates, aid, both in money and in shipping. 
 When the Speedwell arrived at Southampton from Delft- 
 haven, bearing the fortunes of the little colony between its 
 decks, it was Weston who came down from London to 
 arrange the last details of the adventure. But the meeting 
 was not a propitious one. The parties fell out as to certain 
 alterations proposed to the original agreement between them, 
 and Weston returned to London, telling the emigrants as a 
 parting word that they must expect no further aid from him. 
 Out of this disagreement grew the scheme of another and in- 
 dependent settlement. Weston apparently concluded that he 
 had made a mistake in his choice of agents. A mere adven- 
 turer, he looked only to pecuniary results. The return of the 
 Mayflower in the spring of 1621 without a cargo was a great 
 disappointment to him, and he did not delay writing to the 
 struggling settlers that a good return cargo by the next ship 
 was absolutely essential to the life of the enterprise. They did 
 make an effort, therefore, to load the Fortune with such articles 
 as the country afforded, but before the venture reached England 
 Weston had abandoned the Plymouth colony in disgust, sold 
 out his interest in the Merchant Adventurers company and 
 was already meditating his new and rival enterprise. He 
 cared more for beaver-skins in hand than for empires here- 
 after, and the Plymouth people appeared to him to discourse 
 and argue and consult when they should have been trading. 1 
 His confidence in the success of a trading post on Massachu- 
 setts Bay was not shaken, but he shared in the general belief 
 of the day that families were an incumbrance in a well organ- 
 ized plantation, and that a settlement made up of able-bodied 
 men only could do more in New England in seven years than 
 in Old England in twenty. 2 On this principle he organized 
 his expedition, which, towards the close of April, 1622, set 
 sail in two vessels, the Charity of one hundred tons and the 
 Swan of thirty. It went under the charge of Weston's 
 brother-in-law, one Richard Greene, and was made up of the 
 roughest material, miscellaneously picked up in the streets and 
 
 1 Bradford; IV. Mass. Hist. Coll., v. 3, p. 107. 
 
 2 Levett's Voyage; III. Mass. Hist. Coll., v. 8, p. 190.
 
 8 
 
 on the docks of London ; among them, however, there was 
 one surgeon, a Mr. Salisbury, and a lawyer from Furnival's 
 Inn, afterwards very notorious in early colonial annals, one 
 Thomas Morton, better known as Morton of Merry Mount. 1 
 Such as they were, however, they safely landed at Plymouth 
 towards the end of June, some sixty stout fellows, without 
 apparently the remotest idea why they had come or what they 
 had come to do. Naturally the old settlers did not look upon 
 
 1 " So base in condition (for y e most parte) as in all apearance not fitt for an 
 honest mans company." Letter of John Peirce in Bradford (p. 123). Thomas 
 Morton describes them as " men made choice of at all adventures." The New Eng- 
 lish Canaan (p. 72), Force's Hist. Tracts (v. 2). In the preface to his Good Newes, 
 Winslow speaks of them as " a disorderly colony, . . . who were a stain to Old 
 England that bred them in respect of their lives and manners amongst the Indians." 
 Young, C. of P., (p. 276.) Weston himself speaks of them as "rude fellows," and 
 proposes to reclaim them " from that profanenes that may scandalise y e vioage," etc. 
 Bradford, (p. 120.) Robert Cushman in a letter to Governor Bradford, gives the 
 following hint : " if they borrow anything of you let them leave a good pawne." 
 76., (p. 122.) 
 
 I have stated that Thomas Morton came over as one of Weston's company. This 
 has been denied, Young's C. of P. (p. 334, n.), but Morton himself twice states in 
 the New English Canaan, that he came to New England in 1622, and in one of the 
 two cases fixes the time as in June of that year. The New English Canaan, (pp. 15, 
 41.) Force's Hist. Tracts, (v. 2.) Winslow states that the Charity and Swan arrived 
 "in the end of June or beginning of July," 1622. Young's C. of P., (p. 296.) Now 
 no other ships from England came to Plymouth that year, and no company such as 
 Morton describes his to have been, except Weston's, arrived in Massachusetts between 
 1622 and Wollaston's arrival in 1625. Morton, however, not only positively says that 
 he arrived at the very time the Weston company arrived, but he shows throughout his 
 book a remarkable familiarity not only with the events which occurred in the Weston 
 settlement, but with the people composing it. A connection with that settlement was 
 not a thing which Morton would have been likely to boast of in subsequent years ; 
 but, judging by internal evidence, I should feel inclined not only to venture a surmise 
 that Morton was one of Weston's colony, but also that it was Morton himself who 
 proposed to the Wessagusset " Parliament " the vicarious execution presently to be 
 described. The whole tone of his account of that affair is highly suggestive of a close 
 connection with it, and of great sympathy with the real culprit and his ingenious 
 counsel. 
 
 My explanation of Morton's statement as to his arrival is, that in it, with his usual 
 recklessness as to facts, he confounded two events which occurred at different dates. 
 He says, The Xeto English Canaan (p. 41), "In the Moneth of lune, Anno Salutis : 
 1622. It was my chaunce to arrive in the parts of New England with 30. Servants, 
 and provision of all sorts fit for a plantation." Here are two facts distinctly stated; 
 one as to the date of his arrival, exactly coinciding with that of the Weston com- 
 pany ; the other, as to the number of " servants," etc., answering to the description 
 of Wollaston's company. Morton, I think, therefore, came out with Weston's com- 
 pany, and left Wessagusset in March, 1623, with them; he then, more than two years 
 later, returned there with Wollaston, probably acting as his guide. When, seven years 
 later, he printed his book, desiring to make his American experience date as far back 
 as possible, he simply confused his two arrivals, and quietly ignored his connection 
 with the Weston company, which had left a very unsavory reputation behind it as 
 being made up of the refuse of mankind.
 
 9 
 
 them as a very desirable accession to the colony, especially 
 as they early evinced a disinclination to all honest labor and 
 an extremely well developed appetite for green corn. 1 Having 
 landed them, the larger ship sailed for Virginia, and during 
 her absence preparations were completed for removing the 
 party to the site selected for its operations at Wessagusset, 
 as Weymouth was then called. In the course of a few weeks 
 the ship returned, the healthy members of the expedition were 
 taken on board and sailed for Boston Bay. The Plymouth 
 people saw them disappear with much satisfaction, and ex- 
 pressed no desire to have them return. 
 
 It was August before the party reached its permanent 
 quarters. There is no record of the exact spot on which 
 they placed their settlement, but a very general tradition 
 assigns it to the north side of Phillips Creek. 2 Not improb- 
 ably there was a better draught of water in that inlet then 
 than now ; but it is well established that the locality was to 
 the south of the Fore Eiver, and the very sheltered character 
 of the creek would naturally have suggested it to the 
 explorers for the object they had in view. But wherever the 
 exact locality may have been, the adventurers found them- 
 selves towards the end of September sufficiently established 
 in it to let the larger ship, the Charity, return to England. 
 The smaller one, the Swan, had been designed for the use of 
 the plantation, it was indeed the chief item of their stock 
 in trade, and it now remained moored in Weymouth River. 
 The Charity had left the party fairly supplied for the winter, 3 
 but they were a wasteful, improvident set, and they were 
 hardly left to their own devices before they were made to 
 realize that they had already squandered most of their 
 resources, though the winter was not yet begun. They 
 accordingly bethought themselves of the people of Plymouth, 
 and wrote to Governor Bradford proposing a trading voyage 
 on joint account in search of corn, they oifering to supply the 
 vessel while the Plymouth people were to furnish the quick 
 
 1 Winslow ; Young's C. of P., p. 297. 
 
 3 " A correspondent in Quincy thus describes the place : ' It is about three miles 
 south-east of the granite church in Quincy, at a place locally called Old Spain.' 
 Weston's colony sailed up Fore River, which separates Quincy from Weymouth, and 
 then entered Phillips Creek, and commenced operations on its north bank." Russell's 
 Guide to Plymouth, (p. 106, n.) 
 
 3 Winslow; Young's C. of P., p. 299. Bradford, p. 130. 
 2
 
 10 
 
 capital needed, in the shape of articles of barter. The offer 
 was accepted and in October the expedition set out, with 
 Standish in command and the Indian Squanto acting as guide. 
 The intention was to weather the cape and trade along the 
 south coast, but they were driven back by adverse winds, 
 and then Standish fell sick of a fever and had to give up the 
 command. Governor Bradford took his place and again the 
 Swan started out; but it was November now, and the back 
 side of Cape Cod shewed a rougher sea than they cared to 
 face, so they prudently put about and ran into Sandwich Bay. 
 Here Squauto, the Indian guide, fell sick and died, bequeath- 
 ing his few effects to his English friends and praying that he 
 might find rest with the Englishman's God. 1 Here and else- 
 where, however, the partners secured some twenty-six or 
 twenty-eight hogsheads of corn and beans, and with that 
 were fain to return. An equal division was made, and the 
 Swan again came to her moorings in Weymouth Fore River. 
 The relief she brought with her was, however, only tem- 
 porary ; disorder and waste in that settlement were chronic. 
 Greene had died in Plymouth while they were preparing for 
 the trading voyage, and a man named Sanders had succeeded 
 him in control. Either he was incompetent or his people 
 were very hard to manage ; but, in either case, the squander- 
 ing of the supplies continued, and the prudent Plymouth 
 settlers especially complained that, through improvident 
 dealings with the Indians, their neighbors ruined the market, 
 giving for a quart of corn what before would have bought a 
 beaver-skin. 2 At length, however, about the beginning of 
 the New Year, the Wessagusset plantation found itself face 
 to face with dire want. The hungry settlers bartered with 
 the Indians, giving everything they had for food ; they even 
 stripped the clothes from their backs and the blankets from 
 their beds. They made canoes for the savages, and, for a 
 mere pittance of corn, became their hewers of wood and 
 drawers of water. 3 During that long and dreary winter they 
 must heartily have wished themselves back in the slums of 
 London. Weymouth Fore River, in that season, must then 
 have been very much what we so well know it to be now. 
 
 i Bradford, p. 128. " Winslow ; Young's C. of P., p. 302. 
 
 '> Bradford, p. 130.
 
 11 
 
 Doubtless the cold 1^de ebbed and flowed before the rude 
 block-house, now lifting on its bosom huge heaps of frozen 
 snow and ice, and then again bearing them in great unsightly 
 blocks swiftly out to sea. The frost was in the ground ; the 
 snow was on it. So, through the long, hard, savage winter, 
 those seventy poor hungry wretches shivered around their 
 desolate habitations, or straggled about among the neighbor- 
 ing wigwams in search of food. Their ammunition was 
 nearly exhausted so that they could not kill the game. 
 They ransacked the woods in search of nuts ; and they 
 followed out the tide, digging in the flats for clams and 
 muscles. But, insufficiently supplied with clothes, they could 
 not endure the winter's cold in this slow search for food, and 
 one poor fellow while grubbing for shell-fish sank into the 
 mud, and, being too reduced to drag himself out, was there 
 found dead, an end to his adventures. In all ten perished. 1 
 In their necessities they had made the fatal mistake of 
 degrading themselves before the savages. In their utmost 
 needs the Plymouth people had always borne themselves 
 defiantly to the Indian ; making him feel himself in presence 
 of a superior. It was not so at Wessagusset. * The settlers 
 there alternately cringed before the Indian and abused him ; 
 and he, seeing them so poor and weak and helpless, first 
 grew to despise and then to oppress them. Naturally, 
 starving men of their description had recourse to theft, and 
 there was no one to steal from but the Indians ; so the Indians 
 found their hidden stores of corn disturbed and knew just 
 where to look for the thieves. This led to a bitter feeling 
 among the savages, and some who were detected were pun- 
 ished in their sight. But with men like these, punishment 
 was a less terror than starvation, and the depredations and 
 complaints continued. The .Indians would no longer either 
 lend or sell them food ; and, indeed, it did not appear that 
 they had any to spare. 2 Finally, in their utter desperation, 
 the settlers thought of having recourse to violence, and made 
 ready their stockade to resist the attack, sure to ensue, by 
 closing every entrance into it save one. They were hardly 
 
 1 Pratt's Petition, IV. Mass. Hist. Coll. v. 3, pp. 486, 7. Bradford, p. 130. Winslow ; 
 Young's C. of P., p. 332. 
 
 2 Winslow ; Young's C of P., p. 328.
 
 12 
 
 prepared, however, to go to such extremes as this, relying 
 solely on their own strength. Accordingly, towards the 
 end of February, Sanders sent a letter by an Indian 
 messenger to Governor Bradford, informing him of their 
 necessities, and advising him that Sanders himself was pre- 
 paring to go to the fishing stations at the eastward to buy 
 provisions from the ships ; but meanwhile he did not see how 
 the settlement was to live until his return, and he therefore 
 wrote to see if the Plymouth people would sustain him in 
 taking what was necessary from the Indians by force. The 
 answer was not encouraging. The Plymouth magistrates 
 had no intention of embroiling that settlement with its savage 
 neighbors, and therefore very plainly informed Sanders that 
 he and his need expect no countenance from them in any 
 such proceeding as that proposed ; and they further intimated 
 an opinion that they would all be killed if they attempted it. 
 Finally, they advised them to worry through the winter, living 
 on nuts and shell-fish as they themselves were doing, 
 especially as they enjoyed the additional advantage of an 
 oyster-bed, which they of Plymouth had not. 1 On receiving 
 this letter, it only remained to give up all idea of a recourse 
 to violence, and Sanders then took the Swan and himself 
 went to Plymouth on a begging excursion. The people 
 there, however, felt unable to supply his vessel even for a 
 voyage to the fishing stations ; so he returned to Wessagusset, 
 there left the Swan, and started on a shallop for the coast of 
 Maine. 
 
 Meanwhile the depredations still went on, and the Indians 
 grew more and more aggressive. They took by force from 
 the settlers what they pleased, and if they remonstrated, they 
 threatened them with their knives. Apparently they treated 
 the poor wretches like dogs ; regarding them much as they 
 had four unfortunate Frenchmen whom they had taken prison- 
 ers some years before, after destroying their vessel, killing 
 them at last through ill usage. 2 Finally, one unfortunate but 
 peculiarly skillful thief was detected and bitter complaint 
 made against him. The terror-stricken settlers offered to 
 
 i Winslow; Young's C. of P., p. 329. 
 
 3 Pratt'* Narrative, IV., Mass. Hist. Coll. v. 4, pp. 479, 489. New English Canaan, 
 p. 18. Force's Tracts, v. 2.
 
 13 
 
 give him up to the savages, to be dealt with as they saw fit. 
 The savages, however, declined to receive him, upon which 
 his companions hung him themselves in their sight. This 
 execution has since been very famous. That the settlers of 
 Wessagusset hung the real culprit does not admit of ques- 
 tion, for it is so stated both by those who were present and 
 by the Plymouth authorities of the time, who were perfectly 
 familiar with all the facts. 1 But the humorous Mr. Thomas 
 Morton of Merry Mount, in the New English Canaan, pub- 
 lished in London in 1632, reclad the Wessagusset hanging 
 of ten years previous in this new and fantastic garb : 
 
 " One amongst the rest an able bodied man, that ranged 
 the woodes, to see what it would afford, lighted by accident 
 on an Indian barne, and from thence did take a capp full of 
 corne ; the Salvage owner of it, finding by the foote some 
 English had bin there came to the Plantation, and mad com- 
 plaint after this manner. 
 
 " The cheife Commander of the Company one this occation 
 called a Parliament of all his people but those that were sicke, 
 and ill at ease. And wisely now they must consult, upon this 
 huge complaint, that a privy knife, or stringe of beades would 
 well enough have qualified, and Edward lohnson was a 
 spetiall judge of this businesse ; the fact was there in repe- 
 tition, construction made, that it was fellony, and by the 
 Lawes of England punished with death, and this in execution 
 must be put, for an example, and likewise to appease the Salv- 
 age, when straight wayes one arose, mooved as it were with 
 some compassion, and said hee could not well gaine say the 
 former sentence, yet hee had conceaved within the compasse 
 of his braiiie a Embrion, that was of spetiall consequence to 
 be delivered, and cherished hee said, that it would most aptly 
 serve to pacific the Salvages complaint, and save the life of 
 one that might (if ueede should be) stand them in some good 
 steede, being younge and stronge, fit for resistance against 
 
 1 Winslow, in his Relation, states that Pratt told them of this execution on his 
 arrival at Plymouth. Young's C. of P. (p. 332) ; see, also, Bradford (p. 130). But 
 Pratt, in his own Narrative, distinctly says that " we kep him (the malefactor) bound 
 som few days," but does not mention the execution. IV. Mass. Hist. Coll. (v. 4, 
 p. 482.) In his Relation by Mather, however, he states that the real delinquent was 
 put to death. Ib. (p. 491.)
 
 14 
 
 an enemy, which might come unexpected for any thinge they 
 knew, The Oration made was liked of every one, and hee 
 intreated to proceede to shew the meanes how this may be 
 performed : sayes hee, you all agree that one must die, and 
 one shall die, this younge mans cloathes we will take of, 
 and put upon one, that is old and impotent, a sickly person 
 that cannot escape death, such is the disease one him c.on- 
 firmed, that die hee must, put the younge mans cloathes on 
 this man, and let the sick person be hanged in the others 
 steede. Amen sayes one, and so sayes many more. 
 
 "And this had like to have prooved their finall sentence, 
 and being there confirmed by Act of Parliament, to after ages 
 for a President : But that one with a ravenus voyce, be- 
 gunne to croake and bellow for revenge, and put by that con- 
 clusive motion, alledging such deceipts might be a meanes 
 here after to exasperate the mindes of the complaininge Salv- 
 ages and that by his death, the Salvages should see their zeale 
 to Justice, and therefore hee should die : this was concluded ; 
 yet neverthelesse a scruple was made ; now to countermaund 
 this act, did represent itselfe unto their mindes, which was 
 how they should doe to get the mans good wil : this was 
 iudeede a spetiall obstacle : for without (that they all agreed) 
 it would be dangerous, for any man to attempt the execution 
 of it, lest mischiefe should befall them every man ; hee was 
 a person, that in his wrath, did seeme to be a second Sampson, 
 able to beate out their branes with the jawbone of an Asse : 
 therefore they called the man and by perswatiou got him fast 
 bound in jest, and then hanged him up hard by in good earn- 
 est, who with a weapon, and at liberty, would have put all 
 those wise judges of this Parliament to a pitifull non plus (as 
 it hath been credibly reported) , and made the cheife ludge of 
 them all buckell to him." 1 
 
 The work from which this extract is taken was published 
 in 1632 ; in 1(563, thirty-one years later, appeared the second 
 part of the famous English satire, Hudibras. Butler, its 
 author, had come across the New English Canaan, and the 
 very original idea of vicarious atonement suggested in it 
 entertained him hugely. He appropriated and improved it, 
 
 1 The New English Canaan, p. 74.
 
 15 
 
 
 
 adapting the facts to his own fancy, until at last the story 
 appeared in its new guise, in what was the most popular Eng- 
 lish book of the day : 
 
 " Our Brethren of New-England use 
 Choice malefactors to excuse, 
 And hang the Guiltless in their stead, 
 Of whom the Churches have less need ; 
 As lately 't happen'd : In a town 
 There liv'd a Cobler, and but one, 
 That out of Doctrine could cut Use, 
 And mend men's lives as well as shoes. 
 This precious Brother having slain, 
 In times of peace, an Indian, 
 Not out of malice, but mere zeal, 
 (Because he was an Infidel), 
 The mighty Tottipottymoy 
 Sent to our Elders an envoy, 
 Complaining sorely of the breach 
 Of league held forth by Brother Patch, 
 Against the articles in force 
 Between both churches, his and ours, 
 For which he craved the Saints to render 
 Into his hands, or hang th ; offender ; 
 But they maturely having weigh'd 
 They had no more but him o' th' trade, 
 (A man that served them in a double 
 Capacity, to teach and cobble), 
 Kesolv'd to spare him ; yet to do 
 The Indian Hoghan Moghan too 
 Impartial justice, in his stead did 
 Hang an old Weaver that was bed-rid." l 
 
 The really amusing part of this episode, however, yet 
 remains to be told. When it was rescued from oblivion, 
 through the wit of Butler, in 1663, the reaction against puri- 
 tanism was at its height, and everything which tended to 
 render the sect, so recently all-powerful, either odious or 
 ridiculous, was eagerly sought for and implicitly believed. 
 New England, and especially the province of Massachusetts 
 Bay, was out of favor. So striking an exemplification of 
 Puritan justice was not to be disregarded. The whole ab- 
 surd fiction of Morton and Butler was, therefore, not only 
 accepted as historical truth, but the bastard tradition was sol- 
 emnly deposited at the door of the good people of Boston 
 and Plymouth : and so the Weymouth hanging passed into 
 
 1 Hudibras, Part II., Canto II., 11. 409-36.
 
 16 
 
 * 
 
 history hand in hand with the famous Blue-Laws of Connecti- 
 cut. There is, however, something irresistibly ludicrous in 
 picturing to oneself the horror and dismay with which the 
 severe elders of the Plymouth church would have contem- 
 plated the saddling of their fame before posterity, on the 
 ribald authority of the New English Canaan and of Hudibras, 
 with the apochryphal misdeeds of Westou's vagabonds. But 
 so it happened, and nearly a century and a half later the 
 absurd fiction was gravely recorded in his history by Gov- 
 ernor Hutchinson, as a part of the early annals of New Eng- 
 land. 1 
 
 But it is necessary to return to Weston's colony. We 
 left it face to face with famine, deserted by its leader, and in 
 terror of the savages ; in the wish to propitiate whom the starv- 
 ing, shivering outcasts had just hung one of their own number 
 in front of their palisade. Even this, however, did not appease 
 the Indians, who were now thoroughly restless and had begun 
 to conspire together all along the cqast for the simultaneous 
 destruction of both the infant settlements. It was just one 
 year since the Virginia massacre, and that tragedy seemed 
 about to be re-enacted in New England. Intimations of the 
 impending danger reached the Plymouth and the Weymouth 
 people at about the same time ; coming to the former through 
 a friendly hint from Massasoit, and to the latter from the talk 
 of an Indian woman. 
 
 The Indians were now watching the Wessagusset settle- 
 ment very closely. In spite of their terror, the settlers, 
 however, lived on in a reckless way, mixing freely with 
 the savages and taking no precautions against surprise. 2 
 But one at least of their number was thoroughly alarmed, 
 and had resolved to make his escape to Plymouth. This 
 was Phinehas Pratt, one of the seven who had come on 
 in the shallop during the previous May in advance of the body 
 of the enterprise. The journey he now proposed to himself 
 was both difficult and dangerous. It was March, and he was 
 insufficiently clad and weak for want of food ; he did not know 
 
 1 Hist, of Mass., v. 1, p. 6, n. ; for a curious traditionary account of this execution 
 see, also, Uriny's Voyages (pp. 116-18,) and Proceedings of Mass. So. for 1871, 
 (p. 59.) 
 
 a Wiuslow ; Young's C. of P., p. 336.
 
 17 
 
 the way, nor did he even have a compass. The Indians, 
 probably in furtherance of their half-matured conspiracy, had 
 gradually moved their wigwams closer and closer to the settle- 
 ment. Pratt's first object was to steal away unobserved by 
 them. Very early one morning, therefore, preparing a small 
 pack, he took a hoe in his hand and left the settlement as if 
 he were in search of nuts, or about to dig for shell-fish. He 
 went directly towards that end of the swamp nearest the wig- 
 wams. Getting close to them he pretended to be busy digging, 
 until he had satisfied himself that he was unobserved ; then 
 he suddenly plunged into the thicket and began to make his 
 way as rapidly as he could iu a southerly direction. The sky 
 was overcast ; the ground also was in many places covered with 
 snow, which greatly alarmed him, as it seemed likely to afford 
 an almost certain trail in case of pursuit. Fortunately for 
 him he at once lost his way, or he must soon have been over- 
 taken. He hurried along, however, as fast as he could, until 
 late in the afternoon, when the sun appeared sufficiently to 
 give him some indication of his course. He at length came 
 to the North River, which he found both deep and cold ; he 
 succeeded in fording it, however, and, as night began to fall, 
 found himself too weary to go further, \veak from cold and 
 hunger and yet afraid to light a fire. Finally he came to a 
 deep hollow in which were many fallen trees ; here he stopped, 
 lit a fire and rested, listening to the howling of the wolves in 
 the woods around him. At night the sky cleared and he dis- 
 tinguished the north star, thus getting his bearings. He 
 resumed his journey in the morning but found himself unable 
 to proceed with it, and so .returned to his camping place of 
 the previous night. The succeeding day, however, was clear, 
 and he started again ; this time more successfully, for by 
 three o'clock in the afternoon he got to Duxbury and recog- 
 nized the landmarks ; soon afterwards reaching the settle- 
 ment, thoroughly exhausted, but in safety. He thus finished 
 a perilous journey, for the pursuers were not far behind him. 
 The next day they appeared on the outskirts of the settlement 
 and assured themselves of his arrival. They had lost his 
 trail, and, following the more direct path, had missed him; 
 but nevertheless he had, as he himself expressed it, "been 
 
 3
 
 18 
 
 pursued for his life ill time of frost and snow as a deer chased 
 by the wolves." 1 
 
 He now delivered his tidings and was cared for, but he 
 found the Plymouth settlement fully awake to the danger. 
 The council had already had the subject under advisement, 
 and, the day before Pratt's arrival, had decided upon war. 
 Their proceedings were vigorous. Captain Miles Standish 
 was authorized to take with him such a force as was in his 
 judgment sufficient to enable him to hold his own against 
 all the Indians in the neighborhood of Boston Bay, and 
 go at once to Wessagusset. He did not apparently place a 
 very high estimate either on the numbers or the valor of his 
 opponents, for he selected only eight men, 2 and with them was 
 on the point of starting when Pratt arrived. The next day, 
 March 25, 1623, the wind proved fair, and so the little army 
 got into its boat and set sail. 
 
 Reaching Weymouth Fore River on the 26th, after a pros- 
 perous voyage, Standish steered directly for the Swan, which 
 was lying at her moorings near the settlement. Greatly to 
 his surprise he found her wholly deserted, there was not a 
 soul on board. A musket was fired as a signal, which at- 
 tracted the attention of a few miserable creatures busy search- 
 ing for nuts. From them Standish learned that the principal 
 men of the settlement were in the stockade ; so he lauded, 
 
 1 Pratt's Narrative ; IV. Mass. Hist. Coll. (v. 4, pp. 483, 7) , can be accepted as 
 authority only Avith very decided limitations. Prepared for a specific purpose, long 
 subsequent to the occurrence of the events to which it relates, it is neither consistent 
 with itself nor with the Plymouth authorities. He dwells at length on the apprehen- 
 sion of an attack by the Indians felt by the Weston colon}-, and the precautions they 
 took against it (pp. 482-3). Standish, on the contrary, reported that he found them 
 living in reckless disregard of every precaution. Winsloiv, in Young's C. of P. (p. 
 336.) Pecksuot's famous speech to Standish, which Pratt must often have heard 
 discussed at Plymouth, finds a place in his narrative as having been made to him 
 long previously (p. 481). Finally, if the terror at Wessagusset was such as he asserts 
 it to have been, the settlers there could have gone on board the Swan and sailed to 
 Plymouth in search of aid, quite as well as Standish could come to them or they 
 go subsequently to the eastward. Pratt himself was unquestionably both alarmed 
 and hungry, but he probably fled to Plymouth as a refugee. When he got there, 
 having doubtless encountered enough of danger and hardship on the way, he found 
 Standish already starting for Wessagusset. His own sense of the dangers he had 
 run and the heroism he had displayed, both before and during his flight, probably 
 grew with each succeeding year. I have adopted only such of his statements as are 
 corroborated by others, or seem to wear an aspect of inherent probability. 
 
 a The whole number of Indians in that vicinity was not computed at over fifty. 
 Youny's Chron. of Mass. -(p. 305) ; Winslow ; Young's C. of P. (p. 310).
 
