Part 13

After a full and lucrative practice of several years, in consequence of ill health, he was induced to relinquish the bar, and accept a seat as Chief-Judge on the Bench of the County Court for the county of New London. This office he held until May, 1784, when he was appointed one of the Judges of the Superior Court.

In May, 1776, he was chosen an Assistant, a member of the Council or upper house of Assembly, which office he held by annual elections of the freemen, until May, 1786, when an act was passed excluding Judges from a seat in the Legislature.

In 1777, it is believed that at May session, he was appointed by the General Assembly a member of Congress; and continued with little, if any intermission, a member of that body until 1782.

On granting the charter to the city of New London, he was by the freemen in March, 1784, unanimously chosen Mayor; which office he held until his death--a period of nearly twenty-two years.

On the return of peace, after the Revolution, he was appointed with the Hon. Roger Sherman, to revise the code of Statute Laws of the State. This code had not been revised for thirty years, and had accumulated to a great size, from the great variety of statutes enacted in the emergencies of the Revolution. In its subjects of correction, a work of great interest and importance, it required no small ability so to select and discriminate as to give universal satisfaction. In the discharge of which duty he discovered great knowledge of the science of legislation, and the true principles of national government.

In May, 1786, he was appointed Chief-Judge of the Superior Court; and continued in that office until the adoption of the Constitution of the United States; when being by President Washington appointed District Judge of the District of Connecticut, in October, 1789, he resigned the former and accepted the latter, which he held until his death, which occurred at New London, Jan. 26, 1806, in the 73rd year of his age.

Judge Law lived in an eventful period of his country, and of the world; and the many and various important offices which he held and honorably sustained through the course of a long life, better bespeak, than language can express, the character, the worth, and merits of the man.

REV. NAPHTALI SHAW OF BRADFORD, VT.

NAPHTALI SHAW was born at Bridgewater, Ms., June 20, 1764, and was the fourth son of his parents. His father, who was by occupation a tanner and shoemaker, was William Shaw, who lived in Bridgewater, and married Hannah, daughter of Samuel West, who was a Deacon of the Congregational Church in that place, and lived to be more than eighty years of age. He had five sons and six daughters. At the age of fifteen the subject of this Memoir enlisted as a soldier in the Revolutionary army, and went with others to take Rhode Island, which was in 1779 in possession of the British, but he did not continue long in the service, the object being accomplished. He prepared for college under the instructions of Dr. Crane, a physician of Titicut Parish, and the Rev. Dr. Reed of West Bridgewater. In 1786, he entered the Freshman Class of Dartmouth College, and graduated there in 1790. After receiving his bachelor's degree, he taught school at Easton, Ms., and at Boston, as an assistant of Mr. Caleb Bingham, an instructor of much celebrity. His theological course of study was pursued under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Sanger of Bridgewater, who was in the habit of educating young men for the ministry. He was approbated to preach the gospel, as it was then called, by the Plymouth Association of Ministers, Aug. 1, 1792. Jan. 30, 1793, he was ordained Pastor of the church in Kensington, N. H., where he remained till Jan. 13, 1813, when he was dismissed on account of ill health. His ministry was pacific and useful; peace and harmony were restored, and the cause of education, morals, and religion promoted. His health was such, that upon resignation, he retired from the ministry, and devoted himself to agricultural pursuits, having purchased a farm in the town of Bradford, Vt., where he still lives in the enjoyment of his bodily and mental powers, to a good degree, at the age of 84 years.