 19 
 
 and, after some conversation with them, promptly began his 
 preparations. The stragglers were all called in, and every 
 one was forbidden to go beyond gunshot from the stockade. 
 Rations of corn were issued to all out of the slender stock 
 which the prudent Plymouth people had reserved for seed, and 
 something like discipline was established. The weather was 
 wet and stormy, delaying final operations, but the Indians, 
 nevertheless, seeing Standish on the ground, began to suspect 
 that their designs were discovered. Pecksuot, their chief, 
 accordingly came in and had an interview, Hobbamock, a 
 friendly Indian wjio had accompanied the expedition, acting 
 as interpreter. 
 
 This was one of the very famous Indian talks of early New 
 England annals ; not only was it chronicled in all the records 
 of the time, but it has since found a place in poetry, so that 
 to-day the speech of the savage Pecksuot to the doughty 
 Miles Standish is most familiar to us through the verses of 
 Longfellow l : 
 
 " Then lie unsheathed his knife, and, whetting the blade on his left hand, 
 Held it aloft, and displayed a woman's face on the handle, 
 Saying, with bitter expression and look of sinister meaning : 
 
 ' I have another at home, with the face of a man on the handle ; 
 By and by they shall marry ; and there will be plenty of children ! ' " 
 
 This figurative language both Standish and his Indian 
 interpreter accepted as meaning war. At the moment, how- 
 ever, no act of overt hostility took place on either side. 
 Standish was not ready. His plan was to strike, but when 
 he struck he meant to strike hard. He proposed, in fact, to 
 get all the Indians he could into his power and then to kill 
 them. 2 The day after the knife interview he found himself 
 with several of his men in a room with four of the savages, 
 among whom were Pecksuot and Wituwamat. Suddenly 
 Standish gave the signal and flung himself on Pecksuot, 
 snatching his knife from its sheath on his neck and stabbing 
 him with it. The door was closed and a life-and-death 
 struggle ensued. The savages were taken by surprise, but 
 they fought hard, making little noise but catching at their 
 
 1 The Courtship of Miles Standish, Part VII. See also Pratt's Narrative, IV. 
 Mass. Hist. Coll. v. 4. p. 481, and Young's C. of P., p. 338. 
 
 2 Winslow ; Young's C. of P., p. 331. Bradford, p. 164.
 
 20 
 
 weapons and struggling until they were cut almost to pieces. 
 Finally Pecksnot, Wituwamat and a third Indian were killed, 
 while a fourth, a youth of eighteen was overpowered and 
 secured ; him, Standish subsequently hung. The massacre, 
 for such in historic justice it must be called, seeing that they 
 killed every man they could lay their hands on, then began. 
 There were eight warriors in the stockade at the time, 
 Standish and his party had killed three and secured one ; 
 they subsequently killed another, while the Weston people 
 despatched two more. One only escaped to give the alarm, 
 which was rapidly spread through the Indian villages. 
 
 Standish immediately followed up his advantage. Leaving 
 some Indian women, who happened to be in the stockade, 
 in charge of a portion of his own men and of the settlers, he 
 took one or two of the latter and the remainder of his own 
 force, and started in pursuit. He had gone no great distance 
 when a file of Indians was seen advancing. Both parties 
 hurried forward to secure the advantage of a rising ground 
 near at hand. Standish got to it first, and the savages at 
 once scattered, sheltering themselves behind trees and 
 discharging a flight -of arrows at their opponents. The 
 engagement was, however, very brief, for Hobbamock, 
 throwing off his coat, rushed at his countrymen, who incon- 
 tinently fled to the swamp ; one only of the party being 
 injured, a shot breaking his arm. Further pursuit was un- 
 availing, so Standish returned to the stockade, from which he 
 caused the Indian women to be dismissed unharmed. 
 
 The Weston people now discovered that they had had 
 enough of life in the wilderness, and wholly declined to tarry 
 any longer at Wessagusset. Standish asserted his readiness 
 to hold the place against all the Indians of the vicinage with 
 half the force of the Weston party, but they were not Stand- 
 ishes, nor did they feel any call to heroism. So, the choice 
 being given to them, they divided, one portion, on board the 
 Swan, following Sanders to the coast of Maine, while the 
 rest accompanied Standish home and cast in their lot among 
 the Plymouth people. Standish supplied those on board the 
 Swan with a sufliciency of corn whereon to sustain life, and 
 saw them safely leave the harbor and bear away to the north 
 and east; then he himself, carrying with him the head of
 
 21 
 
 Wituwamat, to ornament the Plymouth block-house as a 
 terror to all evil-disposed savages, sailed prosperously home. 
 
 Thus in failure, disgrace and bloodshed ended the first 
 attempt of a settlement at Weymouth. Ill-conceived, ill- 
 executed, ill-fated, it was probably saved from utter extirpa- 
 tion only by the energetie interference of the Plymouth 
 people. And these last not unjustifiably indulged in some 
 grim chuckling over the speedy downfall of those who had 
 thought to teach them how to subdue a wilderness. 1 Three 
 men only remained behind at Wessagusset. One of these 
 had domesticated himself among the savages ; the other two, 
 in defiance of orders, had straggled off to an Indian settlement 
 where they had been left by a companion on the day of the 
 engagement. All three were put to death by the savages, 
 probably with that refinement of cruelty which distinguished 
 Indian executions ; for, afterwards, in speaking of their fate, 
 one ot the savages said, "When we killed your men they 
 cried and made ill-favored faces." 2 
 
 When good old John Robinson, at Ley den, heard of the 
 Wessagusset killing he was sorely moved. He wrote out 
 to his flock a letter of gentle caution in respect to the rough 
 ways of Captain Miles Standish, who, though the aged pastor 
 loved him, he yet intimated was one perchance " wanting that 
 tenderness of the life of man which is meet." He also referred 
 to the Wessagusset settlers as "heathenish Christians," and 
 exclaimed in reference to Pecksuot and Wituwamat, "Oh! 
 how happy a thing had it been if you had converted some 
 before you had killed any." 3 Nevertheless, rough as he was, 
 the Plymouth people then stood in greater need of stern 
 Miles Standish than of gentle John Robinson. The times 
 were not meet for works of conversion, nor were Pecksuot 
 and his friends favorable subjects therefor. In the light of 
 the Virginia experience of 1622, and of the New England 
 terror during the war of King Philip, posterity must concede 
 that the severe course of Miles Standish here in Weymouth, 
 in March, 1623, was the most truly merciful course. The 
 
 1 Bradford, p. 132. 
 
 2 Pratt's Narrative, IV. Mass. Hist. Coll., p. 486. Xe\v English Canaan, p. 76. 
 Force's Tracts, v. 2. Young's C. of P., p. 344. 
 
 3 Bradford, p. 164.
 
 22 
 
 settlers had demoralized the Indians. They had at once 
 inspired them with anger, with dislike and with contempt. 
 Any sign of faltering on the part of the Plymouth people 
 would have been fatal. Had they abandoned Wessagusset 
 to its fate, the settlers there would have been exterminated, 
 and the savages, maddened by a taste of blood, would have 
 turned upon Plymouth. The woods would have rung with 
 war-whoops and the feeble colony could scarcely have sur- 
 vived the ordeal of blood treading hard on that of famine. 
 Standish crushed out the danger in the incipient stage. By 
 ruthlessly murdering seven men he reestablished the moral 
 ascendency of the whites, and so saved the lives of hundreds. 
 He stopped the war before it began, and deferred it to 
 another generation. In so doing, the Puritan captain revealed 
 the instinctive sagacity of a true soldier, he struck so that 
 he did not have to strike twice : he cowed the savages at 
 "VVey mouth, and for years peace was secured for Plymouth. 1 
 
 All this took place in March, and shortly after the unfor- 
 tunate Mr. Weston arrived on the coast of Maine, seeking 
 news of his colony. He there heard of its ruin and, with 
 one or two men, started in a small boat for Wessagusset. 
 His ill-fortune pursued him. Overtaken by a storm he was 
 cast away near where Newburyport now stands, and barely 
 saved his life only to fall into the hands of the savages, who 
 stripped him to his shirt. He succeeded, however, in finding 
 his way back to the fishing stations in Maine and thence to 
 Plymouth. The people there received him kindly, and loaned 
 him some beaver-skins on which to trade : and again he 
 returned to the eastward. There he found his smaller vessel, 
 the Swan, and some of his people. Afterwards he seems to 
 have been both very adventurous and very unfortunate. He 
 made frequent voyages to Virginia, and now and again flits 
 vaguely across the page of Plymouth history, in debt, in 
 trouble, in arrest. Finally he returned to England, where, 
 long afterwards during the wars of Cromwell, he died of the 
 plague at Bristol. 
 
 But Wessagusset was not destined long to remain a soli- 
 tude. Deserted in March, it was again occupied just six 
 
 1 Winslow ; Young's C. of P., p. 344. The New English Canaan, p. 73.
 
 23 
 
 months later; for, in the middle of September, 1623, Captain 
 Robert Gorges, a son of that Sir Ferdinand whose name is so 
 prominent in the early annals of New England, sailed up the 
 Fore River, and landed at Weston's deserted plantation. His 
 enterprise was of a quite different character from that which 
 had preceded it. He held a grant from the Council of New 
 England, covering a tract of land vaguely described as lying 
 on the north-east side of Massachusetts Bay, as what is now 
 known as Boston Bay was then called, and covering ten 
 miles of sea-front, while stretching thirty miles into the inte- 
 rior. He was also commissioned as Governor-General, and 
 authorized to correct any abuses which had crept into the 
 affairs of the company in America ; for the more effectual 
 doing of which he was further provided with a grand admiral 
 and a council, of which the Governor of Plymouth for the 
 time being was ex officio a member. His jurisdiction was of 
 the largest description, civil, criminal and ecclesiastical, for 
 he also brought with him in his company one Mr. William 
 Morell, a clergyman of the Church of England, holding a 
 commission from the ecclesiastical courts of the mother coun- 
 try, which authorized him to exercise a species of super- 
 intendency over the churches of the colony. This whole 
 expedition seems, in fact, to have been organized on a most 
 ludicrously grandiose scale, probably to meet the vi^ws of its 
 commander, who had recently seen some service in the Vene- 
 tian wars and was now nourishing ambitious visions of an 
 empire in the wilderness. The establishment of episcopacy 
 in New England had long been a favorite idea with Sir Ferdi- 
 nand Gorges, 1 and now, when he sent his son thither, he pro- 
 vided him not only with a council and an admiral, but also 
 with a primate. This company was, however, composed of 
 a different material from that of Weston's. It was made up 
 of families, as well as of individuals, and contained in it some 
 elements of strength. 2 The party disembarked just as the 
 autumn tints began to glow through the forest, and busied 
 themselves with the erection of their storehouses. Captain 
 Gorges meanwhile notified the Plymouth people of his arrival, 
 and Governor Bradford prepared to answer the summons in. 
 
 i Young's C. of P., p. 477, n. a Bradford, p. 148,
 
 24 
 
 person. Before he could do so, however, Gorges started on 
 a voyage to the fishing stations in Maine ; but, encountering 
 some rough weather on his way, he put about and ran into 
 Plymouth in search of a pilot. He remained there some four- 
 teen days, and then, instead of resuming his voyage, he 
 returned to Wessagusset by land. Upon reaching his seat 
 of government he, for the first, and, so far as appears, for 
 the last time, made any use of his great civil and military 
 powers by causing Weston, who had turned up in Plymouth 
 Bay, on board the Swan, to be arrested and sent with this 
 vessel around to Weymouth. His own ship, meanwhile, 
 remained at Plymouth, where, on the 5th of November, her 
 company occasioned a great disaster to the unfortunate colo- 
 nists. The weather was cold, and a number of seamen were 
 celebrating Guy Fawkes' day before a large fire in one of the 
 houses, when the thatch ignited, and, for a brief time, it was 
 a question whether the general store-house, and with it the 
 Plymouth colony, were not to be destroyed. Fortunately 
 only three or four houses were burned, but it is curious to 
 reflect how much more heavily the loss of those few log huts 
 bore on the Plymouth of those days than did the great 
 conflagration of two centuries and a half later on the Boston 
 of ours. At any rate it seemed to sicken Captain Robert 
 Gorges and his party, for, shortly after it, he retired to Eng- 
 land, thoroughly disgusted with the work of founding empires 
 in the New World. 1 With him returned the larger part of 
 his company, but not the whole of it; nor, indeed, does 
 Weymouth seem ever again to have been abandoned as a set- 
 tlement. While some of the party went to Virginia, others 
 remained at Wessagusset, and Mr. Morell took up his tem- 
 porary abode at Plymouth. This gentleman appears, indeed, 
 to have been not only a man of education and refinement, but 
 also to have been possessed of discretion and good sense. 
 For a wonder he, an ecclesiastic, remained at Plymouth 
 nearly a year with a letter in his pocket conferring on him 
 great powers, and yet he neither sought to exercise any 
 authority, nor did lie intrigue or stir up any trouble. On the 
 contrary, he quietly minded his own business, and beguiled 
 his leisure hours in the composition of a very good Latin 
 
 i Bradford, p. 154.
 
 25 
 
 poem descriptive of the country. 1 He made of it, too, a 
 very bad metrical translation. The mece is curious, but now 
 scarcely repays perusal. 2 With the country he was charmed, 
 but not so with the natives who inhabited it. Indeed, he 
 seems to have been impressed with America much as Bishop 
 Reginald Heber was, long afterwards, with India, and to have 
 exclaimed of his diocese, in the words of the latter dignitary : 
 
 " There every prospect pleases, 
 And only man is vile." 
 
 A few very brief extracts will give a sufficient idea both of 
 the spirit of his poem and of the otherwise than smoothness 
 of his versification. It is Weymouth itself, perhaps, that he 
 thus describes : 
 
 " The fruitfull and well watered earth doth glad 
 All hearts, when Flora 's with her spangles clad, 
 And yeelds an hundred fold for one, 
 To feede the bee and to invite the drone. 
 
 " There natures counties, though not planted are, 
 Great store and sorts of berries great and faire : 
 Trie filberd, cherry and the fruitful vine, 
 Which cheares the heart and makes it more divine. 
 Earth's spangled beauties pleasing smell and sight ; 
 Objects for gallant choice and chiefe delight. 
 
 " All ore that maine the vernant tress abound, 
 Where cedar, cypres, spruce and beech are found. 
 Ash, oake and wal-nut, pines and junipere; 
 The hasel, palme and hundred more are there. 
 Ther 's grasse and hearbs contenting man and beast, 
 On which both deare, and beares, and wolves do feast." 
 
 When he comes to deal with the noble savage, however, 
 his enthusiasm rapidly wanes : 
 
 " They 're wondrous cruell, strangely base and vile, 
 Quickly displeas'd, and hardly reconcil'd ; 
 
 " Whose hayre is cut with greeces, yet a locke 
 Is left ; the left side bound up in a kuott : 
 
 1 Ecclesiastical History of Massachusetts, I. Mass. Hist. Coll., v, 9, p. 6. 
 
 2 Both poem and translation are to be found in I. Mass. Hist. Coll., v. 1, p. 125. 
 
 4
 
 26 
 
 " Of body straight, tall, strong, mantled in skin 
 Of deare or bever, with the hayre-side in ; 
 
 
 
 " A kind ofpinsen keeps their feet from cold, 
 Which after travels they put off, up-fold, 
 Themselves they warme, their ungirt limbes they rest 
 In straw, and houses, like to sties : " 
 
 The Rev. William Morell, however, the next year (1624), 
 abandoned both the wilderness and the savages, returning to 
 England ; and with him Episcopacy, that exotic in New Eng- 
 land, withdrew for many years from these shores. The settle- 
 ment at Wey mouth was not for all that wholly broken up. 
 This statement now admits of conclusive proof; for while 
 previous to Robert Gorges' arrival at Weymouth the region 
 about Boston Bay had been wholly unoccupied, from that time 
 forward there is evidence of scattered plantations upon its 
 islands and along its shores. The Plymouth annals distinctly 
 state that some few of his people remained behind when he 
 withdrew, and were assisted from thence. 1 Two years later, 
 the next settlers in that vicinity find them still at Wessagus- 
 set. 2 Two years later yet they re-appear ,iu history, as we 
 shall presently see. In 1631, or three years later,' the persons 
 through whom the place thus re-appears take the oath as 
 freemen on the settlement of Boston. 3 In 1632, Governor 
 Winthrop visited Wessagusset and was liberally entertained 
 by those residing there. 4 The next year, the place is de- 
 scribed as a "small village"; 6 and finally, in 1636, it sends 
 as a deputy to the General Court one of those who had been 
 prominent in connection with events there in 1628. 6 There 
 is, therefore, but one year, 1624, unaccounted for, between 
 the Gorges' settlement and the incorporation of the town in 
 1635. But the evidence does not stop here. When Cap- 
 tain Gorges returned to England, the records of the Council 
 of New England state that he left his plantation in charge 
 of certain persons, who are referred to as "his servants, 
 and certain other Undertakers and Tenants." 7 Shortly 
 after, Robert Gorges died and his brother John succeeded to 
 
 1 Bradford, p. 154. * The New English Canaan, p. 84. 
 
 3 Records of Mass. v. 1, p. 30(5. < Savage's Winthrop v. 1, p. 91. 
 
 * Wood's New England's Prospect; Young's Chron. of Mass., p. 395. 
 Records of Mass. v. 1, pp. 174-9. ' Hazard's Hist. Coll., v. 1, p. 391.
 
 27 
 
 the grant. He undertook to convey a portion of it to one 
 John Olclham, and accordingly wrote to William Blackstone 
 and William Jeffries, two of the settlers on Boston Bay, to 
 put his grantee in possession. And now we come to a most 
 interesting point in connection with the earliest records of 
 Boston. When Winthrop and his company landed in 
 Charlestown in 1630, they found this William Blackstone 
 already settled on the opposite peninsula in what is now 
 Boston. 1 He had then been there some five or six years, but 
 how he got there or from whence has always been a mystery. 
 There he was, however. Now when John Gorges proposed 
 to make over to Oldham his brother's grant of land, he 
 naturally would have sent his directions to those " servants, " 
 " undertakers " or " tenants," who had been left in possession 
 of it by his brother. As a matter of fact he did send his in- 
 structions to Blackstone and Jeffries, and the last named then 
 was living at Wessagusset, while both were within the limits 
 of the patent. The inference is difficult to resist that both 
 had belonged to the Gorges settlement, that one had re- 
 mained on its site, while the other had moved away about a 
 year after Gorges left to a locality which pleased him better. 
 That Jeffries was settled at Wey mouth admits of no question, 
 for when that place next appears in the authentic records of 
 the time it is under a double name, both as Wessagusset 
 and as Jeffries and Burslems plantation. The whole chain 
 of connected evidence, therefore, not only tends to shew the 
 continuing settlement of Weymouth after September, 1623, 
 but it also establishes the strong presumption that Boston 
 itself was first occupied by a straggling recluse from Avhat 
 is now called the village of Old Spain. 
 
 The two hundred and fifty-first year of the consecutive 
 settlement of Weymouth will, therefore, as I conceive, be 
 completed during the month of September next ; nor can I 
 
 1 As respects Blackstone, see Young's Chron. of Mass. (p. 169), hut the best account 
 of this singular and interesting man is found in Bliss' History of Rehoboth. It is 
 another point of some importance as identifying Blackstone with the Gorges settle- 
 ment, that he had received episcopal ordination in England. //. Mass. Hist. Coll. 
 (v. 9, p. 174.) Now the Gorges settlement was a distinct and the only attempt to 
 plant episcopacy in early Massachusetts. Morcll and Blackstone were both educated 
 and studious men of somewhat similar cast of minds and thought. The obvious and 
 natural explanation of their presence in the wilderness would be that they came there 
 together, influenced by the same inducements.
 
 28 
 
 find any sufficient authority for the generally accepted state- 
 ment that an additional body of settlers arrived during the 
 year 1624, from the town of the same name in England, hav- 
 ing with them the Rev. Mr. Barnard, who died here after a 
 ministration of eleven years. 1 With the departure of Captain 
 Robert Gorges the Wessagusset settlement practically van- 
 ishes from the page of cotemporary history, only to re-appear 
 again four years later in connection with a very famous inci- 
 dent. By one authority only during the intervening time do 
 I find its name mentioned. Mr. Thomas Morton of Merry 
 Mount, he of cobbler atonement memory, refers to it as a 
 place to which he had recourse in winter " to have the benefit 
 of company"; 2 and he seems to have been upon tolerably 
 familiar terms with those living there, as several years after 
 he wrote to William Jefferies, addressing him as " My very 
 
 1 A statement to this effect has crept into the generally accepted accounts of the 
 settlement of Weymouth, on the high authority of Prince's Annals. Emery Memo- 
 rial, (p. 88.) The entry in Prince is at the close of 1624, and reads as follows : 
 " This Year comes some Addition to the few inhabitants of Wessagusset, from Wey- 
 mouth in England ; who are another sort of people than the Former (mst) [and on 
 whose Account I conclude the Town is since called Weymouth.] " To this entry the 
 compiler appended the following foot-note: "They have the Rev. Mr. Barnard their 
 first Non-conformist Minister, who dies among them : But whether He comes before 
 or after 1630, or when He Dies is yet unknown (mst) nor do I anywhere find the least 
 Hint of Him, but in the Manuscript Letters, -taken from some of the oldest People at 
 "Weymouth." Annals, (p. 150.) 
 
 Prince compiled his work more than a century after the events here alleged to 
 have taken place. He carefully gives his authority, as was his custom, for his state- 
 ment, and himself discredits it. It seems, so far as the date was concerned, to have 
 been a mere " oldest inhabitant " tradition, which wholly lacked corroboration by 
 the contemporaneous authorities. The party from Weymouth, in England, settled at 
 Dorchester in July, 1633 ; Prince, II. Mass. Hist. Coll. (v. 7, p. 96.) In 1635, Massa- 
 chiel Barnard, an elder not a minister, came out with the party mentioned by Win- 
 throp and in the Records of Massachusetts as being placed at Weymouth. This 
 party included not only the Rev. Mr. Hull, but the original bearers of several of the 
 names now most common in Weymouth, such as Bicknell, Lovell, Pool, Upham, 
 Porter, &c. See .V. E. Gen. Reg. (v. 25, p. 13.) It is safe to say that the date of 1624 
 given in Prince is wholly erroneous. If the permanent settlement of .Weymouth 
 does not belong to 1623, no precise date for it can be assigned ; but I cannot see any 
 room for doubt as to September, 1623. 
 
 The discovery, in 1870, of the names of those who came out with Mr. Hull, in 
 163o, is very important in the genealogy of Weymouth. It is singular to study in 
 the several lists of names which have at various times been made out the fate of the 
 families which bore them. Some, the Kings and Kingmans for instance, have never 
 increased, but are still perpetuated by single families in Weymouth ; others like Jef- 
 feries and Burslcy have disappeared ; while yet others, like the Bicknells, Frenches 
 and Lovells have increased amazingly. Lists of names found in the town at various 
 epochs are printed in the Appendix to the Address, with indications and figures shew- 
 ing the apparent increase or disappearance of the families. 
 
 2 New English Canaan, pp. 84, 86.
 
 29 
 
 good gossip." 1 These visits of Morton were made between 
 the years 1625 and 1628. Once only does he refer to the 
 place in connection with any clergyman, and then it is with 
 one notorious enough in the early annals, but of a different 
 stripe from what the Rev. Mr. Barnard is supposed to have 
 been. 2 With this single exception, Wessagusset, between 
 1623 and 1628, is referred to by the chroniclers of the day 
 only as included in several weak and scattered plantations. 
 In 1628, however, it again asserted an existence. It hap- 
 pened in this wise. The year after Captain Robert Gorges 
 had retired in disgust, a certain Captain Wollaston had made 
 his appearance in Boston Bay, in company with several asso- 
 ciates, bringing with him a party of hired people with a view 
 to establishing a permanent trading post. He selected, as best 
 adapted for his purpose, the rising ground over against Wes- 
 sagusset to the north, which in his honor was called Mount 
 Wollaston, the name by which it has ever since been known. 
 This spot had some time previously been the home of Chica- 
 tabot, the greatest sagamore of the neighborhood, by whom it 
 had been cleared of trees. 3 He, however, had abandoned it 
 some eight years before, at the time of the great plague. 
 Then, as now, that portion of the bay was very shallow, so 
 that ships could not ride near the shore, nor boats approach it 
 when the tide was out. There was, however, an abundance of 
 beaver in the vicinity, and here Wollaston's party established 
 itself. After a brief trial, however, Wollaston himself seems 
 to have liked the prospect no better than Captain Gorges, for 
 
 1 Hubbard, p. 428. 
 
 2 This was the Rev. John Lyford. A detailed account of the somewhat high 
 handed proceedings of the Plymouth authorities in regard to this individual and 
 John Oldham is found in Bradford's history. The ceremonial of Oldham's expulsion 
 from Plymouth was formal but peculiar. Morton gives the following account of it : 
 " A lane of Musketiers was made, and hee compelled in scorne to passe along 
 betweene, & to receave a bob upon the bumme be every musketier, and then a board 
 a shallop, and so convayed to Wessaguscus shoare & staid at Massachussets, to 
 whome lohn Lay ford and some few more did resort, where Master Lay ford freely 
 executed his office and preached every Lords day, and yat maintained his wife & 
 children foure or five, upon his industry there, with the blessing of God, and the 
 plenty of the Land, without the helpe of his auditory, in an honest and laudable 
 manner, till hee was wearied, and made to leave the Country." New English 
 Canaan (p. 81) ; see also Bradford ; (p. 190.) This took place early in 1625, but the 
 Oldham and Lyford settlement was at Hull, not at Wessagusset, and lasted but little 
 over a year; note to Bradford ; p. 195.) 
 
 3 Wood's New-England's Prospect; Young's Chron. of Mass., p. 395.
 
 30 
 
 he departed for Virginia with a portion of his company, leav- 
 ing the remainder behind in charge of a Mr. Rassdall, one of 
 his partners. Presently he summoned Rassdall to follow him 
 with yet others of the party, and one Mr. Fitcher was left in 
 command of the remainder. Among these was Mr. Thomas 
 Morton. This individual had a very well developed talent 
 for mischief, which speedily found room for exercise at the 
 expense of Lieutenant Fitcher, who was deposed from his 
 command, expelled from the settlement and left to shift for 
 himself with the aid of the neighboring settlers. Then 
 Mount Wollaston became Merry Mount, with Thomas Morton 
 for its presiding genius. According to all showing they seem 
 to have been a drunken, dissolute set, trading with the 
 savages for beaver-skins, holding very questionable relations 
 with the Indian women and generally leading a wild, reckless 
 existence on the bleak and well-nigh uninhabited New Eng- 
 land shore. Their house stood very near the present dwelling 
 of Mr. John Q. Adams, and they scandalized the whole coast 
 by erecting near it a May-pole, which Morton describes as 
 having been some eighty feet in height, with a pair of buck- 
 horns nailed to the top. Upon this pole the retired barrister 
 seems to have been in the custom of fastening copies of 
 verses of his own production, while he and his companions 
 conducted noisy revels about it. All this was bad enough 
 and sufficiently well calculated to stir the gall of the severe 
 elders of Plymouth. But the mischief did not stop here. 
 The business of this precious company, in the intervals of 
 merriment, was to trade ; and in conducting their business 
 they were by no means scrupulous. Liquor, fire-arms and 
 ammunition were freely exchanged for furs, and the unsophis- 
 ticated savage evinced a decided appreciation of the first and 
 a dangerous aptitude in the use of the last. Thus the solitary 
 settlers about Boston harbor soon found themselves in danger 
 of their lives, as they espied armed Indians prowling about 
 their habitations. The trade, however, was so profitable that 
 Morton, regardless of consequences, was preparing to develop 
 it on a larger scale when his neighbors met together and took 
 council one with another. The Mount Wollaston settlement 
 was, indeed, the first recorded instance of what in later Mas- 
 sachusetts history is technically known as "a liquor nuisance,"
 
 31 
 
 and the neighbors determined that considerations of ptiblic 
 safety required that it should be abated. Those were prim- 
 itive times. They enjoyed few of the advantages of our 
 more developed civilization, and while there were no ladies of 
 the vicinage to wait upon the then lord of Merry Mount in a 
 spirit of prayerful remonstrance, there was also no state con- 
 stabulary before whom the "rumseller" trembled and fled. 
 As the best substitute for these moral and legal agencies, and 
 after fruitless efforts at reform through written admonish- 
 ments which the carnal Morton received in a most unsatisfac- 
 tory spirit of contumely, the men of the vicinage called upon 
 the fathers of Plymouth. 1 These at once despatched the 
 redoubtable Miles Standish to the scene o trouble, with 
 directions to set matters to rights there once more, even as 
 he had done five years before in the days of Pecksuot. 
 Weymouth was the scene of a portion of the succeeding 
 operations, which were of a nature too delightfully humorous 
 to be told in any language except that of the actors and of 
 the time ; besides the accounts furnish a very beautiful illus- 
 tration of the discrepancies in authority which it becomes the 
 painful duty of the historian to reconcile. And first, Thomas 
 Morton shall tell his own story : 
 
 "They set upon my honest host (Morton) at a place, called 
 Wessaguscus, where (by accident) they found him. The 
 inhabitants there were in good hope, of the subvertion of the 
 plantation at Mare Mount (which they principally aymed at ;) 
 and the rather, because mine host was a man that indeavoured 
 to advance the dignity of the Church of England ; which they 
 ' (on the contrary part) would laboure to vilifie ; with uncivile 
 terms : enveying against the sacred booke of common prayer, 
 and mine host (Morton) that used it in a laudable manner 
 amongst his family, as a practise of piety. 
 