Mr. Shaw married, June 10, 1798, Mary Crafts, daughter of Dr. John Staples Crafts of Bridgewater, who was to him a great blessing. "The greatest blessing," said Martin Luther, "with which a man can be favored is a pious and amiable wife, who fears God and loves her family, with whom he may live in peace, and in whom he may repose confidence." The wife of Mr. Shaw died Jan. 14, 1840. Their children were four;--Thomas Crafts, living in Bradford, Vt., a farmer, and a deacon of the church in that place, who married Sarah Jenkins, by whom he has two daughters, Sarah Jane and Mary Ann; Eliza Park, who married Dea. Randell H. Wild of West Fairlee, who died in Bradford, Dec. 22, 1841, leaving two daughters, Elisabeth and Emily; Samuel West, who married Jerusha Bliss of Fairlee, and died March 12, 1832, leaving no child; Mary Ann, who died July 12, 1808, in childhood.

HON. NAHUM MITCHELL OF PLYMOUTH.

NAHUM MITCHELL was born in East Bridgewater, Feb. 12, 1769. His father was Cushing Mitchell, son of Col. Edward, grandson of Edward, and great-grandson of Experience, who was one of the Pilgrim forefathers, and arrived at Plymouth in the third ship, the Ann, in 1623. They all lived and died in East Bridgewater, on the spot which their descendants now occupy. His mother was Jennet, daughter of the Hon. Hugh Orr, from Lochwinioch, County of Renfrew, Scotland, who married Mary, daughter of Capt. Jonathan Bass of East Bridgewater, whose father was Dea. Samuel Bass of Braintree, whose father was John, who married Ruth, daughter of the Hon. John Alden, the Pilgrim; and John's father was Dea. Samuel Bass of Braintree, (now Quincy.) Capt. Jonathan Bass's wife was Susanna, daughter of Nicholas Byram of East Bridgewater, whose wife was Mary, daughter of Dea. Samuel Edson of West Bridgewater, and whose father, Nicholas Byram, married Susanna, daughter of Abraham Shaw of Dedham.

Cushing Mitchell's mother was Elisabeth, daughter of Elisha Cushing of Hingham, a descendant from Matthew Cushing, one of the first settlers in Hingham, and ancestor of all of the name in this part of the country, and whose father was Peter Cushing of Hingham in England. Matthew's wife was Nazareth, daughter of Henry Pitcher. Matthew's son Daniel married Lydia, daughter of Edward Gilman, ancestor of all the Gilmans in New England. Daniel's son Daniel, father of Elisha, married Elisabeth, daughter of Capt. John Thaxter of Hingham, son of Thomas, the ancestor of all the Thaxters in this vicinity. Capt. John Thaxter's wife was Elisabeth, daughter of Nicholas Jacob, or Jacobs, of Hingham.

Col. Edward Mitchell's mother was Alice, daughter of Maj. John Bradford of Kingston, son of William, Deputy-Governor, and grandson of William Bradford, the Governor. The Governor's wife was widow Alice Southworth, her maiden name Carpenter. William the Deputy's wife was Alice, daughter of Thomas Richards of Weymouth. Maj. John's wife was Mercy, daughter of Joseph Warren, son of Richard Warren, and his wife Elisabeth, from London. Joseph's wife was Priscilla, daughter of John, and sister of Eld. Thomas Faunce of Plymouth. Col. Edward Mitchell's mother, after the death of his father, married Dea. Joshua Hersey of Hingham.

The subject of this Memoir prepared for college with the Hon. Beza Hayward, in Bridgewater, and entered Harvard College, July, 1785, where he graduated in 1789. He kept school at Weston, while in college, and a few times after graduating, in Bridgewater and Plymouth; and was engaged in instructing part of the time while attending to his professional studies. He read law with the Hon. John Davis, Judge of the District Court of Massachusetts, lately deceased in Boston, but then living in Plymouth, his native place. He was admitted to the bar, Nov. 24, 1792, and settled in the practice of the law in East Bridgewater, his native place.