 "In breife, mine host (Morton) must indure to be their 
 prisoner, untill they could contrive it so, that they might send 
 him for England (as they said,) there to suffer according to 
 the merrit of the fact, which they intended to father upon 
 him. .... 
 
 1 Bradford's Letter Book, I. Mass. Hist. Coll., v. 3, p. 61.
 
 32 
 
 " Much rejoyciug was made that they had gotten their 
 cappitall enemy, . . . The Conspirators sported 
 themselves at my honest host (Morton), that meant them no 
 hurt ; and were so joccund that they feasted their bodies, and 
 fell to tippeling, as if they had obtained a great prize ; 
 Mine host (Morton) fained greefe : and could not be per- 
 s waded either to eate, or drinke, because hee knew emptines 
 would be a meanes to make him as watchfull as the Geese 
 kept in the Roman Cappitall : whereon the contrary part, the 
 conspirators would be so drowsy that hee might have an 
 opportunity to give them a slip, insteade of a tester. Six 
 persons of the conspiracy were set to watch him at Wessa- 
 guscus : But lie kept waking ; and in the dead of night (one 
 lying on the bed, for further suerty,) up gets mine Host 
 (Morton) and got to the second dore that hee was to passe 
 which (notwithstanding the lock) hee got open : and shut it 
 after him with such violence, that it affrighted some of the 
 conspirators. 
 
 " The word which was given with an alarme, was, 6 he 's gon, 
 he 's gon, what shall we doe, he 's gon? the rest (halfe a 
 sleepe) start up in a maze, and like rames, rantheire heads 
 one at another full butt in the darke. 
 
 "Their grand leader Captaine Shrimp (Standish) tooke on 
 most furiously, and tore his clothes for anger, to see the 
 empty nest, and their bird gone. The rest were eager to 
 have torne theire haire from theire heads, but it was so short, 
 that it would give them no hold : ... In the meane 
 time mine Host (Morton) was got home to Ma-re Mount 
 through the woods, eight miles, round about the head of the 
 river Monatoquit, that parted the two Plantations : finding 
 his way by the help of the lightening (for it thundered as he 
 went terribly). .... 
 
 "Now Captaine Shrimp (Standish) . . . takes 
 eight persons more to him, and they imbarque with prepara- 
 tion against Ma-re-Mount . . . Now the nine 
 Worthies are approached ; and mine Host (Morton) pre- 
 pared : having intelligence by a Salvage, that hastened in 
 love from Wessaguscus to give him notice of their intent. 
 The nine Worthies comming before the Demie 
 of this supposed Monster, (this seaveu headed hydra, as they
 
 33 
 
 termed him) and began like Don Quixote against the Wind- 
 mill to beate a party, and to offer quarter (if mine Host 
 (Morton) would yeald) . . . Yet (to save 
 
 the effusion of so much worthy bloud, as would have issued 
 out of the vayues of these 9. worthies of New Canaan, if mine 
 Host should have played upon them out at his port holes (for 
 they came within danger like a flocke of wild geese, as if 
 they had bin tayled one to another, as coults to be sold at a 
 faier) mine Host (Morton) was content to yeelde upon quar- 
 ter ; and did capitulate with them : But 
 mine Host (Morton) no sooner had set open the dore and 
 issued out: but instantly Captaine Shrimpe (Standish), and 
 the rest of the worties stepped to him, layd hold of his 
 armes ; and had him downe, and so eagerly was every man 
 bent against him (not regarding any agreement made with 
 such a carnall man) that they fell upon him, as if they would 
 have eaten him : 
 
 "Captaine Shrimpe (Standish) and the rest of the nine wor- 
 thies, made themselves (by this outragious riot) Masters of 
 mine Hoste (Morton) of Ma-re Mount, and disposed of what 
 hee had at his plantation." 1 
 
 So much for Mr. Thomas Morton's account of this " out- 
 ragious riot " ; now let us see what Captain Standish had to 
 say of 'the affair : 
 
 " So they resolved to take Morton by force. The which 
 accordingly was done ; but they found him to stand stifly in 
 his defence, having made fast his dors, armed his consorts, 
 set diverse dishes of powder & bullets ready on y e table ; 
 and if they had not been over armed with drinke, more hurt 
 might have been done. They soinaned him to yeeld, but he 
 kept his house, and they could gett nothing but scofes & 
 scorns from him ; but at length, fearing they would doe some 
 violence to y e house, he and some of his crue came out, but 
 not to yeelcl, but to shoote ; but they were so steeld with 
 drinke as their peeces were too heavie for them ; him selfe 
 with a carbine (over charged & allmost halfe fild with pow- 
 
 1 New English Canaan, p. 93.
 
 34 
 
 der & shote, as was after found) had thought to have shot 
 Captaine Standish ; but he stept to him, & put by his peece, 
 & tooke him. Neither was ther any hurte done to any of 
 either side, save y* one was so drunke y* he rane his own nose 
 upon y e pointe of a sword y 1 one held before him as he entred 
 y e house ; but he lost but a litle of his hott blood." 1 
 
 Whichever of these widely divergent accounts is the more 
 correct, upon one point they both concur, and that is, after 
 all, the vital point, that Morton was arrested, carried to Plym- 
 outh and presently sent to England ; while the Wollaston 
 settlement was practically broken up, the liquor nuisance 
 abated and the trade in fire arms and ammunition stopped. 
 Peace and security were thus once more restored to Wes- 
 sagusset, through the agency of Miles Standish. Nor were 
 these blessings won at any unreasonable price, as the whole 
 cost of the expedition was computed at 12 7s., of which 
 sum 2 was assessed on the settlers at Wessagusset, and 
 2 10s. on the Plymouth colony. 2 
 
 The destruction of the May-pole at Merry Mount took place 
 in the early days of June, 1628, and just two years later 
 Governor Winthrop arrived in Boston harbor and the con- 
 secutive annals of the Massachusetts Bay began. It is yet 
 
 i Bradford, p. 241. 
 
 - This apportionment is derived from Governor Bradford's Letter-Book. Seel. Mass. 
 Hist. Coll. (v. 3, p. 63.) In his history (p. 241) he speaks of " Weesagascusett" as 
 being one of the plantations concerned, but the apportionment is made as " From Mr. 
 Jeffrey and Mr. Burslem." These names have given the antiquarians a great deal of 
 trouble, and they have generally assigned them to Cape Ann; Savage's Winthrop (v. 1, 
 p. 44, n.) ; Young's Chron. of Mass. (p. 171, n.), or even to the Isle of Shoals ; Drake's 
 Boston (p. 50). They all confound William Jefleries of Weymouth with Thomas 
 Jeffrey of Ipswich. Dr. Young does this in a most extraordinary manner, confusing 
 them even while giving the correct name of one in his text, and of the other in the 
 running title of the same page. Chron. of Mass. (p. 171). When Savage prepared 
 his notes to Winthrop the MS. of Bradford had not been recovered, and he had not 
 examined the New English Canaan carefully in reference to Weymouth. He seems 
 to have been satisfied that the second settlement at Weymouth had been wholly 
 broken up in 1624, Notes to Winthrop, (pp. 43, 93), and sought to place Jeffrey and 
 Burslem elsewhere. There cannot be the slightest doubt that they lived at Wessagus- 
 set from before 1628. Both names are now extinct at Weymouth, though I find in 
 the Records of the town a Jeffery in 16.51 (see p. 70), and also a mention of one John 
 Jeffcrs (Aug. 18, 1777), as a soldier who enlisted in Arnold's Canada campaign during 
 the Revolution. Both were made freemen at early dates : Burslem was a deputy 
 from the town in 1636, and it was to Jefferies that Morton wrote as to his "good gos- 
 sip," in 1634. It was to him and to Blackstone that John Gorges wrote in 1629 in 
 regard to putting Oldharn in possession of the Gorges grant. Young's Chron. of Mass. 
 (pp. 51, 147, 169.)
 
 35 
 
 another two years, however, before we again meet with a 
 mention of Weymouth, still under its Indian name. In 
 August, 1632, Governor Winthrop, in company with the 
 Rev. Mr. Wilson and other notables, took ship at Boston and 
 landed at Wessagusset ; and thence the succeeding day the 
 distinguished party started on foot for Plymouth, completing 
 their journey by night. Six days later, on the 31st of the 
 same month, they returned ; leaving Plymouth at five in the 
 morning and reaching Wessagusset in the evening, where they 
 passed the night, and finished their journey next morning by 
 water. 1 We have Governor Winthrop's authority for the 
 assertion that, both going and returning, they were here most 
 hospitably feasted on the turkeys, geese and ducks of the 
 neighborhood. 2 Two years later again Wessagusset was 
 summoned by the General Court to assume charge of one 
 of its pauper inhabitants, who had seen fit to fall ill at Dor- 
 chester; 3 and in 1635 the Court established a commission to 
 fix the boundary line between what are now Braiutree and 
 Weymouth, then Mt. Wollaston and Wessagusset. Thus 
 through eleven years, from 1624 to 1635, the early settlers 
 of Weymouth only occasionally emerge from the oblivion 
 of the past and are dimly shadowed on the mirror of New 
 England history. But now, at last, in the year 1635, Wes- 
 sagusset was by the order of the General Court made a 
 plantation under the name of Weymouth, and the Rev. Mr. 
 Hull, with twenty-one families from England, were allowed to 
 establish themselves here. 4 Why the name of Weymouth was 
 adopted I do not find recorded : it may well have been that the 
 Rev. Mr. Hull and his party came from that place in the old 
 country, but there does not appear to be any ground for 
 asserting such to have been the fact. 5 With Mr. Hull, how- 
 ever, began the long succession of clergymen who ministered 
 
 1 Savage's Winthrop, v. 1, p. 192. 
 
 2 In 1633 Wessagusset was thus described : " This as yet is but a small village ; yet 
 it is very pleasant, and healthful, very good ground, and is well timbered, and hath 
 good store of hay-ground. It hath a very spacious harbour for shipping before 
 the town, the salt water being navigable for boats and pinnaces two leagues. Here 
 the inhabitants have good store of fish of all sorts, and swine, having acorns and 
 clams at the time of year. Here is likewise an ale-wife river." Wood's Neic-Englands 
 Prospect ; Young's Chron. of Mass. (p. 394) . 
 
 3 This man is mentioned as " late servant of John Burslyn." Records of Mass. 
 (p. 121.) 
 
 4 Savage's Winthrop, v. 1, p. 163. Records of Mass. pp. 156-7. 
 
 5 Proceedings of Mass. Hist. Soc., 1873, p. 396.
 
 36 
 
 to the old first parish, of whom the present incumbent is the 
 thirteenth. In the earlier days of New England the pastor- 
 ates marked epochs in the history of the towns, much as do 
 the reigns of kings and queens in European annals. Nor 
 indeed were certain of the Weymouth pastorates brief in point 
 of time, for two of thetn covered the long period of one 
 entire century. 
 
 To return, however, to the political history of the town ; in 
 the same year (1635) in which it was created a plantation, 
 Weymouth was also authorized to send a deputy to the 
 General Court. The next year three deputies made their 
 appearance instead of one ; but, considering the size of the 
 place they represented, the delegation with becoming 
 modesty requested that two of their number might be dis- 
 missed, and accordingly Messrs. Bursley and Upham received 
 leave to withdraw. 1 From that time forward, through a space 
 of one hundred and thirty years, the political history of Wey- 
 mouth moved uneventfully along, a portion of that of the 
 Province, rendered noticeable only by some question of 
 boundaries, or by fines imposed on account of the badness 
 of highways or the insufficiency of the watch-house or careless- 
 ness in checking the roving propensities of swine, or by the 
 division of a whale found stranded on its shore, or some other 
 equally trifling incident of municipal government. The tax- 
 collector made his annual visits, and his records seem to 
 show that, as compared with others, the town during its 
 earlier years was neither populous nor wealthy. Its propor- 
 tion was in the neighborhood of one-fiftieth part of the whole 
 amount levied on the colony, ranging from 4 to 10 each 
 year ; but in 1637 came the Pequod War, and during that 
 year Weymouth was assessed for 27 in a total levy of 
 1,500. The town could not even then be said to rank high 
 on the assessors' books, being thirteenth in a list of fourteen. 
 As respects population during the first half century of the 
 existence of Weymouth, there is small material on which to 
 form an estimate. In 1637 a levy of one hundred and sixty 
 men was made to carry on the Pequod War ; of these Wey- 
 mouth furnished five as her contingent. Under the system 
 of computation adopted by the highest authority 2 this would 
 
 1 Records of Mass. v. 1, p. 179. Palfrey, v. 2, p. 5.
 
 37 
 
 indicate a total of about five hundred souls, which I am in- 
 clined to think was not far from the true number. During 
 the next century and a quarter the increase was very slow, 
 so that in 1776 the population but little exceeded 1,400;* 
 indeed, it may be said that during the century and a half 
 which succeeded the Pequod War the increase of the town in 
 numbers scarcely exceeded one-half of one per cent a year. 
 To the Weymouth of to-day, with its population of 10,000 
 souls, 1,400, and much less 500, seems a somewhat sparse 
 settlement. It did not so impress the first inhabitants. On 
 the contrary, in 1642 the townspeople of those days thought 
 themselves so numerous as to render expedient the removal of 
 a portion of their number to a new settlement. This was 
 accordingly determined on, and the Rev. Mr. Newman, the 
 clergyman of the time, to prevent all dispute, offered either 
 to go or to remain as his parishioners should decide. A vote 
 was taken, which resulted in favor of the removing party ; 
 with them, therefore, he cast in his lot at the place selected 
 for their settlement, to which the pastor gave the name of 
 Rehoboth, which it still bears. In later years other and 
 larger migrations took place, first to Easton and subsequently 
 to Abington, thus accounting for the slow movement of popu- 
 lation in the mother town, which, indeed, between 1740 and 
 1780 rather tended to diminish than to increase. This con- 
 dition 1 of affairs, however, in no way disturbed the inhabitants. 
 On the contrary, four years after the Rehoboth secession, the 
 town records under the date of April 6, 1646, contain this 
 singular entry, with the significant words " Stand "Good," 
 written against it in the margin : 
 
 "Whereas we find by sad experience the great inconvenience 
 that many times it comes to pass by the permitting of strangers 
 to come into the plantation pretending only to sojourn for a 
 
 1 See the sketch of the town of Weymouth, written by Dr. Cotton Tufts, and 
 printed in 1785 in Topographical Descriptions of the Towns in the County of Suffolk, 
 and of Charlestoicn in the County of Middlesex. A manuscript copy of this sketch 
 was very kindly placed at my disposal in the preparation of this address by J. J. 
 Loud, Esq., of Weymouth, with other material for a history of Weymouth, which 
 it is to be regretted Mr. Loud does not himself propose to prepare. A copy of 
 the compilation of which Cotton Tufts' sketch was a part is in the library of the 
 Massachusetts Historical Society, bound with other documents under the title of 
 " Gookin and Geography." 
 
 433019
 
 38 
 
 season, but afterwards they have continued a while account 
 themselves inhabitants with us, and so challeng to them- 
 selves all such priviledges and immunity s as others do enjoy, 
 who notwithstanding are of little use to advance the public 
 good, but rather many times are troublesome and prove a 
 burden to the plantation, the premises considered, together 
 with the straightness of the place, the number of the people, 
 and the smallness of the trade we yet have amongst us, we 
 the townsmen whose names are subscribed for the prevention 
 of this and the like inconveneucys, have thought good to 
 present to consideration the insuing order to be voted by the 
 whole Towne to stand in force as long as they in wisdome 
 shall see just cause. 
 
 " First that no inhabitant within this plantation shall pre- 
 sume to take into his house as an inmate, or servant, any per- 
 son or persons, unless he shall give sufficient bonds, to defray 
 the plantation of what damage may ensue thereuppon, or be 
 as covenant servant, and that for one year at the least with-' 
 out leave first had and obtayned from the whole Towne at some 
 of their public meetings, under the penalty of 5 shillings a 
 week as long as hee shall continue in the breach of this order, 
 to be levied by the constable or other officer, and delivered to 
 the townsmen for the time being, to be improved for the use 
 and benefit of the towne. Also it is further agreed upon by 
 and with the consent of the whole town that no person or 
 persons within this plantation shall lett or sell any house, or 
 land, to any person or persons that is not an inhabitant 
 amongst us, untill he hath first made a tender of it to the 
 Towne., at a trayning or some lecture day or other public 
 
 meeting." 
 
 
 
 And to show that this was not a mere empty threat, it is but 
 necessary to turn to this other record of thirty-eight years 
 later, April 30th, 1684 : 
 
 " At a Meeting of the Selectmen they passed a warrant to 
 the Constable John Pratt as followeth : 
 
 " To the Constable of Weymouth 
 
 "You are hereby required in his Majesty s name forthwith 
 to distrain upon the Estate of Joseph Poole to the value of
 
 39 
 
 five shillings which is for the breach of town order for enter- 
 taining of Sarah Downing one week contrary to town order, 
 and so from week to week as long as the said Joseph Poole 
 shall entertaine the said Sarah Downing. Dated Aprill 30 th 
 1684. Signed in the name and by the order of the Select- 
 men. SAMUEL WHITE." 1 
 
 Not unnaturally, therefore, with continual migrations of its 
 people taking place, and with the advent of new population 
 sternly discouraged, the growth of Weymouth was slow. 
 Nevertheless, grow it did, and it prospered. I have spoken 
 of the long interval of one hundred and twenty-five years 
 between 1640 and 1765, an interval which includes one-half 
 of the entire history of the town, as a single period. As such 
 it can best be treated, for with Weymouth, as with most 
 other New England towns, it was the time of slow growth, 
 the long period of infancy. It was marked by few events of 
 importance. In 1676 the terror of King Philip's war swept 
 over Weymouth, as it did over all the other outlying settle- 
 ments of the colony. That was by far the most cruel ordeal 
 through which Massachusetts has ever passed, one, of the 
 deep agony of which it is not easy for us, removed from it 
 by two hundred years of time, to form even a dim concep- 
 tion. I shall not pause to dilate upon it here, though, in a 
 far less degree, it is true, than many of her sister settlements, 
 Weymouth then tasted the horrors of savage warfare. 
 Women were slaughtered and houses were burned within her 
 limits, and the losses she sustained were sufficiently severe to 
 induce the General Court to allow the abatement of a portion 
 of her tax. Again she was called upon to furnish her con- 
 tingent of soldiers, who doubtless played their part manfully 
 enough at the storming of Nftrragansett Fort. 2 Indeed, in 
 every warlike ordeal through which Massachusetts has been 
 called to pass, from the first struggle of Miles Standish, in 
 1624, to the great rebellion, two hundred and forty years 
 later, the ancient town may fairly claim that she has con- 
 tributed of her blood with no stinting hand. 
 
 1 See, also, a similar order of January 19, 1685. 
 
 2 There were thirteen Weymouth men in Captain Johnson's company employed 
 against the Indians in October, 1675. Vinton Memorial (p. 50, n.)
 
 40 
 
 But the war of King Philip was ended, and again Wey- 
 mouth lapsed into the old, quiet, steady, uneventful life. 
 During the next ninety years I doubt if anything more 
 momentous occurred within her limits than the burning of 
 the town meeting-house, in 1751. That, however, was a 
 very remarkable year, one still borne in painful recollec- 
 tion, the saddest in the whole history of Weymouth. It 
 has indeed left its mark on the records, Avhere, under date of 
 May 21st, 1752 in the town meeting that day held, it was 
 
 "Voted to send no representative this present year on 
 account of the great charge of building a Meeting-house, and 
 the extraordinary Sickness that has prevailed in the town in 
 the year past." 
 
 The meeting-house was burned on the 23d of April, and 
 its destruction was impressed on the recollection of those 
 living in the vicinity by a special circumstance. The fathers 
 of the town had seen fit to utilize the loft over the church as 
 a magazine, and in it was stored the supply of town powder 
 to the very respectable amount of three barrels. Naturally, 
 at the proper moment, this brought the conflagration to a 
 crisis, making, as Parson Smith, the clergyman of the period, 
 has recorded, " a surprising noise when it blew up." The 
 event has also been celebrated in contemporaneous verse by 
 Paul Torrey, the village Milton : 
 
 " Our powder stock, kept under lock, 
 
 AVith flints .and bullets were, 
 By dismal blast soon swiftly cast 
 Into the open air." 
 
 The poet also intimates grave suspicions as to the origin of 
 the fire, and indeed hints at a personal knowledge of the 
 incendiaries, suggesting very radical measures for their detec- 
 tion and extirpation : 
 
 " O range and search in every arch, 
 
 And cellar round about ; 
 Search low and high, with hue and cry, 
 To find those rebels out. 
 
 " I'm satisfy'd they do reside, 
 
 Some where within the Town ; 
 
 Therefore no doubt, you'll find them out, 
 
 By searching up and down.
 
 41 
 
 " On trial them we will condemn, 
 
 The sentence we will give ; 
 Them execute without dispute, 
 Not being fit to live." * 
 
 History does not record any satisfactory result as attending 
 the poet's search, but in the succeeding year he was tuning 
 his lyre to sing the dedication of a new and more com- 
 modious edifice, erected in place of that which had been 
 destroyed. But the other disaster which made memorable 
 the year 1751 was far more terrible than the destruction of 
 any building the work of human hands. The year was 
 marked by a veritable slaughter of the innocents. Death 
 stalked through the town. Between May, 1751, and May, 
 1752, a terrible throat distemper so raged among the chil- 
 dren as to amount almost to a pestilence. In October, 1751, 
 alone, thirty died, and in all there perished some one hun- 
 dred and twenty. Out of a population of only twelve hun- 
 dred, no less than one hundred and fifty persons died in the 
 town during that twelvemonth. 2 During the succeeding year 
 the disease gradually disappeared, and has since been almost 
 unknown in Weymouth. Rarely, indeed, however, even in 
 times of plague, has the death-rate exceeded that of Wey- 
 mouth in 1751-2. 
 
 Broken here and there by such episodes as these, the life of 
 the little settlement flowed on in the general even tenor of its 
 way through the lives of four generations of its children. It 
 was an existence which we now find it difficult to picture. 
 Living as we do in the hurry and bustle of the modern 
 worldf having the record of human life in both hemispheres 
 daily spread before us, moving with ease over two con- 
 tinents in the neighborhood of cities and libraries and gal- 
 leries and theatres, belonging to a civilization enriched with 
 all the accumulated wealth of centuries, accustomed our- 
 selves to large affairs and dealing in millions where in the 
 olden time they talked but of thousands, we, in the year 
 1874, can hardly stand here, and, looking around from King- 
 
 1 Paul Torrey's curious efforts at versification were printed in 1811, in the appen- 
 dix to a discourse of the Rev. Jacob Norton. The author tells us that they were de- 
 signed " to preserve the memory of these remarkable things to future posterity." 
 
 2 Sketch of "Weymouth, by Dr. Cotton Tufts. The usual death-rate was sixteen a 
 year. 
 
 6
 
 42 
 
 Oak Hill picture to ourselves the life led in its neighbor- 
 hood a century and a half ago. To the intense lover of nature, 
 it is true, Weymouth probably then bore a more attractive 
 aspect than now it does, for nature had lavished its gifts upon 
 it with no sparing hand. Eastward the green islands studded 
 the bay, round which the sea sparkled with waters rarely 
 vexed by the keel and never beaten by the paddle, to the 
 north the town of Boston was hidden from sight as it nestled 
 at the feet of its hills, to the west the Blue Hills loomed up 
 in their soft, misty beauty even as they do to-day, they alone 
 unchanged, to the south stretched away the more level 
 forest laud in which the beautiful Weymouth ponds lay 
 quietly imbedded in their native framework of virgin green, 
 while around their shores the wolf still lurked and the swift 
 der bounded. No long rows of piles then broke the swift 
 tide as it ebbed and flowed in the Fore River, no tall chim- 
 neys belched out black smoke on the eastern limit of the 
 town, no phosphate factory at the foot of the Great Hill 
 poisoned the sweet native atmosphere, but the waves rippled 
 on the beach, and rose and fell amid the haunts of the seal 
 and the sea-fowl, even as they did when Thomas Morton of 
 Merry Mount thus described the land : " And when I had 
 more seriously considered of the bewty of the place, with all 
 her faire indowments, I did not thinke that in all the knowne 
 world it could be paralel'd. For so many goodly groues of 
 trees ; dainty fine round rising hillucks : delicate faire large 
 plaines, sweete cristall fountaines, and cleare running streames, 
 that twine in fine meanders through the meads, making so 
 sweete a murmering noise to heare, as would even hill the 
 sences with delight a sleepe, so pleasantly doe, they glide 
 upon the pebble stones, jetting most jocundly where they 
 doe mcotc ; and hand in hand runne downe to Neptunes Court, 
 to pay the yearely tribute, which they owe to him as soveraigne 
 Lord of all the springs." 1 
 
 During the early days of the settlement the township was 
 covered with a natural growth of timber, in which the oak, 
 the elm, the chestnut, the ash, the pine and the cedar were 
 mingled ; and through many years the town records bear 
 frequent trace of the jealous care with which the townsmen 
 
 1 New English Canaan, p. 41.
 
 43 
 
 preserved this great source of beauty and of wealth. 1 As 
 timber, however, became more valuable the forests were 
 encroached upon, until in the third quarter of the last century 
 they had been well nigh destroyed. But, during the earlier 
 years, as one stood on King-Oak Hill, the whole broad pan- 
 orama must have appeared an almost unbroken wilderness of 
 wooded hill and dale, and azure sea and verdant shore ; while 
 here and there, few and far between, could have been discerned 
 the rude belfry of a colonial church; or the long, brown, slop- 
 ing roof and hard angular front of some farmer's house, sur- 
 rounded by barns and buildings more unsightly than itself, 
 protruded its ugliness amidst the open fields upon which the 
 cattle grazed or the ripening harvest waved. Wey mouth was 
 not settled, as were many other towns, with a view to village 
 life, while outlying farms stretched away to the outskirts of the 
 township, here every free-holder seems to have dwelt upon 
 his land. The church and the burying ground were the natural 
 centres of the olden town, but no village then or now has 
 ever gathered about them. Even as late as 1780 there were 
 but about some two hundred houses in all scattered over the 
 whole surface of Weymouth, and these were of the plainest, 
 simplest sort. 2 
 
 The men and women who dwelt in them were in great 
 degree cut off from the whole outer world : at least we would 
 think so now. The roads were few and bad ; the chief one, 
 still known as Queen Ann's turnpike, is said to have received 
 its name, not from the sovereign of the loyal colonies, but 
 from the hostess of a little "four corner" inn upon it, who was 
 always known by that royal title. 3 Queen Ann's turnpike 
 was the direct road between Boston and Plymouth, but the 
 time of which I speak was long before the stage-coach era, 
 and the Weymouth man, whom business called to Boston, 
 
 1 " Whosoever shall presume to fell or kill or top any tree or trees (after publica- 
 tion hereof or notice given) which growes before his owne or his neighbours Dore, or 
 that stands in any place upon the commons or highwayes which may be for the 
 shaddow either of man or beast or shelter to any house or otherwise for any public 
 use every person so offending shall he lyable to pay for every such tree so feld, topt, 
 or kild 20s. to the Town's use." Records, February 1st, 1867. 
 
 2 Sketch of Weymouth, by Dr. Cotton Tufts. 
 
 3 This and some other facts I state on the authority of Mrs. Maria W. Chapman, 
 of Weymouth, who very kindly furnished me with much local information which has 
 not heretofore found its way into print.
 
 44 
 
 went by water, or drove or walked there over Milton Hill 
 and Roxbury Neck. Nor was that journey to Boston then 
 devoid of danger. Early in the last century, for instance, 
 it is traditionally stated that a party, including two of the 
 principal citizens of Weymouth, while returning by water 
 home from Boston, were overtaken by a snow-storm and 
 wrecked on one of the islands in the bay ; all perished, it is 
 said, save Captain Alexander Nash and a negro servant, 
 through whose devotion his life was saved. 1 If the tradition 
 be true it should be added that Captain Nash's descendants in 
 the present century have repaid the debt due to their ances- 
 tors' slave by long and eminent services in the emancipation of 
 his race. But the story at least illustrates the distance then 
 existing between Boston and Weymouth, * a distance greater 
 for every practical purpose than that now existing between 
 Weymouth and New York. 
 
 Between Old Spain and Quincy Point, or Wessagusset and 
 Mount Wollaston as they then were called, a ferry was 
 authorized as earlv as 1635, and the rate of ferriage was fixed 
 
 v O 
 
 at a penny for each person and at threepence for each horse ; 
 two years later this rate was raised and the ferryman of the 
 day was licensed to keep a house of call. But so far as the 
 whole great outer world was concerned, the earlier dwellers 
 in Weymouth were, through four generations, what we should 
 consider as entombed alive. There was no newspaper, 
 there was no system of public transportation, there was no 
 regular post, between the colonies themselves there was 
 little occasion for intercourse, and Europe was months re- 
 moved. Those freemen who were elected deputies attended 
 the sessions of the General Court ; and now and then the 
 clergyman or the magistrate took part in some solemn con- 
 clave of his brethren at the capital or in a neighboring 
 town. Of the young men, a few went with the fishing fleet 
 to Cape Sables, or sailed on trading voyages to the West 
 Indies or to Spain, thus catching glimpses of the outer world ; 
 but it may well be questioned whether any Weymouth-born 
 woman ever laid eyes on the shores of the mother country 
 
 1 Mrs. Chapman's MS. ; and sec Savage's Winthrop, v. 1, p. 286. 
 " "The distance by land from Boston to the confines of the town is 14 miles." 
 Sketch by Dr. Cotton Tufts.
 
 45 
 
 during the first hundred and sixty years of the settlement of 
 the town. 
 
 The men and women of those five generations were a poor, 
 hard-working, sombre race, rising early and working late, 
 laboriously earning their bread by the sweat of their brows. 
 There were no labor reformers then. The men worked in the 
 fields, the women in the house : the first tended the flocks, or 
 planted and gathered the harvest ; the last busied themselves 
 in the dairy and the kitchen, or at the spinning-wheel and the 
 wash-tub. It is a tradition of the daughter of Parson Smith 
 that with her own hands she scrubbed the floor of her bed- 
 room the afternoon before her eldest son, John Quincy 
 Adams, was born. There was no nonsense at least about 
 that people ; every one had work to do, and no one, gentle or 
 simple, was above his work. 
 
 For years there was a single school in the town, and the 
 teacher was annually engaged by a vote in the town-meeting. 1 
 Subsequently his teaching was divided, the north precinct 
 receiving eight months of his time and the south four ; but 
 this arrangement not proving satisfactory, the money raised 
 for support of schools was finally divided between the pre- 
 cincts in proportion to their tax, and they were left to apply 
 
 1 " At a Generall Town Meeting of the inhabitants of Weymouth the 24th of June, 
 1689." 
 
 " The Town past a vote that "William Chard is to serve as Town Clerk." 
 
 " At a meeting of the Selectmen upon the first day of July 1689 Agreed with Mr. 
 Chard to Ring the Bell & Sweep the Meeting-house to begin the 6th daye of July, 
 and for the time that he performs that work he is to have after the rate of forty shill- 
 ings a year in money or three pounds in town pay." 
 
 " At a Meeting of the freeholders of the town of Weymouth the 13th day of July 
 1694." 
 
 " The Towne past a vote they will have a publique School-master." 
 
 " At a meeting legally warned for the Inhabitants of the town of Weymouth upon 
 the first of October 1694 to treat concerning a School-master, and it was voted that 
 Mr. Chard should serve as School-master from the date abovesaid till the last of 
 March next ensuing the date hereof, & provided Mr. Chard doe faithfully perform 
 the office of School-master, that is to teach & instruct all children & youth belong- 
 ing to the town in reading & writing & casting of accounts according to the 
 capacitie of those that are sent to him, and according to his own abillitie : under this 
 consideration the town have past a vote upon the aforesaid first of October that Mr. 
 Chard shall have for his sallary for the half year above expressed six pounds in or as 
 money to be levied upon the severall Inhabitants according to proportion by a town 
 rate." 
 
 The next year (1695) , William Chard was again engaged at five shillings a week, 
 but in 1696 an arrangement was made with Mr. John Copp at 30 a year. The salary 
 of the pastor at this time was " 108 16s. in goods alias money 68" (about 225).
 
 46 
 
 it each in its own way. But for us it is most curious to see 
 through all these years how small were the expenses of the 
 town and how large a proportion of the annual tax was 
 applied to education. In the last century, before the War of 
 Independence destroyed all measure of value, 120 ($420) 
 of the old tenor, so called, was the average annual levy, and 
 of this five-sixths went to the support of the schools. Ex- 
 penditures on other accounts were necessarily very small. 
 Until the year 1760 the highways were repaired by the labor of 
 the people of the town, who, for this purpose, appear to have 
 been equally assessed. As, however, the disparity in wealth 
 became greater and this burden heavier, the system was 
 changed, and in 1760 every person paying a poll-tax was 
 called on for a day's labor, which was assessed at 2s. Id. (35 
 cents), and those who also paid property taxes were further 
 called on for as many additional day's labor as 2s. Id. were 
 contained in the amount of their property tax. 1 The sparsely 
 settled character of the town obviated all necessity of a fire 
 department, though an entry in the records as early as 1651 
 gives a curious glimpse into the habits and dangers of a com- 
 munity before the blessed invention of lucifer matches. An 
 order was then made by the selectmen, in consideration of 
 "the great loss and damage that many & many a time doth 
 fall out in this Towne by fire ", and because " no effort has been 
 made to restrayne the carringe abroad of fiery sticks . 
 in mens hands, which is exceeding dangerous especially when 
 the wind is high," in view of these facts the town fathers, 
 under a penalty of twenty shillings for each offence, proceeded 
 to forbid any one between March and November from trans- 
 porting " any fire from one place to another than in a pot or 
 other vessell fit for such a purpose and close covered." 2 Until 
 the present century, however, this ordinance seems to have 
 been regarded as sufficient protection against the dangers of 
 conflagration, thus cutting off that heavy item of modern 
 town expenses ; while, so far as salaries were concerned, 
 volumes are contained in the following clause with which the 
 vote of 1651, defining the duties and powers of the selectmen, 
 closed ; "Sixthly Wee willingly grant they shall have their 
 
 1 Records : 10th March, 1760. John Adams' Works, vol. 2, p. 118. 
 
 2 Records, p. 56.
 
 47 
 
 Dynners uppon the Towne's charge when they meet about the 
 Towns affayres." 1 
 
 The town government of those days was, indeed, the sim- 
 plest government conceivable. There were the clergyman, 
 for parish and town were one, the school-master, the select- 
 men, the deputy, the constable and the pound-keeper. In 
 the earliest days it was even simpler yet than this, for fre- 
 quent meetings of the whole town were called. But even 
 then it was speedily found that this led to abuses, 2 and, in 
 1651, a system of two regular town meetings in each year 
 was adopted, and the powers of the selectmen were specifi- 
 cally defined. 3 The continuous record of these meetings 
 through more than a century, at once reveals the slow, un- 
 conscious growth of a great political system, and supplies the 
 amplest evidence of the sameness of a colonial village life. 
 To the student in the science of government these volumes of 
 the Weymouth town records are replete with interest. In 
 them the growth of a system from the root up may be studied. 
 As an observing man turns over the ill-spelt, almost illegi- 
 ble pages, they grow luminous in their bearing on many of 
 the most distressing problems of the age. As Gibbon, from 
 an experience among the yeoman militia of England, derived 
 
 1 Records : 26th November, 1651. 
 
 2 The " rautifariousness " of such meetings " occacions the neglect of appearance of 
 many whereby things [are] many times carried on by a few in which many or all are 
 concerned which often makes the legality of such proceedings to be questioned," it 
 was therefore voted to thereafter have two regular town meeting in each year in 
 March and November. Records, 1650 (p. 56). 
 
 a " At a meeting of the Town the 26 th of the 9 th mo*" (November) 1651. 
 
 " The power that the Towne of Weymouth committeth into the hands of the Select- 
 men for this present year ensueing 1651. 
 
 " First. Wee give them power to make such orders as may be for the preservation 
 of our intrests in lands & come & grass & Wood & Timber, that none be trans- 
 ported out of the Towns Commons. 
 
 " Secondly. They shall have power to see that all orders made by the Generall 
 Court shall be observed and also all such orders that are or shal be made which the 
 Towne shall not repeale at their meetinge in the first month. 
 
 " Thirdly. It shal be lawful for them to take course that dry Cattle be hearded in 
 the woods except calves & Yearlings & that they provide Bulls both for the Cowcs & 
 dry Cattle. 
 
 "Fourthly. They may issue out all such rates as the Towns occasions shall 
 require & see that they be gathred, that a due account may be given of them. 
 
 " Fifthly. They may satisfy all graunts provided they satisfy them in due order, 
 and not within two miles of the Meeting-house. 
 
 " Sixthly. Wee willingly grant they shall have their Dynners uppon the Towns 
 charge when they meete about the Towns afiayres." Records.
 
 48 
 
 a certain comprehension of the legionaries of Rome, so the 
 early records of the New England towns make it most 
 manifest to us why the horrors of 1793, and the later ex- 
 cesses of the Commune, are possible in France, and why noth- 
 ing other than a republic is now possible in New England. 
 In these records we see parliamentary institutions stripped of 
 their non-essentials and reduced to first principles ; we see 
 that the New England town-meeting democracy was the purest 
 and simplest government of the people, for the people, which 
 the world has yet produced. Here is a perfect equality, con- 
 trolled by an almost iron law of usage. Year after year every 
 question of common concernment is settled in general town- 
 meeting by a vote of the majority, after a free and full dis- 
 cussion, conducted in perfect deference to a rude parliamen- 
 tary law. The greater number rules, but the minority ever 
 asserts its rights, which are always freely conceded. The pro- 
 tests of the contra dicentes make a part of the records ; the final 
 appeal is made to the courts of law ; the idea of an ultimate 
 resort to force is never even suggested, much less discussed. 
 Thus, through our town records, we are made to realize that 
 republican government is in New England a product of the soil 
 and not an exotic, in France it is a graft, with us it is the stem. 
 The growth of this germ from the town-meeting to the Gen- 
 eral Court, from the General Court to the Continental Congress, 
 and from that to the Government of the United States, and 
 thence back to the great cardinal fact of force, all this is for 
 others to trace. Meanwhile, here to-day, we stand on a rec- 
 ord of two hundred and fifty years of pure democracy, the 
 deep, underlying tap-root of whatever is good in America. 
 And indeed that record relates not to great things. It tells 
 us of the daily life of our fathers. It deals not with theories, 
 but with practical issues. The earlier generations did not 
 realize that they were evolving a system, when they made 
 regulations for the preservation of the town timber and the 
 use of its common grounds ; to check the roving propensities 
 of its hogs, and to prescribe the liberty of the rams or the 
 number of the parish bulls. Yet such was the fact, and the 
 whole developed system of our National Government of to- 
 day may be read in little in the Weyuiouth town records of 
 over a century past. To-day's jealousy of the foreign pro-
 
 49 
 
 ducer is there evinced towards those inhabiting the neighbor- 
 ing towns, they must not partake of the privileges of Wey- 
 mouth. The protective system began with the beginning. 
 In the earlier days bounties are offered for the ears of 
 wolves, but later, as the wilderness is subdued, these 
 are dropped from the record and the crow and the black- 
 bird are proscribed in their place. Now and again we 
 find the town entering on some system of encouragement 
 to a new branch of industry, making a grant of land there- 
 for ; 1 but the herring fishery and the passage of the ale- 
 wives into Great Pond have left, perhaps, the deepest mark 
 on the town records. The annual passage of the fish up the 
 Back River was an event in the life of Weymouth, exciting 
 the liveliest interest in old and young. For this really great 
 boon the town was indebted to Adam Gushing, one of its 
 prominent citizens in the provincial times. Mr. Gushing 
 died in the year of the great sickness, 1751, and seems to 
 have been a truly remarkable man. About 1730 he bethought 
 himself of bringing some herring, during the spawning sea- 
 son, over from Taunton River to the Great Pond. He did 
 so, himself superintending the work of transportation, and 
 seeing to it that fresh water was properly supplied to the fish. 
 It would seem, therefore, that through him Weymouth may 
 claim a place of one hundred and forty years' standing in the 
 interesting history of pisciculture in Massachusetts. 2 
 
 These records also reveal to us very clearly what a singu- 
 larly conservative race our ancestors were, in this respect 
 
 1 March 7, 1698. " Voted that John Torrey, Tanner, for the encouragement of his 
 trade shall have twelve pole of land joining to his fathers land out of the towns com- 
 mons for a tanyard so long as there shall be use for it for that trade in this Town." 
 
 March 7th, 1715. " At the said Meeting John Torrey, James Humphrey, Joseph 
 Torrey, Ezra Wfcitmarsh, Enoch Lovell, Ebenezer Pratt & divers others their partners 
 who had agreed to begin a fishing trade to Cape-sables, requested of the town that 
 they might have that piece or parcel of land at the mouth of the fore river in the 
 northerly part of Weymouth called and known by the name of Hunts Hill and the 
 low land and Beach adjoining thereunto, that is so much as they shall need for the 
 management of said fishing trade. The Town after consideration thereof Voted that 
 they should have the said land and Beach to manage their fishing trade." 
 
 March 13, 1727. " Voted at the aforesaid meeting whether the Town will give to 
 Doctor White five acres of Land below Hill that was formerly granted to John 
 
 Vinson provided the said Doctor White continues in the town of Weymouth and in 
 practice of physick, & in case he shall remove out of town said White to purchase 
 said land or to return it to the Town again. It passed in the affirmative." 
 
 3 Mrs. Chapman's MS. And see Records, 1st March, 1731. 
 7
 
 50 
 
 how different from their children. They clung very close to 
 authority, to tradition and to precedent. The conditions by 
 which they were surrounded changed but slowly, and they 
 themselves changed more slowly yet. What volumes, for 
 instance, in this respect, are contained in this single fact : in 
 1651 the town, in six brief articles, defined the powers of its 
 selectmen, and more than sixty years later, in 1712, 1 find the 
 following entry in the records : " Voted the Selectmen 
 the same power they had granted in the year 1651. " J 
 Again, to cite another example : Weymouth then, as now, 
 had among its citizens a James Humphrey, and, under' 
 date of March 12th, 1781, I find this entry: "Voted 
 That the thanks of the Town be given to the Hou ble James 
 Humphrey Esq r . for his faithful services as a selectman 
 in the Town for more than forty years past." Unlike 
 so many of her sister towns, the Weymouth of to-day 
 has never, even yet, learned enough of the science of true 
 republican government to "rotate " its town officials. When 
 they have had a man who was willing to serve them well and 
 faithfully, they have actually kept him in office. The James 
 Humphrey of the last century served the town " over forty 
 years " ; the James Humphrey of this has already served it 
 nearly twenty-five. 
 
 I do not know if it indeed was so, but to me the very 
 nature of the New England world seems to have been less 
 cheerful in those earlier days than now. Not only was life 
 less joyous, but nature wore a harsher front. I have spoken 
 of the great sickness of 1751, and how it desolated Wey- 
 mouth ; but epidemics seem to have been far more prevalent 
 during the last century than in this. The fearful scourge of 
 the small-pox has left its pit-marks on every page of early 
 New England history, and when, in 1775, a chronic dysen- 
 tery prevailed to such an extent that three, four and even 
 five children were lost in single families, a Weymouth 
 woman writing from the midst of the general distress could 
 only say " the dread upon the minds of the people of catching 
 the distemper is almost as great as if it were the small-pox." 2 
 Yet in 1735 the diphtheria raged, as well as in 1751. Their 
 
 1 Sec Records, 3d March, 1712. 
 
 " Letters of Mrs. Adams (ed. 1848) p. xxxvi.
 
 51 
 
 winters also seem to have been longer, their snows deeper, 
 their frosts more severe than ours. In 1717 there was a 
 great snow-storm, famous in New England annals. The 
 country w T as buried under huge drifts, which swept over 
 fences and houses, reducing the whole colony to one white, 
 glittering desert. Weymouth disappeared with the rest, and 
 the event was of sufficient importance to cause a memoran- 
 dum of it to be inserted in the records. 1 In other years we 
 hear of the harbor freezing over in November ; and on the 
 26th of March, 1785, the winter's snow, though much 
 reduced, lay still on a level with the fences, nor was it till 
 April 7th that the ice broke up in the Fore River. 2 I doubt 
 whether any man now living has witnessed a like occurrence. 
 A severer climate and harsher visitations seem strictly in 
 keeping with the character of the people. The religious ele- 
 ment which led to the settlement of New England still 
 strongly asserted itself in the life and customs of the colony. 
 Wealth had hardly yet begun to exercise its subtle influence 
 upon it. Indeed, though almost all were prosperous there 
 was little of what can properly be called wealth in the com- 
 munity, but there was equally little poverty. The people 
 lived in rude abundance, and I do not believe that during the 
 first hundred years of the history of Weymouth as many per- 
 sons received public aid of the town. Certainly the method 
 of dealing with pauperism, where it occasionally appears in 
 the records, was primitive in the extreme, and scarcely com- 
 mends itself to modern theories. 3 But as a rule there appears 
 to have been a strikingly equal division of such property as 
 the people had, which lay almost wholly in their cattle and 
 their lands ; accumulation had scarcely begun. 
 
 1<( An exceeding great snow on February 21st, 1717." Records (v. 1, p. 270). It 
 is the single record of the kind. 
 
 2 MS. memorandum of Dr. Cotton Tufts. 
 
 3 The following record, for instance, is a little suggestive of what is now called 
 " baby farming," though we know in that society it led to fewer abuses. At a town 
 meeting in Weymouth, August 28, 1733, " Voted by the Town to give Twenty pounds 
 to any person that will take two of the Children of the Widow Ruth Harvey (that is) 
 the Eldest Daughter and one of the youngest Daughters (a twin) and take the care of 
 them untill they be eighteen years old. 
 
 " Voted that the Selectmen shall take care of the other (twin) a youngest daughter 
 of the widow Ruth Harvey, and put it out as reasonably as they can." 
 
 The following also has a strange sound to modern ears, from the Record of March 
 llth, 1771 : " Voted to sell the Poor that are maintained by the town for this present 
 year at a Vendue to the lowest bidder." Records (v. 1, pp. 318, 438).
 
 52 
 
 We are always accustomed to regard the past as a better 
 and purer time than the present, there is a vague, tradi- 
 tional simplicity and innocence hanging about it almost Arca- 
 dian in character. I can find no ground on which to base this 
 pleasant fancy. Taken altogether I do not believe that the 
 morals of Weymouth or of her sister towns were on the 
 average as good in the eighteenth century as in the nine- 
 teenth. The people were sterner and graver, the law and 
 the magistrate were more severe, but human nature was the 
 same and w 7 ould have vent. There was, I am inclined to 
 think, more hypocrisy in those days than now, but I have 
 seen nothing which has led me to believe that the women 
 were more chaste, or that the men were more temperate, or 
 that, in proportion to population, fewer or lees degrading 
 crimes were perpetrated. Certainly the earlier generations 
 were as a race not so charitable as their descendants, and less 
 of a spirit of kindly Christianity prevailed among them. But 
 in those days enjoyment itself was almost a crime, and every 
 pleasure was thought to be a lure of the devil and close upon 
 the boundary line to guilt. Holidays, accordingly, were few 
 and far between. The May-pole disappeared w r ith the wild 
 Morton of Merry Mount. During the colonial period, elec- 
 tion or training day was what the Fourth of July is to us, 
 the great anniversary of the year, on which the whole com- 
 munity came as near to unbending as it knew how. Thanks- 
 giving and the annual fast were both church days ; Guy 
 Fawkes' day was notorious for its noisy revels ; Sunday was 
 devoted to nominal rest and veritable exhortation. On that 
 day, every one not an infant attended church and the infants 
 were left alone at home. 1 From Saturday evening to Monday 
 morning all labor ceased, the voices of the children were 
 
 1 " There fell out (1642) a very sad accident at Wcymoutli. One Richard Sylvester, 
 having three small children, he and bis wife going to the assembly, upon the Lord's 
 day, left their children at home. The eldest was without doors looking to some 
 cattle ; the middle-most, being a son about five years old, seeing his father's fowling 
 piece, (being a very great one,) stand in the chimney, took it and laid it upon a stool, 
 as he had seen his father do, and pulled up the cock, (the spring being weak,) and 
 put down the hammer, then went to the other end and b lowed in the mouth of the 
 piece, as he had seen his father also do, and with that stirring the piece, being charged, 
 it went off, and shot the child into its mouth and through his head. When the father 
 came home he found his child lie dead, and could not have imagined how he should
 
 53 
 
 hushed, the blinds were drawn, and a quiet, which was not 
 rest, pervaded the town. The lecture and the sermon were 
 the events of the week, they supplied the place of the 
 theatre, the novel and the newspaper, they were listened to 
 and discussed and commented upon by old and young, and, 
 so far as my investigations have enabled me to judge, the 
 stiffest of orthodoxy was ever preached from the Weymouth 
 pulpit. 
 
 In the earty days, however, the clergy of New England 
 were an aristocracy, almost a caste. Not, of course, an 
 aristocracy of wealth, but of education, tradition and faith, 
 a veritable priesthood in fact. The tie between the pastor 
 and his people partook almost of the nature of the wedding 
 bond ; there was a sanctity about it ; it was well-nigh indis- 
 soluble. But in its earliest period Weymouth was not fortu- 
 nate in these relations. Prior to 1635 the plantation was too 
 poor and too small in numbers to maintain a church, but that 
 year one was gathered, being the eleventh of the colony. 1 Of 
 Mr. Hull, the first authentic pastor, it can only be said that he 
 preached in Weymouth for several years, and then his connec- 
 tion with the church was dissolved. There seems indeed at 
 this time to have been a serious schism in the infant settlement, 
 for, while Mr. Hull arrived in 1635 and preached his farewell 
 sermon in May, 1639, yet as early as January, 1638, the elders 
 of Boston had come to Weymouth, and had there demonstrated 
 the efficacy of prayer by effecting a reconciliation between 
 one Mr. Jenner and his people. The reconciliation seems to 
 have been but temporary, for, after representing the town 
 as deputy in the General Court in 1640, in 1641 Mr. Jenuer 
 removed to Saco. Meanwhile, in 1637, the Rev. Mr. 
 Lenthall also appears upon the Weymouth stage, bringing 
 
 have been so killed, but the youngest child, (being but three years old, and could 
 scarce speak,) showed him the whole manner of it." Savage's Winthrop, (vol. 2, 
 p. 77). 
 
 Weymouth, June 1st, 1775. " Voted that the Soldiers from the age of Sixteen to 
 Sixty appear with their arms upon Lords Days on penalty of forfeiting a Dollar each 
 Lords Day for their neglect. That those Soldiers who tarry at home upon the Lords 
 day, Except they can make a Reasonable Excuse therefor Shall forfeit two Dollars." 
 Records. 
 
 1 Savage's Winthrop, v. 1, p. 94, n. See Johnson's Wonder Working Providence, 
 chap. 10.
 
 54 
 
 with him the pestilential doctrines of Mrs. Hutchinson in 
 regard to justification before faith and other equally incom- 
 prehensible theses, which came so near working the destruc- 
 tion of the infant colony. A movement was started inviting 
 Mr. Lenthall to settle and organize a new church. It was 
 apparently making rapid headway when the magistrates of 
 the colony energetically interfered to put a stop to it. In 
 March, 1638, Mr. Lenthall accordingly, with some of his 
 leading supporters, was summoned to appear before the 
 General Court, and made to see good reason why, with 
 expressions of deep contrition, he should make a retraction of 
 his heresies in writing and in open court. Upon this, he was, 
 with some opposition, dismissed without a fine, but only on 
 condition that he was to make a similar public recantation in 
 Wey mouth, and should also be on hand when the next General 
 Court assembled. His followers did not escape so easily ; 
 one of them was heavily fined, another was disfranchised, a 
 third, having no means wherewith to pay a fine, was publicly 
 whipped, and a fourth, "because of his novel disposition," 
 received a significant intimation to the eflect that the General 
 Court "were weary of him, unless he reform." Shortly after 
 this miscarriage, features in which are unpleasantly suggestive 
 of inquisitorial proceedings in other lands, the Rev. Mr. 
 Lenthall seems to have left Weymouth, for he is next heard 
 of in Rhode Island, that blessed asylum for the persecuted of 
 Massachusetts. 1 
 
 Mr. Lenthall, however, represented only a schism in the 
 Weymouth church ; Mr. Jeuner was the minister in the line 
 of true succession. He retired to Maine in 1640 and was 
 succeeded in his pastorate by Mr. Newman, who at last 
 brought with him peace to the distracted church. He must 
 have been a very superior man, able, learned and faithful. 
 Educated at Oxford, he had preached many years in England 
 before coming to this country in 1638. He then spent some 
 time in Dorchester, and was subsequently invited to Wey- 
 mouth, where he settled and remained until he migrated with 
 the larger portion of his people to Rehoboth. He is the real 
 author of the Concordance to the Bible which goes under 
 
 i Savage's Winthrop, v. 1, p. 287.
 
 55 
 
 Cruclen's name ; for it was he who prepared the basis of the 
 work, which was subsequently finished and published at 
 Cambridge. 1 
 
 The- Weymouth church had now had three preachers in 
 nine years, but the day of short pastorates was over. The. 
 Eev. Thomas Thacher was ordained as the successor of Mr. 
 Newman in 1644, and there remained, beloved and respected 
 of his people, for twenty years. Then marrying a second 
 time, and his parish being unable to afford him a sufficient 
 maintenance, 2 he moved to Boston, the home of his wife, and 
 in him Weymouth lost at once its spiritual and its medical 
 adviser, for Mr. Thacher was a skilful physician as well as a 
 learned divine. Subsequently, in 1669, he became the first 
 pastor of the Old South Church, in Boston, in which position 
 he died, in 1678, leaving behind him a race of descendants 
 whose names are familiar through a century of colonial 
 annals. 
 
 To Mr. Thacher's pastorate of twenty years succeeded the 
 fifty-one years of the learned and exemplary Samuel Torrey, 
 the trusted adviser of the magistrates of his day, the intimate 
 friend of all its leading divines, thrice invited to preach the 
 election sermon, twice called to the presidency of Harvard 
 College. Mr. Torrey enjoyed a very remarkable gift of 
 prayer, so that it is told of him that upon the occasion of a 
 public fast, in 1696, after all the other exercises, he prayed 
 for two hours, and that so acceptably that his auditors, 
 when towards the close he hinted at some new 'and agreeable 
 fields of thought, could not help wishing him to enlarge 
 upon them. 3 He died deeply lamented at the age of seventy- 
 six, in the year 1707. 
 