Judge Mitchell was Justice of the Circuit Court of Common Pleas for the Southern Circuit, from 1811 to 1821, inclusive, being Chief-Justice during the last two years of that time. He was Representative to General Court from Bridgewater seven years between 1798 and 1812; Representative in Congress from Plymouth District two years, from 1803 to 1805; Senator from Plymouth County two years, 1813 and 1814; Counsellor from 1814 to 1820, inclusive; Treasurer of the Commonwealth five years, from 1822 to 1827; Representative to General Court from Boston, 1839 and 1840, in which place he then resided. He was appointed by the Governor one of the Commissioners for settling the boundary lines between Massachusetts and Rhode Island; and afterwards, for settling the line between Massachusetts and Connecticut; and was Chairman of the first Commissioners for exploring and surveying the country from Boston to Albany for a railroad route, 1827, and is a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and has been Librarian and Treasurer of that institution. He was also several years President of the Bible Society in Plymouth county.

Judge Mitchell married, in 1794, Nabby, daughter of Gen. Silvanus Lazell of East Bridgewater, and has 5 children, Harriet, Silvanus L., Mary Orr, Elisabeth Cushing, James Henry. Harriet married the Hon. Nathaniel M. Davis, Esq., of Plymouth; Silvanus L. married Lucia, daughter of Hon. Ezekiel Whitman of Portland, Me., Chief-Justice of Court of Common Pleas; Mary O. married David Ames, Jr., Esq., of Springfield; Elisabeth C. married Nathan D. Hyde of East Bridgewater; James Henry married Harriet Lavinia, daughter of John Angier of Belfast, Me., and is a merchant in Philadelphia; Silvanus L. was graduated at H. C., 1817, and he and his brother-in-law, Hyde, went into business as merchants at East Bridgewater, and thence removed to Boston.

Judge Mitchell wrote a short History of Bridgewater, which was published in 1818, in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Vol. VII., 2nd series. He has since published an enlarged History of the Early Settlement of that Town, with a particular Genealogy or Family Register of the Early Settlers.

ADVICE OF A DYING FATHER TO HIS SON.

Dated January 27, 1716.

[The following article was addressed by the Rev. William Brattle of Cambridge to William Brattle, his son and only child who lived to maturity, while he was preparing for college. The father was a man distinguished for "piety, wisdom, and charity;" and the son "was a man of extraordinary talents and character, acceptable as a preacher, eminent as a lawyer, celebrated as a physician." He was a Major-General in the militia, and much in public office. May it not be supposed that this paternal Advice from an affectionate father to a son of filial affection and an obedient disposition, had great effect in making him what he was? For this and several other articles of an antiquarian nature we are indebted to Charles Ewer, Esq.]

1. Agreeably to what is written 1 Chron. xxviii, 9, My dear Son, know thou the God of thy father, & serve him with a perfect heart, and with a willing mind. If thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.

2. Think often of thine own frailty, and of the uncertainly and emptiness of all Sublunary Enjoyments. Value not Self upon riches. Value not thy Self upon any worldly advancement whatsoever. Let faith and Goodness be thy treasure. Let no happiness content and Sattisfie thee but what secures the favour and peace of God unto thee.

3. Remember thy baptism, acquaint thy Self well with the nature and obligations of that Ordinance. Publickly renew thy baptismall Covenant. Renew it Seasonably in thy early Days with humility and thirsty desires to enjoy Communion with God in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper and in all Approaches before God therein bringing faith and Love and a Self abasing Sence of thine own Emptiness and unworthyness.

4. Prize and Esteem the holy word of God infinitly before the finest of Gold. Reverence it with thy whole heart, read it constantly with seriousness, and great delight. Meditate much upon it, make it thy Guide in all thy wayes, fetch all thy Comforts from thence, and by a religious and holy walk, establish thine Interest in the blessed and glorious Promises therein contained.

5. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Reverence God's Sanctuary. In prayer, in Singing, in hearing God's word Read or preached, and in every public administration Wait upon God with outward Reverence and true devotion in thine heart, Remembering that holyness for ever becomes God's house. When in thy more private retirements, Still let it be thy Care to Sanctifie God's Sabbath. Be watchfull therefore over thine heart and over thy thoughts. Call to mind and run over what thou hast heard in God's house. Read Savoury books. Catechise thy Self, and others too when God gives Opportunity.