 Peter Thacher succeeded Mr. Torrey in the year of the 
 
 ' latter's death, and continued in his ministry eleven years ; 
 
 being followed, in 1719, by Thomas Paine, whose connection 
 
 with the church continued until dissolved, at his own request, 
 
 in 1734. He then retired to Boston, where he ended his life, 
 
 1 The best account of Mr. Newman and his Concordance is found in Bliss' History 
 of Rehoboth, It is a singular fact that William Blackstone should have gone from 
 Boston to Rehoboth, and been followed there by an emigration from Wessagusset, 
 which place he had probably abandoned when he went to Boston. 
 
 2 II. Mass. Hist. Coll., v. 7, p. 11. 
 s Eliot's Biographical Dictionary.
 
 56 
 
 and his body was brought back to Weymouth for burial 
 beside his children. He was the father aiid the grandfather 
 of those Robert Treat Paiues, the line of which is continued 
 to the present day. 
 
 In 1734 the Rev. William Smith was settled as the eighth 
 successive pastor of the first church, and so continued for 
 forty-nine years, and until after the close of the colonial 
 period. Mr. Smith was beloved and respected through his 
 long ministry by his people, but to posterity he is chiefly 
 known as the father of her who proved to be the most famous 
 child of Weymouth. The familiar anecdote of Parson Smith's 
 sermons on the marriages of his two daughters does not need 
 to be repeated here. 1 Whether the good old pastor did or did 
 not prepare the wedding discourse for Abigail's benefit from 
 so very unsavory a text as that "John came neither eating 
 nor drinking, and men say he hath a devil," we cannot now 
 tell ; the anecdote rests on tradition alone. Let us hope, 
 however, that he did, for he lived to see his daughter's choice 
 justified in the eyes of the most doubting of his parishioners ; 
 though he had himself already been thirteen years in his 
 grave when, on the 8th of February, 1797, that daughter 
 wrote to her husband in these solemn words, breathing the 
 full spirit of the dead divine : " You have this day to declare 
 yourself head of a nation. 'And now, O Lord, my God, 
 thou hast made thy servant ruler over the people. Give unto 
 him an understanding heart, that he may know how to go out 
 and come in before this great people ; that he may discern 
 between good and bad. For who is able to judge this thy 
 so great a people ? ' . . . My thoughts and my 
 meditation are with you, though personally absent ; and my 
 petitions to Heaven are, that f the things which make for peace 
 may not be hidden from your eyes.'" 2 
 
 But it is necessary to go back to the year 1765, when the 
 long, monotonous quiet of over a century was to be broken 
 for Weymouth and all her sister towns by the deep though 
 distant mutter ings of an impending war. The first notes of 
 the struggle then break sharply in on the peaceful sameness of 
 
 1 It can be found in the preface (pp. xxviii, xxix) of the Letters of Mrs. Adams 
 (ed. 1848). 
 
 2 Letters of Mrs. Adams (ed. 1848), p. 374.
 
 or 
 
 the town records like the blast of a trumpet. The Stamp Act 
 had been passed, and the August riots had taken place in 
 Boston. Mr. Oliver had been forced to resign his office, and 
 the house of the Lieutenant-Governor had been sacked. The 
 odious act was to take effect on the 1st of November, and a 
 special session of the General Court had been called to 
 take into consideration the course it was incumbent on the 
 colony to pursue. The representative of Weymouth in those 
 days was James Humphrey, Esq. Under these circum- 
 stances a meeting of the freemen was held on the 16th of 
 October, at which Dr. Cotton Tufts was chosen Moderator, 
 and a ringing address ot instructions to Master Humphrey, 
 as he was called, was voted and entered at length upon the 
 records. The spirit of the ancient town was up, and its 
 voice emitted no uncertain sound. Cotton Tufts was at that 
 time thirty-four years of age. He was fully imbued with the 
 patriotic spirit of the day, and was, in his own vicinage, a 
 leading itoan. It is to his pen that the papers now entered 
 on the town records are in all probability to be credited. 1 
 
 Presently the government of the mother country somewhat 
 receded from its position, and, during the loyal reaction 
 which ensued, a draft of a measure indemnifying the sufferers 
 in the August riots was submitted to the General Court. A 
 special town meeting was held on September 1, 1766, and the 
 town refused to give its assent to the payment of damages 
 out of the public treasury. But another meeting was held 
 on the 1st of December, when written instructions were 
 entered at length on the records, again embodying the full 
 rebel spirit of the day, but this time, and under strict condi- 
 tions, authorizing Master Humphrey to vote for the proposed 
 compensation. 
 
 In 1768 came the news that the British regiments were 
 ordered to Boston. A committee of the Boston town-meet- 
 ing, called in consequence of this announcement, waited on 
 Governor Bernard with a request, among other things, that 
 the General Court should be convened. Meeting with a 
 refusal, the Boston people took the matter into their own 
 hands, and instructed their selectmen to invite, by circular 
 
 1 That part of the town records which relates to the revolutionary period will prob- 
 ably be printed in full in the History of Weymouth, now in course of preparation.
 
 58 
 
 letter, all the towns in the colony to send representatives to 
 assemble in convention, at Boston, on the 22d of September. 
 Over one hundred towns complied with this bold invitation, 
 thus overriding the royal governor, and convening an assem- 
 bly which, though it sat but four days, and carefully avoided 
 any claim to a legal existence, was, in everything but in name, 
 a house of representatives. In this convention sat James 
 Humphrey, under instructions to be there from the town of 
 Wey mouth. 
 
 More than five years now passed away during which the 
 controversy between the mother country and the colonies was 
 continually approaching a crisis, but they left no mark on the 
 records of Weymouth. Then arose the question as to the 
 tax on tea. Early in December, 1773, the famous town 
 meeting had been held in Faneuil Hall, at which the resolve 
 was passed, "that if any person or persons shall hereafter 
 import tea from Great Britain, or if any master or masters of 
 any vessel or vessels in Great Britain shall take the came on 
 board to be transported to this place, until the unrighteous 
 act shall be repealed, he, or they, shall be deemed by this 
 body an enemy to his country, and we will prevent the land- 
 ing and sale of the same, and the payment of any duty 
 thereon, and will effect the return thereof to the place from 
 whence it shall come." 1 Copies of this resolve were sent to 
 all the sea-port towns in the Province. A few days later, on 
 the night of December 16th, the celebrated tea-party took 
 place in the Old South Church and on the wharves of Boston. 
 In response to the resolve a special town meeting was held in 
 Weymouth on Monday, January 3d, 1774, at which it was 
 resolved by a very large majority, after some debate, that the 
 inhabitants of the town would neither purchase nor make use 
 of any teas, excepting such as they might happen then to 
 have on hand, until Parliament repealed the odious duty upon 
 it. On the 28th of September the town again met and chose 
 a representative to the General Court, which convened at 
 Salem on the 5th of October ; no other instructions were 
 given to him than those adopted by Boston for its own repre- 
 sentatives, copies of which had been freely circulated. 
 
 A committee had been appointed at a town meeting 
 
 1 Hutcliinson, v. 3, p. 432.
 
 59 
 
 held in July to procure signatures to the Joseph Warren 
 "Solemn League and Covenant," which had been sent 
 forth by the Boston committee of correspondence on the 
 5th of June. This measure was subsequently adopted by 
 the Congress then sitting at Philadelphia, and recommended 
 under the name of a Continental Association. So, on the 
 23d of December 1774, at the close of the evening lecture, 
 the roll of the inhabitants of Weymouth was called and each 
 man voted yea or nay on the question of the approval of the 
 association. The two precincts voted separately ; in each one 
 hundred and twenty-three names were called, .beginning with 
 the two clergymen ; in the first precinct, one hundred and 
 thirteen answered to their names, of whom one hundred and 
 nine voted "yea"; in the second precinct, out of one hundred 
 and three voting, not one responded "nay." On the 30th of 
 January the town again met and voted "To bare the constables 
 of 1773 harmless in not carrying their money to Haryson 
 Gray," he being the royalist treasurer of the Province ; and 
 further directed that the funds on hand should be turned over 
 to the town treasurer. On the 9th of March this vote was 
 reconsidered, and the money was directed to be paid to Henry 
 Gardner of Stow, who now represented the patriot exchequer. 
 At this meeting, too, the question was agitated of raising a 
 company of minute-men, but the motion to that effect was not 
 then carried. On the 27th of the same month, however, 
 another town meeting was held and the action of the previous 
 meeting was reconsidered, the town voting to raise a com- 
 pany of fifty-three men, who were to receive one shilling a 
 week each for four weeks, and were to be drilled two half 
 days a week. Upon the 2d of May another town meeting 
 was held, and upon the 9th yet another. The affairs at Lex- 
 ington and Concord had now taken place, and the greatest 
 anxiety prevailed through all the towns in the vicinity of 
 Boston. They were ever looking for similar enterprises. So 
 at the first of these two meetings provision was made for a 
 military guard of fifteen men, and at the second a committee 
 of correspondence was organized, at the head of which were 
 placed Dr. Tufts and Colonel Lovell. Twelve clays later, 
 early on Sunday, the 21st of May, the news was brought to 
 the town that three sloops and a cutter had, during the pre-
 
 60 
 
 vious night, come down from Boston and had anchored at the 
 mouth of the Fore River. A landing was momentarily 
 expected, and it was even reported to have taken place, and 
 that three hundred soldiers were advancing on the town. 
 Three alarm guns were fired, the bells were rung and the 
 drums beat to arms. The panic and confusion were very 
 great and worth recording, for it is the only time in the long 
 history of the town that Weymouth has ever had cause to 
 fear that a civilized and disciplined foe was at her threshold. 
 Every house below the present North Weymouth station was 
 deserted by the women and children. Mr. Smith's family 
 fled from the old parsonage, and Dr. Tufts' wife, being ill at 
 the time, had a bed thrown into a cart, and, putting herself 
 upon it, was driven to Bridge water as a place of security ; 
 and, indeed, tradition says that other ladies of Weymouth 
 gave evidence that morning of an abundant vitality, and dis- 
 played truly remarkable powers of locomotion. Meanwhile 
 Dr. Tufts himself was busy serving out rations and supplying 
 ammunition to the minute-men, who poured rapidly in from 
 Hingham and Randolph and Braiutree and all the neighboring 
 towns, until nearly 2,000 of them were on the ground. Then 
 it was discovered that the enemy were only foraging, and 
 were engaged in removing hay from Grape Island. By the 
 time they had secured about three tons, the minute-men had 
 brought a sloop and lighter round from Hingham on which 
 they put out for the island, whereupon the enemy decamped. 1 
 It was a mere alarm in which no one was hurt, but it showed 
 the spirit of the town even though it only resulted in the 
 destruction of the hay, which doubtless Gen. Ward's army 
 needed, and which, had they been older soldiers, the minute- 
 men would have brought away instead of burning. 
 
 Towards the middle of July again, a small party, among 
 whom was Captain Goold of the Weymouth company, with 
 twenty-five of his men, went out from the Moon Head and 
 burned a house and a barn full of hay on Long Island. On 
 this occasion they had a sharp skirmish, for the British men- 
 of-war lying in the harbor sent out their cutters to intercept 
 the party. They all, however, got back safely except one 
 man of the covering force on Moon Head, who was killed by a 
 
 1 Letters of Mrs. Adams, pp. 26, 33.
 
 61 
 
 cannon-ball. That night a sloop of war dropped down to the 
 Fore River, but attempted nothing beyond creating another 
 alarm. And this experience from time to time was repeated, 
 until at last, in the spring of 1775, Boston was evacuated; 
 and upon the 14th of June following, in consequence of 
 military movements on the islands in the harbor, the last 
 remnant of the British fleet put to sea, and the towns border- 
 ing on the bay were thereafter allowed to rest in peace. 
 
 During the year 1775 ten town-meetings had been held in 
 "Weymouth, and seven were held in 1776. And now we 
 enter on a new phase of the struggle for independence. For 
 us, with our recollections of the war of the rebellion still fresh 
 in our memories, it is most curious to read these ancient 
 records, to observe how closely history repeats itself. We 
 well remember the fierce, self-sacrificing patriotism of 1861, 
 how the country was all alive with eagerness, how money 
 was poured forth like water and how regiments enlisted 
 faster than they could be put into the field. We remember 
 how this lasted through a short six months, and how we then 
 began to realize what war meant. Then bounties began to be 
 paid, then enlistments grew more difficult just in proportion 
 as the call for men became more pressing, then values were 
 unsettled, prices rose, the feverish glow of excitement faded 
 away, and stern-visaged war gradually assumed her whole 
 hateful front. We generally, too, are apt to imagine that 
 the earlier days were less selfish, more self-sacrificing, more 
 harmonious than our own. The records tell a different story. 
 The declaration of independence had only Just been ventured 
 upon, it was not yet entered upon the records of Weymouth, 
 "there to remain as a perpetual memorial," when on the 15th 
 of July, 1776, a town meeting was held to secure the enlist- 
 ment of ten men for the continental army, that being, the 
 quota of the town. It was voted to raise 130, in order to 
 give to each recruit a town bounty of 13 in addition to the 
 state bounty of 7, making a bounty of 20 to each man. 
 It was also voted to allow the citizens of Weymouth two days 
 in which to enlist, after which a committee of two was to go 
 forth in search of recruits elsewhere. But before the 22d of 
 the month eight men more were called for, and so at its 
 adjourned meeting the town had to increase its appropriation
 
 62 
 
 to 234, a portion of which sum was borrowed of Captain 
 James White for one year, being the earliest record of 
 a Wey mouth town debt. 1 
 
 To the Weymouth of that day these eighteen men were the 
 equivalent of about one hundred and thirty now ; and they 
 were raised to take part in the unfortunate Canada campaign 
 under Arnold and Montgomery. How many of them ever 
 returned we cannot tell, but the weary sons of Weymouth 
 in 1776 doubtless found final resting-places in the wilds 
 of Maine or beneath the snows of Canada, as more recently 
 they found them in the swamps of the Chickahominy or 
 beneath the torrid sun of Louisiana. By December of that 
 year twenty-two more men went into the continental service, 
 under Lieutenant Kingman ; and now the bounty was three 
 
 1 The history of this loan is curious and suggestive. It may be traced through the 
 following entries in the town records. 
 
 July 22nd 1776. "Voted that the Town Treasurer Borrow the afforesaid sum of 
 234 & give the Towns security with Interest for the Same." 
 
 " July 23d 1776 the Town Treasurer Borrowed of Capt James White 130 and gave 
 the Towns Security to pay the same in twelve months with interest." 
 
 April 7th 1783. " Voted to allow unto Captain James White the Depreation on 
 some money that he lent to the Town. 
 
 "Whereas in the year 1776 Capt. James White lent the Town 130 and took it in 
 again in 1778, and Took only the nominal Sum, the Town Voted that Capt. White 
 should have the Depreation that was on money when Capt. White's money was in 
 the hands of the Town. Said Term of Time will be made to appear by a Receipt 
 from Capt. Whitman. 
 
 " Voted that any others that are under like Circumstances with Capt. White, that 
 have Lent Money to the Town and have Taken it in again, that they be allowed the 
 Depreation that was on money while theres was in the Hands of the Town. 
 
 " Nath 1 Bayley Esq. Hon' James Humphrey Esq. & Col. Asa White were Chosen 
 a Committee for the above purpose of Scttleing the Depreation with Capt. James 
 White and others." 
 
 May 13th 1783. " A motion was made and Seconded to Reconsider a Vote that 
 was past at a town meeting on April the 7th with regard to making up the Deprecea- 
 tion to Capt. James White and others that lent money to the town and rec' 1 it again 
 in the Nominal Sum and it passed in favour of Reconsidering of Said Vote." 
 
 September 16th 1783. " A Town Meeting in Consequence of Capt. James White's 
 Commencing an action on the Town. 
 
 " A motion was made and Seconded to no if it was the minds of the People to stand 
 Capt. White in the Law and it passed in favor of it. 
 
 " Voted to Chuse Two agents to act in Behalf of the Town against Capt. James 
 White, even to final Judgment and Execution. 
 
 " The lion 1 ' Cotton Tufts Esq Solomon Lovcll Esq ware Chosen ( c^f^ftee) 
 for the above purpose. 
 
 " Voted that the ajcnts be impowcrcd to Draw Money out of the Town Treasury to 
 Defend the Town against Capt. White even to final Judgment and Execution they to 
 Render an accompt how they disposed of the money. 
 
 " Voted to adjourn the meeting to the 22nd of this instant Sep lir at of the Clock in 
 the afternoon."
 
 63 
 
 pounds per mouth for three months. 1 It was shortly before 
 this time that a Weymouth-born woman, writing from the 
 next town of Braintree, thus described the aspect of affairs : 
 " I am sorry to see a spirit so venal prevailing everywhere. 
 When our men were drawn out for Canada a very large 
 bounty was given them ; and now another call is made upon 
 us, no one will go without a large bounty, though only for 
 two months, and each town seems to think its honor engaged 
 outbidding the others. The province pay is forty shillings. 
 In addition to that this town voted to make it up six pounds. 
 They then draw out the persons most unlikely to go, and they 
 are obliged to give three pounds to hire a man. Some pay 
 the whole fine, ten pounds. Forty men are now drafted from 
 this town. More than one-half, from sixteen to fifty, are 
 
 " Sep br 22d 1783. Meet at the adjournment and as neither of the ajents had Taken 
 the advice of a Lawyer Voted to adjourn to monday 29th of this instant September 
 at 10 of the Clock foornoon." 
 
 " Sep br 29th 1783 meet on the adjournment and further adjourned to October 6th 
 1783." 
 
 " October 6th 1783, meet on the adjournment. Voted that the ajents (if occation 
 for it) appeal to the Superior Court at february Next, the Meeting Dissolved." 
 
 " Weymouth March the 8th 1784. 
 
 " the Agents appointed to defend the Town in an action brought by Capt. James 
 "White, on a Note paid him in Paper money ; found that the Town was not in a Ca- 
 pacity to tender the money for the Note of Hand due and therefore that the Costs and 
 Charges of Court would fall upon the Town, whether the Demand for Depreciation on 
 Said note paid was finally Decided in his Favour or not, they also found that a much 
 heaver Expence to the Town would arise from Carrying on the Suit to final Judgment 
 than they Concieved that the Town was aware, off this induced your Agents to Listen 
 to Some Proposals made by Capt White : (Viz) To Pay the Cost that had then arisen, 
 to allow him Compound Interest on his Note that was due and to Estimate the Depre- 
 ciation thereon from the month of June his note being Dated the first of July. He 
 alledging that notwithstanding as their was but one Day that made the Difference; it 
 was hard that the whole month of July should be taken in for the Estimate they 
 accordingly made the Calculation and Certified the same to the Town Treasurer, who 
 Settled with Capt. James White Conformably thereunto, and the Action was dropt 
 never having had a Tryall. As youre Agents conducted in this matter, as they Appre- 
 hended for the best Interest of the Town they flatter themselves that then 1 Conduct 
 will meet with the Approbation of the Town, and that the Town will Confirm the 
 Doeings of their Treasurer thereon. 
 
 The Hon ble Cotton Tufts Es<i r ) A enfg 
 Gen. Solomon Lovell Esq r ) 
 
 " The Above Report Accepted by the Town 
 
 John Tirrel Town Clerk " 
 
 The depreciation in paper money between July, 1776, and the same mouth in 1778, 
 had been from par to 6.30 for 1. 
 1 Records, Monday, December 23, 1776.
 
 64 
 
 now in the service. This method of conducting will create a 
 general uneasiness in the Continental army. I hardly think 
 you can be sensible how much we are thinned in this prov- 
 ince." 1 
 
 And now a new difficulty, with which our generation has 
 been sadly familiar, was added to the heavy load under which 
 the unfledged nationality was compelled to stagger. The 
 value of its paper currency had hitherto been sustained ; but 
 at fast, in the face of ever-increasing new issues, it began to 
 depreciate, and by the close of the year 1776 it had fallen 
 one-sixth in value. In vain does Congress enact that who- 
 ever pays or receives the currency at a rate less than its nomi- 
 nal value shall not only be accounted a public enemy, but 
 shall forfeit the amount involved in such unpatriotic transac- 
 tion. In defiance of law prices steadily rise. In January, 
 1777, the Legislature of Massachusetts went even further, 
 and passed a measure entitled " An Act to prevent Monopoly 
 and Oppression." Under this the selectmen of "VVey mouth, 
 aided by a committee of their townsmen, proceeded to fix a 
 tariff of prices at which articles were to be sold. It is a sad 
 record. The effort was, of course, a futile one, but it was 
 made; and there it stands "as a perpetual memorial," begin- 
 ning with Indian corn and ending with cedar-posts, a monu- 
 ment of the wretched expedients to which sensible men will 
 resort in troublous and unsettled times. 
 
 The call was now for three year men, and the town bounty 
 was eight pounds per annum. But some of the enlisted men 
 had deserted, under the discouragement of the Long Island 
 reverses, and none the less they claimed their bounties. The 
 action of the town-meeting seems to have been hardly consis- 
 tent with the usually received i^eas of military discipline, for 
 it was voted to pay " those who deserted and came home before 
 their times were up " four pounds apiece, on the report of a 
 committee, to which the town added a further sum of forty 
 shillings. But the whole story is told in the following extract 
 from the record of May 21st, 1777 : " Voted that Col. Solomon 
 Lovell, Lieut. E. Gushing & Dea n Samuel Blaucher be a Com- 
 mittee to go out of Town to Hire men for the Contenential 
 army for the Term of three years, and that they be directed 
 
 1 Letters of Mrs. Adams (ed. 1848), p. 82.
 
 65 
 
 to git them as Cheep as they can, and that noe one of them 
 be allowed to give more than Thirty pounds for a man with- 
 out the advise of another of the committee." 
 
 Throughout the long war the people would not consent to 
 a draft. They resorted to every expedient and makeshift, 
 but they could not bring themselves to the one single expe- 
 dient by which only can Avar be made decisive. In September, 
 1777, a draft was suggested, 1 but the idea met with no favor : 
 again recourse was had to bounties, which were now 100 
 in lawful money, or forty shillings a month in produce 
 at prices which ruled before the war. The year 1779 must, 
 however, have been the gloomiest year of all to Weymouth, for 
 it was in this year that the State of Massachusetts undertook 
 the unfortunate Penobscot expedition. The land forces were 
 commanded by the brave and popular Solomon Lovell, and 
 naturally must have numbered in their ranks many Weymouth 
 men. It encountered only disaster and loss, and added heavily 
 to the already grievous burdens of the war. The commander 
 of the naval contingent was court-martialled, but no question 
 was made as to General Lovell's conduct. Meanwhile prices 
 were rising, and now $4,500 was voted, wherewith to raise 
 nine men. It had also become very evident that the tariff of 
 prices fixed by the selectmen and the committee of the town, 
 two years and a half before, was somewhat out of date,, as, 
 its provisions to the contrary notwithstanding, butcher's meat 
 was now a dollar a pound, corn twenty-five dollars per bushel 
 and labor eight dollars per day. Still the good people were 
 not discouraged, but a new committee was set to work, and 
 again, by a large majority, a tariff of prices was established ; 
 but at the same town-meeting which adopted it $9,000 was 
 voted to procure recruits. Indeed, the figures now become 
 colossal, and in September, 1780, the town votes 5,000 
 for the support of schools and 15,000 "to pay the three 
 months men, if wanted for that purpose, if not, for other 
 
 1 The nearest approach made to a draft is found in the following vote : 
 
 " June 19"'. 1780 
 
 " Voted that the assessors he desired to set off the Inhabitants as near as they can 
 into twenty Parsols or Districts as they Stand in the Tax Bill for Polls and Estates 
 and each District to be obliged to get a Man to go into the Servis and it' any one in 
 said district shall refuse to go or to pay his Proportion According to what he pays 
 Taxes the Capt. of the Company to which he belongs be Desired to draft said Person 
 and return him as a Drafted Man." Record.
 
 66 
 
 town charges." Nor was this all. The new State govern- 
 
 o o 
 
 ment was now organized, and John Hancock had been 
 elected Governor, receiving, in Weymouth, twenty-nine votes 
 to eleven for Jarnes Bowdoin ; but one of the first acts of 
 the Legislature was to allot among the various towns a 
 quota of beef to be supplied as well as men, so the year 1780 
 closes with these two melancholy entries in the records of 
 this poor little town, casting forty votes at the annual 
 election : 
 
 " Voted to raise one hundred and thirty thousand dollars of 
 the old currency to procure the beef set on the town by the 
 General Court." 
 
 * Voted to give fifty hard dollars a year for any one or 
 more men that shall engage for this town for three year in 
 the Continental Servis." 
 
 " Gen. Lovell, Cap 1 Nash, Capt. "Whitman & Lt Vinson 
 chosen a Com ce to hire the Nineteen men set on this town." 
 
 Of course the Continental currency was now almost wholly 
 discredited, having fallen to seventy-five for one, and Wey- 
 mouth instructed its representative to use his influence " that 
 the act called the Tender Act should be repealed." But its 
 repeal was of little consequence ; the country had gotten 
 back to hard money by the radical course of rendering 1 all 
 
 / */ o 
 
 other money worthless. In 1781 Weymouth had also returned 
 to the old tax figures, raising 00 for the support of schools 
 and 100 for all other expenses ; but the burden of recruiting 
 grew heavier and heavier, and in October, 1781, it was 
 "Voted to give the committee for hiring soldiers discretionary 
 power to hire them upon the best terms they can," and $2,500, 
 ''hard dollars," were appropriated for the purpose. For- 
 tunately the long trial now drew near its close. The towns 
 of Massachusetts were thoroughly exhausted and neither men 
 nor money could be procured. In spite of the large sums 
 offered recruits were no longer forthcoming, and finally Wey- 
 mouth, as one of many delinquent towns, became liable to a 
 heavy fine. The wonder, however, was not that the towns 
 were delinquent, but rather where they found so many able- 
 bodied men as they then supplied. Weymouth, at that time,
 
 67 
 
 could not well have mustered over two hundred men of the 
 age of military service. The record would seem to establish 
 the fact that more than one-tenth of these Avere annually 
 called for. Such a strain could not long have been sustained ; 
 but the dogged tenacity of the people- was equal to the 
 burden they were called upon to bear, and it is pleasant to 
 find, almost before the struggle was over, the process of recu- 
 peration begun, and the town on the 20th of November, 1782, 
 voting 300 for the purpose of partly paying its debts. 
 
 With the close of the long struggle for independence ends 
 the second period in the history of Weymouth. More than 
 ninety years have since passed away, carrying with them 
 three generations of the children of the soil. They have been 
 years of great development' and of healthy growth, not 
 such development nor such growth as is often seen in this 
 country, nothing, indeed, which in our age may be called 
 remarkable, for almost any active and bustling railroad centre 
 in the Western States can boast of greater census figures ; 
 but the growth of Weymouth has been that of a thrifty, 
 industrious New England town, and when, after the long 
 lapse of ages, the final account is rendered, who shall say that 
 the former growth will be found better than the latter ? In 
 1782 Weymouth was still an agricultural community, its 
 people were scattered over its wide territory and it scarcely 
 contained within its limits any cluster of houses worthy of 
 the name of village. In the state election of that year fifty- 
 one votes were cast, and the sum raised by taxation to defray 
 the annual expenses of the town was the equivalent of $1,230. 
 It contains now four separate villages within its limits, each 
 one far more populous and more wealthy than the entire town 
 then was ; its annual levy exceeds $85,000, and at its elec- 
 tions it casts 1,200 votes. 
 
 It is now fifty years since the learned editor of Governor 
 Winthrop's History of New England remarked that "a care- 
 ful history of Weymouth is much needed." 1 The want is 
 still felt. To me the preparation of this hasty sketch of the 
 earlier days has been a work of great enjoyment. I have 
 had to deal with Mount Wollastou and with Weymouth, those 
 twin settlements in the first infancy of New England life, and 
 
 1 Savage's AVinthrop, vol. 1, p. 163.
 
 68 
 
 in the history of each I could not do otherwise than take a 
 deep hereditary interest. It was at Mount Wollaston, close 
 to the spot where once stood the May-pole of the wild Morton, 
 that John Quincy lived and died, it was in the old parsonage 
 of Weymouth, almost within a stone's throw of the site of 
 Weston's plantation, that John Adams was married to the 
 grand-daughter of that John Ouincv. Nevertheless, no decree 
 
 O O v / ^ 
 
 of personal interest can convert a hurried sketch into a careful 
 histoiy, and Weymouth deserves no less. Nor should the 
 story of later development remain untold. It necessarily 
 lacks, indeed, those elements of strangeness, of remoteness 
 and of mystery, which lend their charm to the earlier periods 
 which we have considered to-day, but the record is none the 
 less of sufficing interest. The children of Weymouth, during 
 the present century, have gone forth in peace and in war, and 
 are now scattered all over the common country, and, indeed, 
 over the civilixed world. Her children, too, remaining at 
 home, have altered and diversified the old town until the 
 fathers would know it no longer. It must be for others to 
 recount these changes of the later years. I prefer to leave 
 thc narrative on the threshold of the new era and before the 
 old order of things had yet begun to pass away, while a 
 fresher and a purer air still hung around the Great Hill, and 
 while a certain fragrance of the primeval forest gathered 
 about Whitman's pond. I prefer to leave it while Joshua 
 Bates, newly come back from the continental army, a colonel 
 of artillery at twenty-eight, was meditating those busy enter- 
 prises which were destined to infuse a new life into his native 
 town ; and I shall not seek to follow that other Joshua Bates, 
 then unborn, whose destiny it was to migrate back to the 
 mother country, and there in fulness of time to die at the 
 head of the first commercial firm of London or the world. 
 We leave Weymouth just emerging, weak but alive yet, from 
 the long ordeal of an eight years' war, and entering on a more 
 prosperous career, we leave it while brave old Brigadier 
 Lovell yet viewed his broad acres from the summit of King- 
 Oak Hill, while Dr. Cotton Tufts still served the town 
 whether at the bedsides of the sick or in the councils of the 
 State, and e'er yet the grass had grown over th*? new-made 
 grave of the good old Parson Smith. Two centuries and
 
 69 
 
 a half of municipal life are now completed, and in celebrating 
 the event to-day may we not fitly close with the earnest 
 hope that the succeeding years may be as blessed as those 
 which are past, that unity, virtue and good-will may long 
 find their abode within the limits of the ancient town, and 
 that, even more in the future than in the past, " may peace 
 be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces."
 
 70 
 
 AV^ey month. Surnames. 
 
 The following lists contain the surnames common to Weymouth 
 at various periods between 1635 and 1774 : 
 
 No. 1 is taken from the list of passengers who came over with 
 the Rev. Mr. Hull in 1635, as found in the N. E. Gen. Reg., v. 25, 
 p. 12. ' 
 
 No. 2 is the record of a land allotment made in 1636 among a 
 portion of the inhabitants. 
 
 No. 3 is a similar record, made in 1651. 
 
 No. 4 is a record of the number of acres in each person's lot, 
 made in 1663. 
 
 No. 5 is the list of voters called on the question of adopting the 
 " Solemn League & Covenant," in 1774, referred to on p. 58. 
 
 The longest of these lists, that of 1663, contains sixty-four 
 different surnames, whereas there are now five hundred and seventy 
 on the check-list of Weymouth. 
 
 Those names in italics represent families which do not appear on 
 the present check-list. The numbers opposite the names in romaii 
 indicate the number of those bearing each name now on the check- 
 list. It will be noticed that in the allotment list of 1636 are the 
 names of Bennet, Fenner, Fry, Hart, Raiding, Silvester, Smith, 
 White and Wright, which are not included in the "Hull" passen- 
 ger list of 1635. Possibly it may lie inferred that these were the 
 names of settlers alread} T on the spot before 1635, as Silvester 
 and Hart certainly were, both of them having taken the oath as 
 freemen in 1634. Smith, AVhite, and Wright, in the list of 1636, 
 are among the most common names now found in Weymouth, as 
 
 1 Mr. J. W. Porter, of Burlington, Maim', wlio lias given much attention to Wey- 
 inoutli genealogy, very kindly calls my notice to the fact that Hollard and Kingman 
 were made freemen March 3d, 1635, and are also included in the list of passengers at 
 Weymouth, England, on March 2()th of the same year. From this he infers some- 
 thing wrong in the list. The explanation of this and other interesting facts con- 
 nected with the early "Weymouth names I must leave to those who bear them, and 
 who have more familiarity than I with so difficult a class of investigation.
 
 71 
 
 are Bicknell, French, Holbrook, Lovell, Pool, Porter and Reed 
 among the names on the passenger list of 1635. Pratt and Bates 
 appear in 1651 ; the Burrells, Shaws, Vinings and Richardses in 
 1663 ; the Blanchards, Cushings, Louds, Tirrells and Humphreys 
 are found in the list of 1774, and also appear in the allotment list 
 of 1751, which I have not printed. 
 
 No. 1. 
 
 No. 2. 
 
 No. 
 
 3. 
 
 Passenger List of 
 1635. 
 
 Allotment of Land 
 in 1636. 
 
 Allotment of Land in 1651. 
 
 1 Adams. 
 
 1 Adams. 
 
 1 Adams. 
 
 2 Newman. 
 
 2 Allen. 
 
 1 Ben net. 
 
 2 Allen. 
 
 1 Norton. 
 
 Saber. 
 
 Fenner. 
 
 1 Andros. 
 
 Fifty. 
 
 1 Barnard. 
 
 28 French. 
 
 Applegate. 
 
 18 Poole. 
 
 21 Bicknell. 
 
 Fry. 
 
 1 Bailey. 
 
 7 Porter. 
 
 Dible. 
 
 4 Hart. 
 
 1 Barnard. 
 
 68 Pratt. 
 
 28 French. 
 
 Hull. 
 
 44 Bates. 
 
 25 Read. 
 
 Hallett. 
 
 2 Kingman. 
 
 21 Bicknell. 
 
 Eider. 
 
 29 Holbrook. 
 
 13 Lovell. 
 
 Brandin. 
 
 2 Rogers. 
 
 Hollar d. 
 
 Bawling. 
 
 3 Briggs. 
 
 22 Smith. 
 
 Hull. 
 
 25 Reed. 
 
 Britten. 
 
 Soule. 
 
 Jesop. 
 
 Silvester. 
 
 Butterworth. 
 
 Staple. 
 
 4 Jones. 
 
 36 Smith. 
 
 Byram. 
 
 1 Stone. 
 
 Joyner. 
 
 Upham. 
 
 Charde. 
 
 Streame. 
 
 2 King. 
 
 30 White. 
 
 Doggett. 
 
 Weedon. 
 
 2 Kingman. 
 
 11 Wright. 
 
 28 French. 
 
 5 Whitman. 
 
 Laud. 
 
 Total, 16. 
 
 1 Gurney. 
 
 1 Whitmarsh. 
 
 13 Lovell. 
 
 
 2 Harding. 
 
 4 Worster. 
 
 Lush. 
 
 
 2 Harlow. 
 
 Total, 47. 
 
 2 Marty n. 
 
 
 2 Harris. 
 
 
 Persons. 
 
 
 29 Holbrook. 
 
 
 18 Poole. 
 
 
 Howland. 
 
 
 7 Porter. 
 
 
 Jeffcry. 
 
 
 25 Read. 
 
 
 2 King. 
 
 
 Tabor. 
 
 
 2 Kingman. 
 
 
 Upham. 
 
 
 Luddan. 
 
 
 1 Wade. 
 
 
 2 Martin. 
 
 
 1 Whitmarsh. 
 
 
 Morris. 
 
 
 2 Wood. 
 
 
 27 Nash. 
 
 
 Total, 29. 
 
 

 
 72 
 
 No. 
 
 4. 
 
 No. 
 
 5. 
 
 he Number of Acres in each Per- 
 son's Lot in 1663. 
 
 Poll List 
 
 of 1774. 
 
 44 Bates. 
 
 27 Nash. 
 
 1 Arnold. 
 
 27 Nash. 
 
 Bay ley. 
 
 Newbury. 
 
 Ayrs. 
 
 20 Orcutt. 
 
 Berye. 
 
 2 Osborne. 
 
 Badlam. 
 
 G Phillips. 
 
 Bicknell. 
 
 Otis. 
 
 7 Bayley. 
 
 Pitty. 
 
 Blake. 
 
 1 Parker. 
 
 44 Bates. 
 
 18 Pool. 
 
 Bolter. 
 
 6 Phillips. 
 
 6 Beals. 
 
 7 Porter. 
 
 3 Briggs. 
 
 Pitty. 
 
 21 Bicknell. 
 
 68 Pratt. 
 
 35 Burrell. 
 
 18 Pool. 
 
 6 Binney. 
 
 25 Reed. 
 
 Burg. 
 
 7 Porter. 
 
 32 Blanchard. 
 
 8 Rice. 
 
 Buttcrworth. 
 
 G8 Pratt. 
 
 35 Burrell. 
 
 22 Richards. 
 
 By ram. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 4 Canterbury. 
 
 Ripley. 
 
 Charde. 
 
 11 Randall. 
 
 1 Colson. 
 
 2 Rogers. 
 
 Comer. 
 
 3 Reed. 
 
 3 Copeland. 
 
 36 Shaw. 
 
 5 Cook. 
 
 Reynolds. 
 
 50 Gushing. 
 
 22 Smith. 
 
 Down. 
 
 22 Richards. 
 
 11 Derby. 
 
 25 Thayer. 
 
 Drake. 
 
 Roe. 
 
 10 Dyer. 
 
 61 Tirrell. 
 
 10 Dyer. 
 
 2 Rogers. 
 
 Eager. 
 
 25 Torrey. 
 
 8 Ford. 
 
 36 Shaw. 
 
 8 Ford. 
 
 1 Trufant. 
 
 28 French. 
 
 Staple. 
 
 28 French. 
 
 Tufts. 
 
 Fry. 
 
 Streame. 
 
 Goold. 
 
 3 Turner. 
 
 Oilman. 
 
 22 Smith. 
 
 1 Gurney. 
 
 21 Vining. 
 
 G-uppie. 
 
 Snooke. 
 
 29 Holbrook. 
 
 3 Vinson. 
 
 2 Harding. 
 
 2 Taylor. 
 
 19 Hollis. 
 
 1 Wade. 
 
 4 Hart. 
 
 Thacher. 
 
 Hovey. 
 
 1 Ward. 
 
 29 Holbrook. 
 
 8 Thompson. 
 
 8 Humphrey. 
 
 1 Watermao. 
 
 8 Humphrey. 
 
 25 Torrey. 
 
 34 Hunt. 
 
 2 Webb. 
 
 34 Hunt. 
 
 21 Vining. 
 
 Jeffers. 
 
 2 Weston. 
 
 2 King. 
 
 30 White. 
 
 4 Jones. 
 
 30 White. 
 
 2 Kingman. 
 
 5 Whitman. 
 
 13 Joy. 
 
 5 Whitman. 
 
 5 Leach. 
 
 1 Wliitmarsh. 
 
 2 Kingman. 
 
 1 Wliitmarsh. 
 
 13 Lovell. 
 
 Warrens. 
 
 45 Loud. 
 
 4 Williams. 
 
 Luddon. 
 
 Worcn. 
 
 13 Lovell. 
 
 
 Total 
 
 ,64. 
 
 Total, 63.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 to
 
 APPENDI'X 
 
 The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the permanent 
 settlement of Weymouth, was celebrated in that town on 
 Saturday, July 4, 1874, by appropriate observances, under 
 the direction of a committee of its citizens appointed by the 
 town for that purpose. 
 
 The first public act relating to this celebration (preceded, 
 however, by considerable private discussion of its desirable- 
 ness), was the holding of a meeting to consider the subject, 
 by a few citizens, on the evening of the 24th day of Sep- 
 tember, 1873, at which meeting Messrs. ELIAS S. BEALS, 
 ABNER P. NASH and JOSEPH LOUD, were appointed to 
 confer with the selectmen of Weymouth in respect to 
 the expediency of such celebration and the best methods 
 of its accomplishment. This conference resulted in the 
 submission of the proposition for a celebration, informally, 
 to the town, at the close of the balloting on the day of the 
 annual November election of that year, at which meeting the 
 town appointed a Committee to take all necessary action to 
 secure the holding of such commemorative services during 
 the succeeding year, and to report to the town at its next 
 annual March meeting. This Committee consisted of three 
 persons from each ward in the town; viz., Messrs. JAMES 
 HUMPHREY, ZECHARIAH L. BICKNELL, NOAH VINING, ABNER 
 HOLBROOK and FRANCIS AMBLER, Selectmen, each represent- 
 ing one ward, with Messrs. ELIAS S. BEALS and ABNER P. 
 NASH, from Ward One (North Weymouth) ; LOVELL BICK- 
 NELL and MARSHALL C. DIZER, from Ward Two (East Wey- 
 mouth) ; ELIAS RICHARDS and E. ATHERTON HUNT, from 
 Ward Three (Weymouth Landing) ; DAVID S. MURRAY and 
 WILLIAM DYER, from Ward Four (the northerly part of the 
 South Parish), and JAMES L. BATES and CHARLES C. TOWER, 
 from Ward Five (the southerly part of the South Parish). 
 This Committee unanimously invited CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS,
 
 76 
 
 Jr., Esq., of Quincy a great-grandson of ABIGAIL (SMITH) 
 ADAMS, a native of Wey mouth to deliver the address upon 
 the occasion of such celebration, and this invitation was 
 accepted. 
 
 At the annual March meeting the subject of the celebration 
 was formally brought before the town, by an article in the 
 warrant, as follows : 
 
 " To see what action the town will take in regard to the proposed 
 Celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settle- 
 ment of Weymouth ; and if it shall be deemed expedient, to appoint 
 and instruct all committees, and to raise and appropriate all sums of 
 money deemed necessary to carry into effect the wishes of the town 
 upon that subject." 
 
 Under this article the town re-appointed the above-named 
 Committee of fifteen, AUGUSTUS J. RICHARDS, Esq., however, 
 taking the place of FRANCIS AMBLER, Esq., upon the Board 
 of Selectmen, and ex officio, as a member of that Committee ; 
 and it fully empowered them to make all necessary arrange- 
 ments for the proposed celebration. 
 
 This Committee cheerfully accepted the positions thus 
 assigned them, entering earnestly upon the performance of 
 their duties in that capacity ; and although the labor required 
 for their discharge far exceeded the anticipations of the Commit- 
 tee, yet all, with filial zeal, gave to the undertaking the time 
 and effort which seemed necessary to make the Celebration a 
 worthy commemoration of the virtues of their honorable 
 ancestry. 
 
 The exact date of the first permanent settlement in Wey- 
 mouth not having been fixed, it was agreed to hold the Cele- 
 bration on the Fourth Day of July, A. D. 1874, and that the 
 memorial services should be held upon the summit of King 
 Oak Hill, an easily accessible and sightly eminence in the 
 vicinity of the spot first settled. 
 
 The efforts of the Committee were heartily seconded by the 
 citizens of the town both ladies and gentlemen all lending 
 their influence and aid in favor of the undertaking. To the 
 liberal contributions of the ladies, the Committee were largely 
 indebted for the very creditable appearance of the tables spread 
 for the collation on the day of the Celebration, and to their
 
 77 
 
 influence in large measure, was due the presence in the pro- 
 cession on that occasion, of so goodly a number of the pupils 
 from the public schools. The cordial cooperation of the various 
 social, charitable and patriotic associations of the town in carry- 
 ing out the arrangements for the procession, materially added 
 to the interest and- pleasure of the Celebration ; and all, from the 
 oldest to the youngest by their sympathy and presence, helped 
 to make the anniversary memorable. 
 
 The day was favorable, being cloudy during the forenoon, 
 and less sultry than usual. 
 
 In response to invitations from the Committee, a very con- 
 siderable body of distinguished citizens from other parts of 
 the Commonwealth, of former residents, and of descendants 
 of residents of the town, assembled at the Old North Church, 
 to join with the citizens of the town in this celebration, the 
 Common, near this church, having been designated as the place 
 for forming the procession, which, under the direction of 
 chief marshal Captain ANDREW J. GAREY, aided by assistant 
 marshals Captain CHARLES W. HASTINGS, ZECHAEIAH L. 
 BICKXELL, J. MURRAY WHITCOMB, JOSHUA RINXEY, JOSEPH 
 W. ARMINGTON and JOSIAH N. PRATT, Esquires, at 12 o'clock, 
 noon, commenced its march in the following order : 
 
 Chief Marshal. 
 
 Stetson's Weymouth Band. 
 
 Reynolds Post 38, G. A. R., 110 men, under command of General 
 
 JAMES L. BATES. 
 
 Invited Guests, in carriages. 
 
 South Shore Commandery Knights Templars, GEORGE W. FAY, E. C., 
 
 GO men. 
 Orphan's Hope Lodge, F. & A. M., 75 men. 
 
 Delta Lodge, F. & A. M., 43 men. 
 Crescent Lodge, I. O. of O. F., 35 men. 
 
 Delphi Lodge, K. of P., 40 men, 
 Mechanic's Temple of Honor, 85 men. 
 
 Bowies' South Abington Band. 
 Conqueror Engine Company, 42 men, with engine. 
 
 Amazon Engine Company, 40 men. 
 Catholic Total Abstinence and Literaiy Association, of E. Wej-mouth, 
 
 40 men. 
 
 Johnston's Band. 
 
 Star of Promise Section 5, Cadets of Honor and Temperance. 
 Children of Public Schools, numbering about 700 hundred.
 
 78 
 
 Its route was over Church and Commercial Streets, and the 
 carriage-way through the estate of Miss SELIMA WILDES, to the 
 summit of King Oak Hill, where a collation was provided for 
 the procession and their ladies, and the citizens of the town, 
 twenty-five hundred adults being seated at the tables under 
 Yale's mammoth pavilion, and seven hundred pupils of the 
 public schools enjoying a picnic lunch under a smaller tent. 
 
 Hon. JAMES HUMPHREY acted as President of the day, and 
 Rev. FRANKLIN P. CHAPIN, pastor of the First Church in Wey- 
 mouth, invoked the divine blessing. 
 
 At the close of the collation, a select choir, under the direc- 
 tion of Mr. ALPHEUS BATES, sung the following original song, 
 composed by FRANCIS M. ADLIXGTOX, Esq., of Weymouth : 
 
 Our Father's Trump is ringing, 
 And on the wind is winging 
 Their Heav'n-wrought DECLARATION 
 That made of us a nation. 
 
 Huzza ! huzza ! from sea to sea 
 Rejoice, rejoice that all are free. 
 
 The Rights which we inherit 
 Shall ne'er, by our demerit, 
 Be lost to our descendants ; 
 Their birthright's INDEPENDENCE. 
 Huzza ! huzza ! from sea to sea 
 Rejoice, rejoice that all are free. 
 
 May all, of every station, 
 
 Who form this favor'd nation, 
 With jealous care endeavor 
 To guard their rights forever. 
 Huzza ! huzza ! from sea to sea 
 Rejoice, rejoice that all are free. 
 
 After which the President of the day delivered the opening 
 address, as follows : 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : No one regrets more deeply than my- 
 self the circumstances which have devolved upon me the duty of 
 presiding over this great assembly, in the place of the distinguished 
 gentleman, who, had his health permitted, would have filled this 
 position with a grace and dignity honorable to our ancient town ; 
 and [ can in no way better prove my sincerity in this regard than 
 by refraining to tax your indulgent attention by any attempt at a 
 formal address, and by hastening to bring before you the rich intel-
 
 79 
 
 lectual entertainment, which I know you all, with good reason, 
 eagerly anticipate. But, as the representative of Weymouth, I 
 must not omit a ivord of introduction and of welcome. 
 
 The occasion of this meeting is one full of interest to all our 
 citizens ; and it also as we are assured by the presence of this 
 large and distinguished company of our guests commends itself to 
 the good judgment of those eminent for their abilities and virtues, 
 whose sentiments are not on this occasion affected by the influences 
 which ever emanate from the sacred spot we call Home. 
 
 We meet to-day to do homage to the memory of those heroic 
 souls, who, amid toils and privations and dangers well nigh without 
 parallel, and with more than human foresight and energy, founded 
 upon the principles of eternal justice and absolute right those noble 
 institutions which are, even now, the admiration of the world, and 
 which have secured to us, beyond the peril of loss, if we rightly 
 prize their possession, our heritage of civil and religious liberty, 
 but which, in the future, as in the past, are to be upheld and vindi- 
 cated only by a virtuous and educated people. How more fitly can 
 we give expression to the reverent emotions of our grateful hearts 
 toward those noble men and women who (to borrow the words of 
 an eminent statesman, applied to our revolutionary ancestors) 
 "were willing themselves to endure the toil and incur the hazard, 
 that we and our descendants, their posterity, might reap the harvest 
 and enjoy the increase," than by this festal gathering on the natal 
 day of the glorious nation their labors so largely contributed to es- 
 tablish ; here to recount their deeds of heroism and sacrifice ; to 
 study for ourselves the lesson of their lives, and to teach it to our 
 children, the lesson of supreme devotion to duty, heedless alike 
 of transitory interests and of human commands, obedient onl}' to 
 conscience and to God. 
 
 In this spirit we celebrate our anniversary ; in this spirit we joy- 
 ously welcome you, our honored guests. Whether now returning to 
 your native soil, to your ancestral homes, or whether, by your 
 own choice, your lot has heretofore been cast with ours, we, with 
 fraternal hearts, welcome you back to these pleasant scenes, and to 
 an equal participation with our most favored citizens in all the 
 rights and privileges, the duties and the honors, of this memorial 
 day. But especially, we would tender our most cordial thanks to 
 those, eminent in public and in private life, who, being attracted 
 neither by the claims of former residence or of nativity within her 
 borders, have kindly responded to our invitation by their presence 
 and sympathy on this birthday festival of our Alma Mater. And 
 to all from abroad, whether neighbors or strangers, distinguished or 
 unknown to fame, we extend our hearty greeting and welcome.
 
 80 
 
 But, fellow-citizens, to us, mainly, is committed the duty 
 not rather sa} r the high privilege of cherishing, with a jealous care, 
 of defending, perpetuating, magnifying, the honor and fair fame 
 which are the chiefest jewels in the ooronet of our venerable town. 
 If by the observances of this da\' we shall be stimulated to new en- 
 deavors, and strengthened for renewed efforts to discharge worthily 
 the exalted trust which, by the favor of a kind Providence and the 
 labors of an honest ancestiy, have been confided to our keeping, 
 then it shall not be in vain that we celebrate, to-day, the two hun- 
 dred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Weymouth. 
 
 Prayer was then offered by Rev. ELBHIDGE P. McELiiov, 
 pastor of the First Congregational Church in East Weymouth, 
 and the following hymn, composed for the occasion, by GIL- 
 BERT NASH, Esq., a native of Weymouth, was sung by the 
 choir : 
 
 Five times have fifty years, 
 Joy-crowned or sad with tears, 
 
 Fled swift away, 
 Since yonder ocean bore 
 Our fathers to this shore, 
 Where, honor we once more, 
 
 That natal day. 
 
 They found a desert here, 
 And shared their homely cheer 
 
 In the wild waste. 
 Their toil, through faith and prayer, 
 Made it a garden fair; 
 And we, their names who bear, 
 
 Its fruitage taste. 
 
 No pile, in stately grace, 
 Stands forth to mark the place 
 
 Where first they trod ; 
 But yon old church-tower's bell, 
 Yon school, by mem'ry's spell, 
 These living hearts, may well 
 
 Point out the sod. 
 
 Small need of monument 
 To speak the name they lent 
 
 To this dear spot, 
 If their unsullied fame, 
 Their scorn of wrong and shame. 
 If each home-altar ilame 
 
 Proclaim il not.
 
 81 
 
 Brave deed and word sincere 
 Their worthy record bear 
 
 In lines more sure 
 Faithful in every trust, 
 In act and purpose just ; 
 We honor most their dust 
 
 By lives as pure. 
 
 Thanks for those noble sires ! 
 Thanks for their altar fires ! 
 
 God's precious gifts ! 
 Now let the praises sound 
 That in our hearts abound, 
 Till heaven's bltfe vault profound, 
 
 The chorus lifts. 
 
 After the reading of the Declaration of Independence, by 
 Mr. EDWARD BICKNELL, an undergraduate of Harvard Univer- 
 sity, the principal address of the occasion was delivered by 
 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Jr., Esq., who, by his animated 
 delivery and felicitous treatment of his theme, held the undi- 
 vided attention of his large audience until the close of this 
 admirable address. Upon its conclusion, the Hon. CHARLES 
 FRANCIS ADAMS, Sr., was called upon by the President of the 
 day, and briefly responded in a humorous speech. He said that 
 it was not customary at select entertainments to have a repeti- 
 tion of any one dish, and that he thought they had been treated 
 to a pretty large dish of the Adamses: He would therefore 
 only consent to appear in the shape of a sauce. He was much 
 impressed by the beauty of the prospect from the hill on 
 which they were assembled, and had felt ashamed to confess 
 that he had never before been upon it, although for many 
 years living near it. It was some relief, however, to be 
 informed that one of the oldest citizens of "VVey mouth had 
 that day made the ascent for the first time. Alluding to the 
 historical fact that President JOHN ADA^IS, when a young 
 man, had come to Wey mouth for a wife, the speaker face- 
 tiously remarked that if this event had not happened, neither 
 of the Adamses father nor sou would very likely have been 
 there at that time. Referring to the address of his son, he 
 disputed the statement that THOMAS MORTON, of unsavory 
 memory, was the first settler of Quincy ; alleging that he was 
 11
 
 82 
 
 only a carpet-bagger after the modern model, and came there 
 to make use of the Indians for his own private ends. 
 
 The following original hymn, written by Rev. GEORGE F. 
 STANTOX, pastor of the Old South Congregational Church in 
 Weyinouth, was sung by the choir, the.audience joining, to 
 the familiar strains of Auld Lang Syne : 
 
 Scarce had the Mayflower's noble band, 
 
 On Plymouth's sterile shore, 
 Upreared their altars and their homes, 
 
 Their stormy wand'rings o'er ; 
 When, lo, on Wessagussefr's hills 
 
 The answering beacons shine, 
 Where other pilgrim-souls have found 
 
 Fair Freedom's sacred shrine. 
 
 Whate'er their hopes or aims or fears, 
 
 As first these fields the}' trod ; 
 They brought, as did our Plymouth sires, 
 
 Trust in the living God. 
 Faith, Freedom, Knowledge, these they sought, 
 
 Our blessings of to-day, 
 A heritage, increasing still, 
 
 As ages roll away. 
 
 Two centuries and a half have reaped 
 
 The harvest they have sown ; 
 And nobler sheaves are ripening still, 
 
 For coming reapers grown. 
 God owned the faith which honored Him ; 
 
 His blessings, rich and rare, 
 Have never i'ailed, and all our homes 
 
 Their glorious fulness share. 
 
 We trace the long, long ages back ; 
 
 They glow with light divine ; 
 God's love illumed them, and we pray 
 
 May ever round us shine. 
 Ten thousand hearts rejoice to-day, 
 
 And praise his guiding grace, 
 That gave our fathers these fair fields, 
 
 This blest abiding place. 
 
 EVERETT C. Bmirus, Esq., was then announced as the 
 Toast-Master of the occasion, and proposed as the first regular 
 toast, "The President of the United States," and called upon
 
 83 
 
 Hon. BENJAMIN W. HARRIS, the representative in Congress 
 from the second Massachusetts district, who responded as 
 follows : 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : 
 
 If the President of the United States were personal^ present to 
 respond to the sentiment in his honor just proposed, his speech 
 would possess, I have no doubt, judging from his well-known most 
 excellent habit, among its many other excellences, that of brevity. 
 In making response, in his absence, I shall strive for that same 
 virtue. 
 