6. Take care of thy health, avoid all Excess in eating and in drinking, in taking thy pleasure, and in all innocent Recreations whatsoever. Let not immoderate heatt and Colds needlessly Expose thy body.

7. Beware of Passion. Let not Anger and Wrath infect thine heart, suffer wrong with Patience, Rather than to right thy Self by unchristian methods, or by suffering thy spirit to be out of frame.

8. Labour to establish thy Self and begg of God that he would Establish thee in the grace of Chastity, keep thine heart clean and Chast, keep thy Tongue clean and Chast, keep thine hands clean and Chast, keep thine Eyes clean and Chast. Never trust to thy Self to be thy keeper, avoid temptations to uncleaness of every nature, be watchfull over thy Self night and day, but in the midst of all Let thine heart be with God, and be thou much in prayer, that God would be thy keeper. Let all the incentives to Lust as farr as may be, be avoided by thee.

9. Speak the Truth alwayes. Let not a Lye defile thy Lips, be content with Suffering rather than by telling the Least Lie to Save thy Self. Beware of Shuffling off by disimulation.

10. Let Pride be an abomination in thy Sight. Cloth thyself with humility. Let humility be thine under Garment. Let humility be thine upper Garment.

11. Despise no man, let the State of his Body or mind or other circumstances of his, be what they will, still reverence humanity, consider who made thee to differ.

12. Be just to all men; be thou courteous and affable to all men; render not Evil for Evil, but recompense evil with Good. Owe no man any thing but Love.

13. Be thou compassionate, tender hearted, and mercifull; do good to all men, be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; for with such sacrifices God is evermore well pleased.

14. Avoid sloth and idleness, give thy Self to thy Studys; converse with such Authors as may tend to make thee wise and good and to forward thy growth in true wisdom and goodness.

15. Acquaint thy Self with History; know something of the Mathematicks, and Physick; be able to keep Accompts Merchant like in some measure; but let Divinity be thy main Study. Accomplish thy Self for the worke of the Ministry, begg of God that he would incline thine heart therto, and accept thee therin, and if it shall please God thus to Smile upon thee, aspire not after great things; let the Providence of God chuse for thee, and let the Flock have the Love of thy heart; be Solicitous for their Spirituall good, and for the glory of God; and let thy Aims be this way in all thy private meditations, and public administrations, all the dayes of thy Life.

My dear Child, be of a Catholick Spirit.

RELATIONSHIP.

In old wills and other old documents the word _cousin_ is sometimes used for _nephew_, and thus many errors may occur in tracing out genealogies. Many curious cases of relationship will be found to exist by those that investigate the descent of families, some of which cannot be described by the terms we now use to designate consanguinity. It is surprising, that among the many words that have been coined, some new terms have not come into use as substitutes for the awkward way we now have of naming some of our relatives; such as great-great-great grandfather, great-great-great-uncle, &c. The following curious case was taken from a newspaper; whether the account is correct or not, the reader may see that it may be true.

"_A man can be his own grandfather._

"A widow and her daughter-in-law and a man and his son--the widow married the son, the daughter the father; the widow was mother to her husband's father and grandmother to her husband; they had a son to whom she was great-grandmother. Now as the son of a great-grandmother must be either a grandfather or great-uncle, the boy must be one or the other. This was the case of a boy in Connecticut."

DECEASE OF THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND.

Chronologically arranged.

(Continued from p. 74.)

1648.

Oct. 11, Rev. Henry Green of Reading.

1649.

March 26, Gov. John Winthrop of Boston, b. Jan. 12, 1588, d., a. 61.

Aug. 25, Rev. Thomas Shepard of Cambridge, b. Nov. 5, 1605, d., a. 44.

1650.

Sept. 11, Atherton Hough of Boston, an Assistant.