 In thanking you for the compliment intended to be conveyed, he 
 would, I am sure, with characteristic modesty, decline to appropri- 
 ate the honor of it, as wholly personal, to himself, but would ac- 
 cept it as due, in part, to the great office which he has been called, 
 by the voice of the nation, temporarily to fill. 
 
 That we owe him hearty thanks and high honors for difficult and 
 valuable service rendered to the nation as chief magistrate, is most 
 true ; and this public acknowledgment of our obligation is sponta- 
 neous and sincere. 
 
 But we can not and need not disguise the truth, that the highest 
 honors which impartial histoiy will assign to U. S. GRANT will be 
 those earned by him as a great military leader of his time and 
 country. 
 
 We heard, to-day, from our eloquent orator, the story of MILES 
 STANDISII'S victory, won here two hundred and fifty years ago : how 
 he came up from Plymouth at the head of an army of eight men, on 
 the first military expedition of the infant colony ; and how, at the 
 foot of this hill, he performed deeds of heroic valor, which have 
 become a part of the histor}- of our country, and which will never 
 be forgotten. Though he commanded a small arm}', and exercised 
 power over a veiy limited extent of country, yet the act which he 
 performed was great, and its results will be felt during all the ages 
 of his country's history, and entitles him to an honorable rank 
 among military men. 
 
 To be sure, the settlement which he found here. was, for the time, 
 quite destined and stamped out in his ever memorable campaign ; 
 but he was engaged in a war having for its object the salvation of 
 the colony, which this ill-starred settlement seemed to him to en- 
 danger ; and the results which followed have full}' justified his 
 seemingly impetuous and fiery acts, and prove him to have been a 
 far-seeing and prudent leader. He taught a treacherous and wily 
 foe that, " though he was a little man he was a great captain," and
 
 84 
 
 that, in defence of his home and countiy, he was invincible. Since 
 his da}*, the country which he helped to found has widened and ex- 
 panded from a feeble settlement by the shore, upon the outer margin 
 of an unknown continent, to an empire stretching from sea to sea, 
 and embracing within its protecting power forty millions of people. 
 
 General GHANT, whom we seek to honor by the proposed toast, 
 moved by the same patriotic love of country which inspired the 
 heart of MILES STANDISH, indeed led greater armies and won 
 grander victories, and his name will justly .descend to future times 
 as his country's great deliverer ; and }-et we may well doubt to 
 which of the two men future time will assign the higher place in the 
 Temple of Fame. 
 
 Captain STANDISH and General GRANT ! The great military men 
 of their times ; they served the same country, the former saved it 
 from destruction in the feebleness of its founding ; the latter de- 
 fended it from impending anarchy and dismemberment in its matu- 
 rity and strength. They are entitled to equal honors on a day like 
 this. 
 
 In response to the next regular toast, " The Common- 
 wealth of Massachusetts the honored whole of which we are 
 proud to be a part," Hon. SETII TURNER, Executive Council- 
 lor from the Second District, spoke as follows ; 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : 
 
 When your Toast-Master issued his call for a response to the 
 sentiment in honor of Massachusetts, he may have fancied his 
 authority the same as when presiding with usual grace upon his 
 throne of the East Norfolk District ; but let him beware, for-the 
 body that made him can unmake, and he must remember the powers 
 of the Executive. Seriously, Mr. President, you must receive a pro- 
 test for this summary method of the Judge ; for soon after coming 
 upon this " King-Oak Hill." he ranged through the spacious tent 
 in search of His Honor Lieut-Gov. Talbot, and failing in his effort, 
 set upon the trio of state officials present, commanding words when 
 he should call for them. My appeals to the veteran Treasurer 
 (Adams) and faithful Auditor (Endicott) to meet the occasion 
 were in vain, and the}' coolly, like war-worn heroes, thrust the raw 
 recruit to the front, and compelled the Councillor of the Second 
 District to answer, for the first time in eighteen months' service, for 
 the old Commonwealth, in the absence of the Executive. 
 
 It is your misfortune, ladies and gentlemen, as well as I fear no 
 little mortification to me, that Gov. Talbot is not here to speak for
 
 85 
 
 himself. Were he here, I well know how sincerely he would assure 
 j'ou of the interest our old dear mother State takes in all her muni- 
 cipalities ; how watchful she is in her measures for the health, hap- 
 piness and prosperity of all her citizens. His Honor would claim 
 his hearty purpose to so administer the duties of his office as to 
 promote the weal of the teeming population within the reach of his 
 sceptre ; and I will assure this vast audience of the integrity and 
 firmness of this man who has come up from the humble walks of a 
 life of labor to occupy with honor to himself the highest position 
 within the gift of the state constituency. In this post of promi- 
 nence he does not forget the wants of our humblest citizens ; 
 and you will let me illustrate his fresh recollection of earlier and 
 obscure days, when a humble but faithful factory operative. In a 
 recent visit made by him and his council to the scene of that un- 
 equalled and terrible disaster of the Mill River flood, with all the 
 cares and anxieties incident to that desolated valley, he sought out 
 a long-gone fellow operative, and lightened the humble and sad- 
 dened home by his presence and words of kindness. The incident 
 I relate as one heart-mark of the thoughtfulness of the Executive 
 for his constituents- and friends. It is a matter of no little .per- 
 sonal regret that, beyond the satisfaction it would give this pres- 
 ence, it could not be the pleasure of Gov. Talbot to listen to the 
 able and eloquent address of the distinguished orator of the day, 
 replete as it was with not only the local affairs of the old town of 
 Weymouth, but also the man}' incidents connecting it with the 
 earh- histoiy of Plymouth Colon}-. I would, too, have had him 
 look upon the beauties of the place, for I know that when but a 
 few days since, on the anniversary of a memorable Revolutionary 
 day, as the citizens of your adjoining old town of Braintree marked 
 its return by the dedication of artistic and enduring granite to the 
 memory of her brave sons fallen in the successful strife to preserve 
 our nation's unity, he was enthusiastic in his admiration of this 
 section of the State with which, before, comparatively unfamiliar. 
 And to-day; could I have taken him to your town by first leav- 
 ing the Old Colony line on your southern border, touching per- 
 chance the paths where brave old Miles Standish and the erratic 
 Morton may have walked in early forests, gathering the beauties of 
 a scene rarely surpassed, covered now indeed by the active indus- 
 tries of that section ; then skirting your lines through old Braintree 
 and " her children three," until the picture bursts upon the eye 
 where on the amphitheatre brow of East Braiutrec you see the Mon- 
 atiquot expanding into the broad Fore River, and ribboned upon 
 the landscape at your feet and passing to the sea by the Point, with 
 Old Spain (the first settler's home) nestling in the distance, his eye
 
 86 
 
 would be filled by the sight. And then only await the enthusiasm, 
 crowning all, as he should reach the brow of this " King Oak Hill," 
 where are presented in the distance Nantasket's pride and Cohas- 
 set's ragged shores, with Hingham's beauties in rolling hills and 
 ample plains, while far awa}- the vision gathers the ever-enlarging 
 metropolis and inland towns, the bold outlines of the Blue Hills in 
 lovely contrast with the ocean's broad expanse in the other distance. 
 This view, so grand and beautiful, would extort renewed admira- 
 tion of a South Shore town and make any governor proud of such a 
 spot as Weymouth. I regret, again, the absence of the one you 
 would honor on this nation's holiday and most interesting town an- 
 niversary, and am more sorry than I can express for the inability of 
 your councillor to do justice to the sentiment offered. Your audience 
 may be wearied, but I cannot refrain from speaking of the double 
 interest of this occasion ; for to me, personal!}', this old town has 
 been the stamping ground of my childhood and earlier boyhood. I 
 claim the interest of a son in it, and have known its hills and val- 
 leys, shores, marshes and rivers, and roamed them with that love 
 childhood and youth only can know, and to-day the grand old town 
 is spread before us with charms of engaging interest. Sh'all I not, 
 then, Mr. President, rank to-day rather as of Weymouth origin than 
 of official position ? Let me answer by my own story : Something 
 more that half a century since, there came quite often from neigh- 
 boring Randolph a " Royal" visitor, and, though it has never been 
 hinted (as tradition tells our orator's ancestor's humorous story) 
 that he came either eating or drinking or was suspected of having a 
 devil, yet he did, from the house still on the banks of u Fore River," 
 capture a " white" girl of tender years and carried her to his home, 
 where, until she had passed the " threescore and ten," she was 
 loved and honored by all who knew her. I cannot trust myself 
 farther. Many here knew her, and as a loving son. I bless old Wey- 
 mouth for that mother. In yonder cemetery's rounding hills moulder 
 the ashes of my maternal ancestors, and to the number was added, 
 but three years since, one well-remembered by many here to-day, 
 .who, had she lived another year from this, would have reached her 
 own centennial. What a story of early and modern Weymouth 
 could she have told ! AVith such memories can I not be indulged in 
 lengthy ardor to-day ? Let me continue by saying that in the old 
 churches, present and past, at the foot of this " hill," have I listened, 
 many a Sabbath, to the words of those good men, Emery, Phillips 
 and Bent, and can well remember the last-named as he preached 
 in the oldest structure vivid in my mind, with its square empanelled, 
 pine box-pews, and the more notable sounding-board which, to my 
 childish gaze, seemed ever read}* to fall and crush the man of God
 
 87 
 
 below it. Suppress, Mr. Toast-Master, that incredulous smile, for I 
 declare before your "court" present, I began attending church 
 early and continued it often, doubt as your judgeship may why so 
 few good results have followed. A picture of the exterior and 
 especialty of the interior of that old church should, if possible, ac- 
 company the memorial volume of this occasion. I should like to 
 speak of the familiar faces of my boyhood, better known of course 
 to many of this presence, of the Tufts, the Humphreys, Bateses, 
 Nashes, Tirrells, Louds, Frenches, Whites, Wildes and Webbs, and 
 hosts of others, but have tasked your patience quite too long. Beg- 
 ging your forbearance for my crude and desultory words, let me 
 again congratulate 3-011 upon the successful observance of our na- 
 tion's holiday and the happy results of all your efforts to honor the 
 two hundred and fiftieth return of Wessagussett's birth-da}-* 
 
 The following sentiment was then proposed, "The County 
 of Norfolk : though shorn of many of her fair proportions, she 
 is still full of vigor and promise of length of days." 
 
 Hon. NATHANIEL F. SAFFORD, Chairman of the County 
 Commissioners, made this response : 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT : As was said in Europe that all roads lead to 
 Rome, so, in our County of Norfolk, all thoughts and memories 
 seem centering here, in old Weymouth, to-day. It is said that at 
 Cintra, the native of whatever country recognizes some scenes of 
 the father land. And so it is, when we gather on these oft-recurring 
 anniversaries of the incorporation or settlement of these rural homes 
 of the fathers of New England, whichsoever we revisit, we find the 
 traditions of a kindred past, the associations of a common history, 
 one single tongue,- one language all can understand, that tells of the 
 old town, the venerable meeting-house, the burial ground, the village 
 school, the narrow lane, the rustic hedge or the "old oaken bucket 
 that hangs in the well." 
 
 Though the date of the incorporation of the county may be within 
 the fading memory of a remnant of living men, yet the ancient pre- 
 cincts of which the county is composed date their settlement among 
 the earliest in the State. If I am right, Weymouth. 1624 ; Brain- 
 tree, Wollaston, 1625 ; Dorchester (some portion of which has re- 
 cently rejoined Suffolk), 1630 ; Dedham, 1635 : which I believe em- 
 brace substantially the present territorial limits of the county, not 
 forgetting Brookline, originally a part of Boston, and Cohasset, a 
 part of the ancient Hingham.
 
 88 
 
 How truly have these old precincts, in the varied vicissitudes of 
 New England history, in stability of public judgment, in firm resolve 
 and patriotic devotion, proved themselves worthy of their time-hal- 
 lowed traditions. 
 
 For two hundred and fifty years, though ofttimes called to scenes 
 of conflict, to defend their dwellings against the merciless savage in 
 the blood} 7 scenes of Indian warfare, in the French war, in the long 
 and fearful agon}' of the Revolutionary struggle, in the second war of 
 independence, till the last great conflict when the thunders of Gettys- 
 burg reverberated around the world, yet during all that period, no 
 hostile cannon, engaged in military or civil strife among themselves, 
 have ever' traversed these quiet roads ; ever ready and valiant to 
 defend their rights upon any other lield, they have always united 
 among themselves, to illustrate in their municipal and local history, 
 the maxim which enjoins peace on earth and good-will to men. 
 
 Their first centennial found them still surrounded with circum- 
 stances of peril. On the frontiers were threatenings of French and 
 Indian wars ; even before that period, it had been complained that 
 the people took the oath of allegiance to the governor and not to the 
 king. In the stern experience of colonial times, they stood unmoved 
 in their opposition to the partisans of the crown, and in resistance 
 to the lawless acts of provincial governors. 
 
 So, also, on a succeeding anniversary, one hundred years ago this 
 day, were foreshadowed to them the opening scenes of the Revolu- 
 tionary struggle. One hundred years ago this day, the committee 
 of fifty-one in New York determined that delegates be chosen to the 
 general congress. As I left my home this morning, I passed upon 
 the right, in our town of Milton, the site of the old mansion of Hutch- 
 inson, which, in May, 1774, had become an uncomfortable residence 
 for a royal governor, and at the declivity of the same Milton Hill, 
 within the present limits of Norfolk, I looked upon another venera- 
 ble mansion, the stars and stripes of the republic, unsevered, floating 
 over it to-day, where were adopted the memorable Suffolk Resolves, 
 of which county these precincts then formed a part. Those resolves 
 were the manifesto of the "County Congress" first held at Stough- 
 ton ; then at Dedham, where' sixty delegates represented every town 
 in the county, notwithstanding the regulating Act of Parliament had 
 prohibited town meetings ; then by adjournment at Milton, on 9th of 
 September, 1774. The resolves were reported by Gen. Joseph War- 
 ren, who, within one year after, fell a martyr at Bunker Hill. They 
 were several times read, paragraph by paragraph, and unanimously 
 adopted ; and when, a few days later, they met the approval of the 
 Continental Congress, just assembling at the Carpenters' Hall, Phila-
 
 89 
 
 delphia, those resolves of duty and defiance made war inevitable and 
 independence c'ertain. 
 
 To that cause of popular liberty, the men of Weymouth were 
 unwavering in their devotion. The communion of the colonies was, 
 to them, a sacred communion. They were roused to action by the 
 same old drums that beat at Concord and rallied the troops to Bunker 
 Hill. In after time, they were firm in their attachment and adherence 
 to the constitution of 'the State, and in loyalty to the cause of the 
 Union. Those eras of anxiety and peril are now overpast, and 
 we have gathered on this auspicious anniversary, to renew our 
 vows, to perpetuate, so far as in us lies, those blessings of civil and 
 religious freedom which were acquired and achieved by the wisdom 
 and valor of the fathers. 
 
 Remember what was said of the visit of a foreign prince to our 
 shores ; that he found here a nation of soldiers without an army ; 
 civil order without a police ; wealth, luxury and culture without a 
 court or an aristocracy ; that he learned to mingle with the busy 
 marts of men, without the intervention of chamberlains or courtiers ; 
 that he found respect without ceremony, and honor without adulation. 
 
 And thus, with each recurring anniversary, may there be fresh 
 experiences that the Pilgrim spirit has not fled that it walks in 
 noon's bright light 
 
 " And it watches the bed of our martyr dead, 
 
 With the holy stars by night ; 
 And it watches the bed of the brave who have bled, 
 
 And shall guard this wide-spread shore, 
 Till the waves iu the bay, 
 "Where the Mayflower lay, 
 
 Shall foam and freeze 110 more." 
 
 To the sentiment, "The Old Plymouth Colony her prin- 
 ciples are the corner-stone of this Republic so long as they 
 are held sacred in the government of this nation its prosperity 
 is assured," Hon. BEXJAMIN HOBAET, of Abingtou, formerly 
 a member of Congress, and now ninety-two years of age, was 
 called upon to respond, and, coming upon the platform, sur- 
 prised the audience by the clearness of his intellect, thfe dis- 
 tinctness of his enunciation, and his great bodily vigor. He 
 commenced by alluding to the fact that he had been a teacher 
 in one of the public schools of Weymouth, seventy-five years 
 ago, and proceeded to speak in detail of the various and im- 
 portant changes which had taken place in this vicinity and 
 throughout the whole country, during the period of his per- 
 
 12
 
 90 
 
 
 
 son.nl recollection, exhibiting an acquaintance with current 
 events and a memory of the past, wonderfully accurate for a 
 gentleman of his great age. 
 
 Mr. HOBART was followed by Hon. GEORGE WHITE, Judge 
 of the Probate Court for Norfolk County, in response to this 
 sentiment, "The Judiciary of Massachusetts since 1776 it 
 has created a system of Jurisprudence that is at once an honor, 
 a protection and a blessing to all," who spoke as follows : 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT : With reluctance I speak to the sentiment " The 
 Judiciary." I feel, however, that this is a family gathering, and 
 that I have a right to be here and to speak in virtue of my ances- 
 tors, all of whom on my father's side, for about two hundred years, 
 were born in Weymonth ;*and, besides, there are names of men of 
 Weymouth origin which ma}* fitly be called to remembrance in 
 response to your toast. 
 
 About two hundred and fifty years ago there lived in sight 'of 
 this hill Avhere we are, and in that part of Weymouth now called 
 Old Spain, a man by the name of Thomas White. When he came 
 to this shore, or whence he came, I, by diligent study, cannot find 
 out. Whether he was one of Weston's men of unsavory memory, 
 or whether he came from Weymouth, England, with " another sort 
 of people in 1G24," or a little earlier or later, is uncertain. 
 
 From this obscure settler there can be traced, along the various 
 lines of his descendants, men of every kind and description of char- 
 acter, and of widely diversified occupations, very many useful citi- 
 zens and main* distinguished public men ; some of whom were 
 shoemakers, some blacksmiths ; others, farmers, merchants, bank- 
 ers, lawyers, judges, historians, physicians ; one a President of a 
 College ; others, slaveholders yes, holders of slaves here in Wey- 
 mouth ; some were soldiers serving in the wars of their times (the 
 French and Indian war, the Revolution, the war of 1812, and the 
 Secession war) ; and others followed the seas, 'one of whom sailed 
 with C'apt. John Mauley in the far-famed privateer the " Schooner 
 Lee," which performed such signal service against the British ship- 
 ping c^ir here in Massachusetts Bay, in the early days of the Revo- 
 lution. 
 
 This Thomas White lived and died in Old Spain, and he and 
 many of his line lie buried in the neighboring burial ground. Some 
 of his descendants have lived on the banks of Weymouth River and 
 on Fore River ever since. Some moved up to the head of tide- 
 waters, on the Braintrce as well as on the Weymouth side ; some 
 pushed on to South Weymouth, and hence on to the country now
 
 91 
 
 Holbrook, Randolph, Brockton, Bridgewater "and Taunton. The 
 blood of this man can be traced by the records, in many men and 
 man} 7 women now living, whose lives and characters, because of 
 their public spirit, their intelligence, their moral worth, make them 
 worthy of mention when Weymouth celebrates her birthday, the 
 Louds, the Webbs, the Hunts, the Kingmans the Whites, the 
 Haywards, the Aldens, the Turners, and many others. 
 
 But coming more to the subject of your sentiment, I will speak of 
 the lawyers. 
 
 Samuel White, of Taunton, born in Braintree, was a lineal 
 descendant, in the fourth degree, from this Thomas White, of Wey- 
 mouth. A graduate of Harvard College, the first lawyer ever set- 
 tled in Taunton, one of the few barristers in the Massachusetts 
 Colony prior to the Revolution, eminent as a lawyer and orator; 
 for more than twenty-five years he was Speaker of the House of 
 Representatives or member of the Governor's Council. 
 
 As Speaker, in 1765, he gave his official signature to' the Resolve 
 of the House of Representatives, calling the first convention of the 
 colonies to consider the Stamp Act of Parliament, and take meas- 
 ures in relation thereto ; and so may be regarded as among the first 
 who entered into open and active resistance to the unlawful acts of 
 the mother country. He died in 1769, and so failed to share in the 
 war of the Revolution. 
 
 His grandsons were Francis and William Baylies, both eminent 
 as lawyers, one of whom (Francis) was the historian" of Plymouth 
 Colon}', a member of Congress for six years, and rich in learning, 
 talents and virtues ; the other, a fine speaker, the compeer of the 
 first lawyers of his da}-, often arrayed against Daniel Webster. 
 
 Anna White, sister of Samuel White, of Taunton, whom I have 
 just mentioned, was the grandmother of Samuel Sumner Wilde, one 
 of the Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court of this Common- 
 wealth for thirty -five years. 
 
 Silence White, of the fourth generation from Thomas White, of 
 Weymouth, was the grandmother of Lemuel Shaw, the late Chief 
 Justice, who presided in the Supreme Court for thirty years. These 
 judges were simple, sturdy Puritans, niul their names make no 
 inconsiderable share of the common-wealth and grandeur of our 
 State. 
 
 Another man deserves remembrance on this day. In 1745, Rich- 
 ard Cranch came to this country from Kingsbridge, England. He 
 was a watchmaker by trade. In 1750, he removed from Boston to 
 Braintree (now Quincy), and, subsequently, he became a resident 
 of Weymouth. Here, in Weymouth, he married a daughter of Rev. 
 William Smith, sister of Abigail, the- wife of John Adams, which
 
 92 
 
 John was the first Chief Justice of the Superior (now called Su- 
 preme) Court of Massachusetts, in virtue of an appointment made 
 in 1775, by " the Council of the State of Massachusetts." 
 
 This Richard Cranch, with his beautiful wife, not long afterwards 
 returned to Braintree bearing with them their infant son William, 
 who was born in Weymouth. The father (Richard) studied law, 
 became a member of the bar, and was appointed Judge of the 
 Court of Common Pleas for the County of Suffolk. 
 
 William (the son) was graduated at Harvard College, studied 
 law, and, after a brief practice at the bar, was appointed one of the 
 assistant judges of the United States Circuit Court for the District 
 of Columbia; and five years later was appointed by President Jef- 
 ferson Chief Justice of that Court, and, in virtue of that office, 
 became sole Judge of the District Court of the United States for 
 the District of Columbia. 
 
 Chief Justice Cranch was conscientious and persistent in his 
 opinions to the extreme, yet he was a man born to be loved and ven- 
 erated. He was the progenitor of many gifted and loveh* men and 
 women (lawyers, physicians, clergymen, painters, poets, artists and 
 singers), some of them of rare talents and genius. 
 
 In response to the sentiment, "The Medical Profession 
 honored among us by the life-long and faithful services of a 
 WHITE, a TUFTS, a FIFIELD and a HOWE," Dr. W. C. B. 
 FIFIELD, of Boston, a native of Weymouth, spoke as follows : 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : The sentiment you 
 have carried to the medical profession of Weymouth, past and 
 present, floats on the surface of the bubbling, foaming sea of wit 
 and eloquence we have just listened to, like a veritable toast on the 
 surface of that generous liquor known as punch. 
 
 As to properly compose this, many very different ingredients 
 must combine, the spirit, the sugar, the acid, and sometimes the 
 medicinal herb, mint, you have, after the fashion of French cooks, 
 who sprinkle beefsteaks with assafoetida to give a delicate flavor, 
 appealed to the medicine men of the tribe of Weymouth to add 
 their somewhat grim presence and unsavory associations to the 
 glorious combination stirred up here to-day. Apropos of punch, I 
 did not mention water, because it is generally agreed that ever}' 
 drop of water spoils the punch. 
 
 Our noble medical predecessors, who practised round about this 
 hill at and before the coming of the first settlers of Weymouth, 
 were, doubtless, of the same school as those who to-day, in Western
 
 93 
 
 Indian villages, work miracles with bears' claws and prairie dogs' 
 bones shaken in medicine bags (not saddle-bags), and by frantic 
 howls and dances prolong the attention and applause of their clients 
 until the forces of nature bring the wind, or the rain, or the cure of 
 the sick, or whatever their services shall have been retained for. 
 Throughout the world, whether among red, white, black or graj r , 
 this old, false, magical school of medicine exists. 
 
 Let us turn from the magicians of the profession to the magi of 
 the same. You are not to look for them as clothed in gaudy r9bes, 
 gay with 'astrological symbols; but perhaps you may encounter 
 them as the quiet gentlemen at your side, who, though their 
 
 " Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, 
 Close at your elbow stir their lemonade." 
 
 The old magicians worked, and do to-day work, the almost worn- 
 out theatrical machinery of superstition and deceit ; the magi, the 
 eternally grand, eternally reliable forces of nature. 
 
 It is by a knowledge of the natural sciences that the medical 
 man of to-day works out the solution of the problems submitted to 
 his consideration, with a certainty and a celerity that seem like a 
 realization of the stories of the ancient necromancers, and this 
 knowledge is becoming each da} r more and more an absolute neces- 
 sity to his daily occupation. By the application of the laws of 
 light and optics, he can, with his opthalmoscope, drag from the eye 
 a secret unwhispered even to the reeds ; his laryngoscope reveals 
 the machinery of the voice of the prima donna, which seems as 
 ethereal as the voices of the angels may be fancied to be ; his mi- 
 croscope counts the globules of the blood and marks their courses, 
 and the electric and galvanic forces at his command wring from the 
 muscles the story of the poisonous lead, be it from the pipe of the 
 druggist's soda fountain, or from the lily white laid on the cheek of 
 beauty. His knowledge of the laws of chemistry tells you of the 
 poison lurking in your houses, wells and streams ; in the food you 
 eat, in the waller you drink, in the clothes you wear, in the air you 
 breathe. With it he is able to form substances which heal diseases, 
 or mitigate the suffering of those which cannot be healed. In his 
 proudest aspects he stands before you, not holding, as sometimes 
 depicted, a bag of simples in his hand for the cure of diseases 
 already contracted, but as a guide, a counsellor, an angel (if 3*011 
 allow me the expression), to proclaim, to point out, baneful things 
 in your path ; in short, to enforce the homely old saying, that " An 
 ounce of prevention is worth a pound of remedy." 
 
 Recognize, then, the true medicine man. Eecognize him in the 
 sanitarian who seeks to give you the essentials of health. How
 
 94 
 
 great is sanitary science ; greatest, perhaps, of all. Would you, 
 most profitably to yourselves, emplo} 7 3*our medical men ? go with 
 them to your schools, to your houses ; examine with them your 
 streams and wells ; ask of them not the cure but the prevention of 
 the wasting typhoid, the loathsome small-pox, the scarlet-clad de- 
 stroyer of your children. Give the air you breathe to their keeping ; 
 and, oh, guard with jealous care, the air that blows over your hills ; 
 suffer it not to be polluted for any increase to your treasury. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, let us pause here an instant, and in silence do 
 honor to the memory of the late Dr. George Derby, our sanitary 
 champion of Massachusetts, our Bayard : " Sans peur et sans 
 reproche." 
 
 Mr. Chairman, the sentiment given by the toast-master includes 
 the names of four of the elders of the profession in Weymouth I 
 might have said masters who have gone to their rest : White, 
 Tufts, Howe and Fifield. Of the first I cannot speak, understand- 
 ing!}-. Honored and true he was, doubtless. His ashes repose in a 
 little burying'-ground, seldom, I fancy, visited, on Pleasant Street, 
 South Weymouth. The name of Dr. Tufts, scholar and patriot, 
 high in the councils of the early days of Massachusetts, will always 
 be remembered. Howe, physician, statesman, soldier, firm, uncom- 
 promising guardian of liberty, will also dwell long in the memory 
 of the present generation, at least. Of the fourth it does not 
 become me to speak. His name is a household word in Weymouth, 
 and no word of mine could add to its honor. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, while we applaud the Medical Profession for its 
 constant and rapid advances, we sometimes sigh for the habits of 
 close observation (made imperatively necessary from lack of mod- 
 ern appliances), the ripe judgment, the extensive experience, the 
 lortiter in re of the fathers of the pi'ofcssion in Weymouth. They 
 did run well. Through storm and calm they went in the stern, un- 
 flinching exercise of duty. No sick or suffering were foreign to 
 thorn. They rest from their labors and their works do follow them. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, the medical men of Weymouth I know do, I am 
 sure they ever will, so honor in their lives and calling the memories 
 of the honest, self-sacrificing, studious physicians of Weymouth, 
 who have passed bej'ond, that when their wheels shall have ceased 
 forever from rattling, and the new doctor goes their old rounds, 
 lie shall hear from all the verdict that he never, never, can 
 know as much or be so good and kind as the old doctor who has 
 gone. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I know that it will be thus ; Forsaith common re- 
 port, there is balm at the Landing and a physician there ; that the 
 Old South Parish is guarded by a Toicer of strength, and- the East
 
 95 
 
 ever blest by the presence of a beneficent Fay ; that a Piper makes 
 glad the hearts of ancient Spain, and that he who bears the name of 
 the Nortons and the Quincys may ever be trusted as a wise and bold 
 counsellor. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, as the true science of medicine and surgery ad- 
 vances towards those higher regions of Art, whose boundaries at 
 last meet and become one with nature, it leaves, and leaves forever, 
 whatever dull clouds of superstition, ignorance or error may have 
 clung about its base, and soars at last into the full brightness and 
 beauty of truth, ever the fortress of the strong. 
 
 " As. some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
 Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm ; 
 Though round its breast the rolling clouds be spread, 
 Eternal sunshine settles on its head." ^ 
 
 Dr. WILLIAM M. CoR^ T ELL, of Boston, who married a 
 Weymouth lady, being called upon to respond to the senti- 
 ment : " The Ladies so strong are their magnetic attractions, 
 that they draw suitors from abroad, as well as charm the na- 
 tive born," spoke as follows : 
 
 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT, TOAST-MASTER, LADIES AXD GEXTLEMEX : 
 
 We have just listened to an excellent tribute to the doctors of 
 Weymouth, b}' Dr. Fifield. I received a note from Dr. Tower, 
 stating to me, " You will be expected to respond to the following 
 sentiment: 'The Ladies of Weymouth so strong in their magnetic 
 attractions, that the}' draw suitors from abroad, as well as at 
 home.' " 
 
 Mr. President, the Doctor has made a mistake. He has given a 
 wrong diagnosis in appointing me to speak of the ladies of Wey- 
 mouth ; and, when the diagnosis is wrong, every doctor knows that 
 the prognosis, or result, is very apt to be wrong also, which, 
 probably, will be the case in my speech. But I am not disposed to 
 throw the whole blame of this mistake upon the Doctor, -foi I am 
 by no means certain that }'ou, sir, and the whole committee, are not 
 implicated in the mistake of calling me to this duty. Why, sir, 
 instead of appointing me, an old. white.-headcd man, to speak of the 
 ladies, this duty should have been assigned to some young man, like 
 our youthful friend, Mr. Hobart, of only ninety-two years, who has 
 just addressed us so eloquently ; or the Hon. Charles F. Adams, 
 the father of our gifjted orator, who has just spoken. There is an 
 additional reason why it should have been assigned to Mr. Adams, 
 because, in his pretty little speech, just made, " he has stolen my 
 thunder " ; in speaking of John Adams carrying off the daughter of
 
 96 
 
 Parson Smith, he has plucked the finest flower from my bouquet, 
 and thus robbed my speech of its best part. 
 
 As matches are made in heaven, so there is always a concatena- 
 tion of circumstances to bring them about on earth. There is a 
 finger of Providence in all events, even in matches. The cutting 
 in two of Samuel Nott's hat, at Andover, too late on Saturday 
 night for him to get another, sent the Rev. Dr. Storrs to a pastorate 
 in Braintree of sixty-three years. The stopping at a country 
 tavern, to give my horse four quarts of oats, settled the speaker in 
 Woodstock, Conn. 
 
 Now, perhaps, yon would like to know what first brought me to 
 Weymouth. As fate would have it, " the magnetic attractions " of 
 the ladies of Weymouth, all along, have been operating from the 
 days of President Adams, and possibly before, to lure strangers 
 to pluck flowers from her soil. A townsman of mine had carried off 
 one of these ladies ; and, in process of time, he came, with other little 
 flowers, his family, from Cape Cod, where he resided, to visit Wey- 
 mouth, and he drove an " old white horse." While here, fortunately 
 or unfortunately (of which you can judge as well I), this "old 
 white horse" died, and he was compelled to get a Weymouth horse 
 to take his family home. I was then at his house, and, wishing to 
 come up to Boston, he insisted upon my riding, and returning his 
 hired horse to Weymouth, which I did. This was my first visit to 
 your town. You know the' rest. 
 
 The Rev. John Sauford, who lost this horse, always insisted that, 
 as I obtained my wife in consequence of his death, I ought to pay 
 him for that " old white horse." 
 
 Now, Mr. President, as this is a Weymouth question, involving 
 pecuniary results, and as we have two Weymouth justices present, your- 
 self and the honorable " Toast-master," I submit this question for 
 3 r our decision : ought I to pay for that " old white horse," or not? 
 
 The ladies of Weymouth seem to have held out peculiar attrac- 
 tions for judges, as in the case of Cranch ; for statesmen, as in the 
 case of Adams ; for doctors, as in the case of Howe ; and for 
 ministers, as in the case cited, and numerous others that might be 
 named ; and as these attractions led to matrimony, which is a 
 dubious state, I submit the following, Mrs. Proyser says, " If 
 women are fools, God made them so, to match the men " ; and (it is 
 a newspaper story, and nobody doubts newspaper stories, except 
 General B. F. Butler), I give it : 
 
 "A priest, the other day, who was examining a confirmation class in the 
 south of Ireland, asked the question, ' What is the sacrament of matrimony ?' 
 A Hi tie girl at the head of the class answered, 'Tis a state of torment into 
 which so\v!s enter, to prepare them for another and better world.' 'Being/
 
 97 
 
 said the priest, 'the answer for ptirgatory.' 'Put her down,' says the curate, 
 put her down to the fut of the class.' 'Lave her alone,' said the priest; 
 ' for anything you or I know to the contrary, she may be parfictly right.' " 
 
 Mr. President, I wish to propose a hypothetical question. Sup- 
 pose John Adams had not married Parson Smith's daughter, who 
 would have been our orator to-day, and where would he have come 
 from? And suppose that old white horse had not died, where 
 should I have got my wife ? 
 
 Two hundred and fifty years ! Bless my stars ! If the ladies of 
 Wej'mouth have held out such attractions in the past as we have 
 seen, with the progress of the sex for the last few j-ears, what may 
 we not expect they will accomplish in the next two and a half 
 centuries ? May we not suppose that Milton's Eve and Tyndaren 
 Helen would not come even in sight of the attractions the}' will 
 then present ? And who knows but instead of such men as they 
 have hitherto attracted, they may bring to their feet the giants of 
 Jupiter, and lovers from brighter worlds ? And then, some young 
 Narcissus, sent by Venus, may address the ladies of Weymouth, 
 and great Jove, from high Olympus, 
 
 " Find his thunder strike less sure than Cupid's how." 
 
 Now, gentlemen of the committee, does not the prognosis prove 
 your mistake? So, please remember the poet's dream, 
 
 " Old men I saw, (too much I could not dream) 
 What service Venus could receive from them." 
 
 The following sentiment was next proposed : " Our Brave 
 Defenders The Grand Army bates nothing of its glory when 
 marshalled under the leadership of its gallant Commander." 
 
 General JAMES L. BATES, of Weymouth, the Commander 
 of Post 58 of the Grand Army of the Republic, being re- 
 quested to respond, spoke substantially as follows : 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT : I thank j'ou for calling upon me to respond to 
 the toast in honor of the " Grand Army of the Republic." 
 
 All know its design, to perpetuate the memories of the scenes, 
 trials and sufferings of the war of the Rebellion ; and, also, its 
 three great foundation principles of Fraternity, Charity and Loy- 
 alty, around which cluster, as a body-guard, the veterans of the 
 late war. 
 
 I only desire, at this time, to express my entire dissent to some 
 remarks made at Braintree, June 17, on the occasion of the dedica- 
 tion of the Soldiers' Monument in that town. 
 13
 
 98 
 
 The orator of the day (Gen. Banks) in speaking of the beautiful 
 custom of strewing flowers upon the graves of the Io3"al dead said, 
 " May the day soon come when the loyal and disloyal dead shall 
 be honored alike, by each receiving the same floral tribute." 
 
 May that day never come. Such a course would tend directly to 
 weaken loyalty and strengthen disloyalty. If they are both to be 
 regarded alike, where is the honor in having lost one's life in fight- 
 ing/or one's country in the cause of human rights? 
 
 I am ready to go as far as who goes farthest in forgiving the 
 repentant rebels, and in giving them all the political rights we 
 enjo}- ; but to scatter flowers over their graves as we crown the 
 victors in the strife, is to honor disloyalty equally with loyalty. 
 While we are ready to forgive the traitor, we are not yet ready to 
 offer a reward for treason. If treason against our Constitution 
 and Government is really a crime, why should we perform an act 
 that implies approval ? 
 
 We can overlook the offence, but honor it, never. 
 
 When the Grand Army of the Republic adopts this as a part of 
 its memorial service, and I shall sleep beneath the sod, may 1113' 
 comrades pass 1113' grave, omitting the ceremoii3 T the3' have per- 
 formed over the graves of traitors. 
 
 The next sentiment was : " Our Public Schools the out- 
 growth of those Republican principles which were planted by 
 our fathers, the boast of our modern civilization." 
 
 CHARLES Q. TIHRELL, Esq., of Natick, a native of AVey- 
 mouth and late a member of its School Committee, upon invi- 
 tation, responded as follows : 
 
 Would that he, who, b}' universal consent, would have been selected 
 as best fitted to respond to the sentiment just offered, were present 
 to-da3*. lleqitiescdt in pace. Fort3' 3'ears of near] 3" consecutive 
 service on the school committee of this town gave him a familiarity 
 with the subject equalled by none of his associates, and I can but 
 light!}' touch on the theme his enthusiasm could enkindle. 
 
 Our public schools are not only the outgrowth of republican prin- 
 ciples, but a part of the principles themselves. The log huts of the 
 colonists were scarcely erected, the forests scarcely cleared, the lit- 
 tle settlements along the shore scarcely effected, before our schools 
 were planted. Out fathers lied to these shores for the purpose of 
 establishing a. home of religious freedom, and education walked 
 hand in hand in the progressive march of church an'd state. 
 
 The orator of the da}' lias traced in glowing language the histoiy 
 of Weymouth from the rude primeval times down to the prosperous
 
 99 
 
 present. In the interesting record Low important a part our public 
 schools have played ! Our ancestry left us a rich legacy in indus- 
 tries, but a richer legacy in those educational facilities that each 
 generation has improved, surpassing even the advancement the town 
 has made in material interests. Young as I am, I can recollect the 
 old school-house upon the bill near by, with its rude benches hacked, 
 notched and carved by the omnipresent jack-knife, with its seats rising 
 up from the teacher's desk, by the door, until they nearly touched 
 the ceiling behind, from which we looked down upon the master in 
 the little amphitheatre below. Each of us, smaller boys, had our 
 champions who fought our battles for us, and we confidently ex- 
 pected an encounter between them and the master before the winter 
 term was over. I presume the recollection of earlier times returns 
 to many of you to-day. This school then sufficed for the north and 
 the greater part of the east section of the town, and tradition has it 
 that not the most amicable relations existed between the two. 
 Many a short midwinter day faded into night before their snow-ball 
 onset was decided. Mcthinks our worthy President could relate re- 
 miniscences of interest here, for his father for many years was the 
 honored pedagogue of this region. I have heard my own father 
 touchingly relate his experience with the famous cow-hide Squire 
 Humphrey carried, and how delightfully it would snap about his 
 ears at the most unexpected moments. Cannot our esteemed towns- 
 man from Old Spain, who has modestly declined to represent our 
 manufacturing interests on this platform, put in a word here? Did 
 not many of you in this audience have your coats dusted in those 
 days. Those were the times of singing-schools and spelling-schools, 
 when the valiant youth of Weymoutli would bravely trudge miles to 
 the old school-house, with wood in hand, to keep the fire burning 
 until school was over. What a wonderful change in our day ! 
 The four schools have multiplied into fort}', the four hundred into 
 two thousand school children, the old school-houses have been sup- 
 planted by commodious and attractive buildings, mixed schools 
 have been superseded b}* graded, and the higher branches, required 
 for admission into our colleges, added to arithmetic, grammar and 
 geography. Our school system has been revolutionized, and as 
 we could with difficulty recognize from the Anglo-Saxon the English 
 language, so from the schools of fifty years ago we can form no con- 
 ception of our schools of to-day. One thing we can safely assert, 
 that the schools of Weymoutli have kept pace with an advancing 
 civilization, and given us an educated citizenship which has adminis- 
 tered our affairs with prudence and economy. They have nobly 
 done their part in instilling patriotic sentiments among their gradu- 
 ates, sending our youths to Southern fields at their country's call.
 
 100 
 
 The}' have instigated the improvements that are visible in every 
 part of Weymouth, by the cultivation of a broader judgment and 
 higher taste, and if the ground upon which we stand is hallowed, 
 consecrated by Pilgrim feet and the deeds of two hundred and fifty 
 years of history, rest assured that it is the great principles that edu- 
 cation has inculcated that have made it what it is. 
 
 " For what is hallowed ground T 
 'Tis what gives birth 
 To noble thoughts in souls of worth, 
 Peace, independence, truth, go forth 
 
 Earth's compass 'round, 
 And your high priesthood shall make earth 
 
 All hallowed ground." 
 
 The Committee had designed to request Rev. JOSHUA 
 EMERY, who had just closed a long pastorate over the First 
 Church in Weymouth, and had been invited to be present, to 
 respond to the following sentiment : "The Churches of Wey- 
 mouth the nurseries of civil as well as religious liberty," 
 but by inadvertence, they had failed to communicate their 
 desire in this regard. In his absence it was deemed advisable, 
 on account of the want of time for responses to all the senti- 
 ments prepared, to omit the proposing of this ; but to request 
 Mr. EMERY to respond in writing for publication, which he 
 kindly consented to do, as follows : 
 
 Most of these churches had a separate beginning during my 
 pastorate of thirty-five happy years in the First Church. I am 
 not sure, not having my record of statistics at hand, but think 
 that the whole number of religious societies or churches in Wey- 
 mouth at this date is sixteen. All except four of these, I think, 
 have had their beginning since January 1, 1838. The Meth- 
 odist Church at East Weymouth is one of these four, and when 
 formed I have no certain knowledge. Of the other three churches, 
 the Union Church, at Weymouth Landing, was organized in 1811 ; 
 and the Second Church, located in South Weymouth, was formed in 
 1723 ; and the First Church, it is believed, had the nucleus of its 
 beginning in 1623. For the space of one hundred years it stood 
 alone, the whole town included within its precinct. 
 
 The earliest records of the First Church having been lost by fire, 
 its early history cannot be known, except as gathered from the 
 town records and from tradition. We have reason to believe that 
 its faith, for substance, as expressed in its creed, is the same now
 
 101 
 
 that it was at the beginning. We know that strong and good men, 
 long ago passed to their reward, ministered at its public altar. 
 Some were men highly esteemed for th.eir wisdom and counsel in 
 the affairs of State ; and all for $h&\( ability and. virtue in pastoral 
 work. We know that the church,, eo far as, needing human aid, 
 was sustained in its first ceuUuy by strong '> pillars' within and by 
 strong aids outside its pale. " There were giants in the earth in 
 those days," and some of the true Puritan race in Weymouth. 
 Nor did the race become extinct with their death. They left 
 behind them a seed whose children and children^- children, in suc- 
 cessive generations, have been faithful to the trust committed to 
 them by the fathers, in maintaining religious institutions for their 
 own and the public good. This, certainly, is the testimony of the 
 observation and experience of thirty-five years of pastoral work 
 with the descendants of the founders of the First Church in Wey- 
 mouth. The same was the testimony of one who had been pastor 
 of this church about forty years, when, near the beginning of my 
 pastorate, he said to me, " The best wish I can leave with you is, 
 that you may have as many and happy years among this people as 
 I had." 
 
 When a church comes down the centuries crowned with the 
 testimony of its successive pastors to its fidelity and purity in 
 doctrine and practice, in maintaining and perpetuating its institu- 
 tions and ordinances in its old age, surely it is worthy of being 
 commended and honored on the occasion of the two hundred and 
 fiftieth anniversary of its birth. The churches which have grown 
 up around it, and surely those which sprang from it, have good 
 reason to rejoice in a parentage so venerable and worthy of grate- 
 ful remembrance. Not in this world will it be fully known what 
 has been the power of this church for good, and what the aggre- 
 gate influence exerted by it in the far off, bygone years, upon the 
 churches around and the community at large. The two hundred 
 and fifty years of its record are closed and sealed until a future 
 revelation. May the coming centuries have a record that shall 
 correspond to the increase of knowledge and activities of the times 
 upon which it has already entered and through which it has yet to 
 pass. In the end may it be worthy of the plaudit, " Well done, 
 good and faithful." 
 
 ELIAS S. BEALS, Esq., of Weymouth, who had formerly 
 been largely engaged in the manufacture of boots and shoes, 
 had been invited by the Committee to speak in response to the 
 following sentiment: "The Manufacturers of Weymouth 
 they furnish understandings to millions of the human race."
 
 102 
 
 Owing to the lateness of the hour when reached, it was decid- 
 ed expedient to omit this and the several other remaining 
 sentiments designed to be- offered ; but the subject of that 
 above recited being of very grea't 'interest to our citizens, it 
 has been thonghr, desirable t'o seCiire'the preservation, in this 
 form, of the knowledge of 'such 'fact's in relation to this prin- 
 cipal business of the town, as the large experience and op- 
 portunities of Mr. BEALS would enable him to present ; and in 
 reply to the Committee's request he has furnished for publica- 
 tion the following appropriate response to that sentiment : 
 
 I like this sentiment for the spark of wit it contains, as well 
 as for its substantial truthfulness. There is a happy coincidence 
 regarding this matter of " understandings," in that the good under- 
 standing of the heads of the manufacturers enabled them to pro- 
 duce understandings for the feet that recommended themselves to 
 the understanding heads of a multitude of people, thus theoretically 
 causing " both ends to meet." 
 
 This sentiment has reference mainly, of course, to the production 
 of boots and shoes. For the first hundred and fifty years after its 
 settlement it is probable that Weymouth manufactured no more 
 boots and shoes than were sufficient to supply its own inhabitants ; 
 but about one hundred years ago it commenced in a small waj* to 
 make a very few for the Boston retail market. Everything then, 
 and for the next fifty or sixt}' years, was done b}* hand, with the 
 simplest kind of tools. From fifty down to thirty years ago, the 
 Merritts made, by hand, at their little forge, nearly all the tools that 
 were used in this and the neighboring towns in making boots and 
 shoes ; and excellent tools they made, too. 
 
 Tools or implements, which might with any degree of propriety 
 be called machines to aid in making boots and shoes, are of recent 
 date. Only about forty years ago, iron-jawed clamps, for holding 
 boots and shoes whilst being " seamed up," first made their appear- 
 ance ; and they veiy soon supplanted the old wooden article, some- 
 times made of barrel staves, which was before used for that pur- 
 pose. Next came along sole-leather rollers and sole-leather cutters 
 of various kinds ; and then came heel-making machines, sewing, 
 pegging, nailing and many other machines, thick and fast, machine 
 after machine, until now the morning's calm is broken })} the shrieks 
 of steam-whistles in numerous localities, and the constant roar and 
 clatter of the machines set in motion for the manufacture of boots 
 and slices by steam's mighty power almost bewilders our senses. 
 
 Less than seventy-five years ago the boot and shoe bosses, as
 
 103 
 
 they were called, made only a few dozen pairs a month or week ; and 
 those few goods they carried to Boston by water, in a packet, from 
 Weymouth Landing, or on horseback, in panniers, and sometimes 
 even on foot. There are present here to-day several of the children 
 of a man who once carried, on foot, a back-load of shoes to Boston 
 to sell, and who brought home in the same manner a side of sole- 
 leather and a sheet-iron shop-stove, besides other articles. Think 
 of that, you manufacturers who now ride in silk-velvet cushioned 
 railway-cars at the rate of thirty miles an hour when on business, 
 and who drive pairs of prancing steeds at a two-forty pace when 
 riding for pleasure. 
 
 Many other persons in this town performed exploits similar to 
 that of the man of whom I have spoken. The father of some who 
 are now before me has more than once brought, on foot, goods from 
 Boston to sell from his retail-store. And an elderly woman who 
 lived less than a mile from this spot, about eighty years ago, once 
 bought a bedstead in Boston and brought it home on. her own 
 shoulders, coming by the then only way of Boston Neck and Paine's 
 Hill, taking one-half of it along about a mile, and then going back 
 and taking the other half about a mile ahead of the first-named half, 
 and repeating her travels until the whole of the bedstead was landed 
 at her home. That was an exhibition of pluck and perseverance 
 hard to be beaten. She wanted a bedstead and she got it, herself. 
 
 Less than twenty years ago, in 1855, the value of all the boots 
 and shoes manufactured in Weymouth for that year was put down 
 at $1,593,080 ; and now the value of those articles manufactured in 
 this town for a year is probably considerable more than $5,000,000. 
 Then, in 1855, the entire value of all the manufactures of all kinds 
 in this town was but $2,101,330 for the year, while now it will prob- 
 ably far exceed $7,000,000 for that length of time. 
 
 The immense advance stride in manufactures in this town during 
 the last twenty-five years is perfectly astonishing. It exhibits itself 
 in all parts of the town nearly alike. Compare the town as it was 
 onl} T twenty-five years ago with what it is to-day, with its magnifi- 
 cent churches and school-houses, its wonderful manufactories of 
 various kinds, its splendid private residences, and its new and 
 widened and straightened streets and avenues, thickly bordered 
 throughout all the town with neat, convenient and handsomely 
 painted dwelling-houses and stables, with scarcel}- an unsightly 
 or dilapidated building to be seen within all its borders. Nearly 
 all of this change has been wrought bj* means of the skill and 
 energy of our manufacturers. May they continue their onward 
 progress, and may the prosperity of themselves, and of the town 
 generally, go on increasing forever.
 
 104 
 
 The following hymn, composed for the occasion, with the 
 accompanying music, by JOHN J. LOUD, Esq., of Weymouth, 
 was then sung : 
 
 * I --- I^^R I 4V-J -- lnjipjzr 
 
 1. Our Fathers bequeath'd this fair her-i - tage to us, Thro' toil and thro' 
 
 
 
 i j 
 
 dan-ger they'd made it their own : O long may their mem'ry be cherish'd with 
 
 =: 
 
 
 T -J -H 
 34-fiv 
 - 1 - 
 
 hon - or, Their names and their vir - tues thro' a - ges be known. 
 
 2. To gain here a refuge they crossed the dread ocean, 
 
 They bid farewell bravely to kindred and home ; 
 We reap the reward of their noble devotion, 
 We gather rich harvests from seeds they have sown. 
 
 3. give them the praise of an earnest endeavor, 
 
 The germs of true growth in this nation to plant ; 
 For righteousness ever exalteth a people ; 
 To greed and oppression no blessing He'll grant. 
 
 4. Then boast of your sires, sons of Weymouth, forever! 
 
 Their deeds on the record shine fair as the morn ; 
 Though silent their voices, most grandly these call you 
 Your own generation to serve and adorn. 
 
 These exercises were interspersed with excellent music by 
 Stetson's Weymouth Band (including the performance of the 
 "General Bates Quickstep," composed by Mr. W. F. BUR-
 
 105 
 
 RELL, of Weymouth) , and by Bowies' South Abington Band; 
 and at noon, during the moving of the procession, a salute of 
 one hundred guns was fired upon the summit of King Oak 
 Hill by a section of Maj. DEXTER H. FOLLETT'S Light Bat- 
 tery. 
 
 At about half-past five o'clock, p. M. , the memorial ser- 
 vices were brought to a close with the singing of " Old Hun- 
 dred " by the audience, followed by the mutual and hearty 
 congratulations of visitors and citizens upon the success of 
 the Celebration. 
 
 Arrangements had been made for a display of fireworks 
 upon King Oak Hill on the evening of the day of the cele- 
 bration, and a considerable company had gathered to witness 
 the exhibition ; but the occurrence of a thunder-shower soon 
 after the time fixed for the artificial spectacle, greatly marred 
 its brilliancy, to the sad disappointment of the youthful 
 crowd, who had earnestly striven (but against the fates) 
 to complement the interesting services of the day with a 
 splendid show of pyrotechnics. But the storm-king was 
 abroad, and the shower soon developed into an easterly 
 storm, accompanied by a high wind, which compelled the 
 striking of the mammoth tent, thus driving from their tem- 
 porary shelter the young patriots, who sought their homes 
 with some abatement indeed of their enthusiastic ardor, but 
 with the firm resolve that they would "try again" on the 
 recurrence of this anniversary. 
 
 In response to invitations to be present at the Celebration, 
 the following letters, with many others, were received by the 
 Committee, viz. : 
 
 LETTER OF HON. H. L. DAWES. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C., May 30, 1874. 
 JAS. HUMPHREY, Esq. 
 
 DEAR SIR : I thank you for remembei'ing me in your invitations for 
 the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the settlement of the good 
 old town of Weymouth ; but I am sorry to say that official duties here 
 are likely to be so protracted as to prevent my acceptance. The occasion 
 must be full of interest to the people of your town. It carries us back 
 14
 
 106 
 
 over two and a half centuries, filled with wonderful events and marked 
 with striking interpositions of Providence. The history of your town ' 
 in that time is so full of remarkable incidents that the material for a 
 most interesting celebration must be rich and abundant. 
 
 I am, very truly yours, 
 
 H. L. DAWES. 
 
 LETTER OF WENDELL PHILLIPS, ESQ. 
 
 1st June, 74. 
 
 DEAR SIR : I sincerely regret I shall not be able to participate in the 
 interesting services to which you honor me with an invitation. I delight 
 in all these reverent huntings-up of the old paths and fading traditions. 
 While it is true that " the glory of the children is the fathers," it is 
 equally true that the glory of fathers is the children, children who outdo 
 them, following in their steps, in the service of Justice, Liberty and Truth. 
 
 Yours, resp'y, 
 
 WENDELL PHILLIPS. 
 Mr. HUMPHREY, &c., &c. 
 
 LETTER OF HON. E. R. HOAR. 
 
 CONCORD, July 1, 1874. 
 JAMES HUMPHREY, Esq. 
 
 DEAR SIR : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the invi- 
 tation of the Committee of the town of Weyinouth, to attend the com- 
 memoration of the 250th anniversary of the settlement of the town, on 
 Saturday, the 4th instant. I have deferred sending an answer, in the 
 hope that it might be in my power to accept it, as there is no occasion on 
 which our people assemble that has for me a greater interest than these 
 New England town celebrations. They give an opportunity to study 
 vital forces in society ; and in these days of machinery and corporations 
 and " masses," it is refreshing to look back upon the times when every 
 man was, in some sort, a pillar of the State ; and when small communi- 
 ties thought for themselves, to some purpose. But I find that it will not 
 be in my power to be with you, which I the more regret, as Mr. Adams 
 is always so well worth hearing. Wishing you a very successful and 
 pleasant time, 
 
 I am, very respectfully, yours, 
 
 E. II. HOAR. 
 
 LETTER OF HON. JOHN E. SANFORD. 
 
 TAUNTON, .July 2, 1874. 
 lion. JAMES HUMPHREY, Chairman, &c. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR: I hoped to be able to accept the invitation, which I 
 had the honor to receive through you, to participate in the memorial ser-
 
 107 
 
 vices on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the settlement of your 
 ancient and honored town. I especially desired this, because I claim 
 some right to feel a filial pride in all that distinguishes and adorns her 
 history and record, and to rejoice with her sons and daughters that, 
 although still in her youth, she has reached so goodly and illustrious an 
 age. But I find that circumstances will prevent my joining in the cele- 
 bration, and I can only send my best wishes for a happy and successful 
 day. 
 
 I have the honor to be, cordially and truly yours, 
 
 JOHN E. SANFORD.
 
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