1651.

Aug. --, William Thomas, an Assistant of Plymouth Colony, d., a. 77.

1652.

Aug. 24, Adam Winthrop, Esq., of Boston, d., a. 33.

Sept. 14, Capt. Bozoun Allen of Boston, formerly of Hingham.

Dec. 23, Rev. John Cotton of Boston d., a. 67. (The old "Boston Book" says, Mr. Cotton d. 15th of 10th month.)

1653.

Jan. 18, Capt. William Tyng of Boston, Treasurer of the Colony.

July 31, Gov. Thomas Dudley of Roxbury d., a. 77.

Rev. Nathaniel Ward, first minister of Ipswich, d. in England, a. 83.

Nov. 8, Rev. John Lothrop of Barnstable.

Oct. 8, Hon. Thomas Flint of Concord.

1654.

Jan. --, John Glover of Dorchester, an Assistant.

Gov. John Haynes of Hartford, Ct.

July 23, William Hibbins, an Assistant, d. at Boston.

Dec. 9, Gen. Edward Gibbons of Boston.

1655.

May 8, Edward Winslow of Plymouth d. on board the Fleet, a. 61.

July 3, Rev. Nathaniel Rogers of Ipswich d., a. 57.

Rev. Daniel Maud of Dover, N. H. He had taught a school for some years in Boston before he went to Dover.

Henry Wolcott, the ancestor of the governors of Connecticut by this name, d., a. 78.

1656.

Capt. Miles Standish of Duxbury d., a. ab. 72.

Capt. Robert Bridges of Lynn, an Assistant.

1668? Rev. Peter Prudden of Milford, Ct., d., a. 56.

March 23, Capt. Robert Keaine, merchant in Boston.

Oct. 22, Rev. James Noyes of Newbury d., a. 48.

1657.

Jan. 7, Gov. Theophilus Eaton of Connecticut d., a. 66.

March --, Gov. Edward Hopkins d. in London, a. 57.

George Fenwick, the first settler of Saybrook, d. in England.

May 9, Gov. William Bradford of Plymouth, d., a. 69.

1658.

Rev. Ralph Partridge of Duxbury.

John Coggan of Boston.

1659.

Feb. 27, Rev. Henry Dunster of Scituate d., (buried at Cambridge.)

March 9, Rev. Peter Bulkley of Concord d., a. 77.

April 10, Rev. Edward Norris of Salem d., a. ab. 70.

Sept. 29, John Johnson of Roxbury.

1660.

Oct. 16, Rev. Hugh Peters executed in England, a. 61.

1661.

Jan. 23, Rev. Ezekiel Rogers of Rowley, a. 70.

Sept. 17, Maj. Gen. Humphrey Atherton of Dorchester. He was killed by a fall from his horse on Boston Common, when on his return from a military review on the Common. Mr. Savage and the inscription on his tombstone say, that he died on the 16th, but other authority,[25] and incontrovertible, says, on the "17th at about 1 o'clock, after midnight."

Dec. 28, Rev. Timothy Dalton of Hampton d., a. ab. 84.

1662.

March 1, Rev. Ralph Smith d. at Boston.

March 30, Rev. Samuel Hough, minister of Reading, d. in Boston.

June 14, Sir Henry Vane executed in England, a. 50.

Oct. --, William Pynchon d. at Wraisbury, Bucks, a. 72.

1663.

----, Thomas Camock, nephew of the Earl of Warwick, d. in Scarborough, Me. If he is the same who is named in the 2nd charter of Virginia, 1609, he was quite advanced in years.

Rev. Richard Denton of Stamford, Ct., [ab. 1663.]

April 5, Rev. John Norton of Boston, a. 57.

June 12, Rev. John Miller d. at Groton.

July 5, Rev. Samuel Newman of Rehoboth, a. 63.

July 20, Rev. Samuel Stone of Hartford.

1665.

Jan. 9, Rev. Samuel Eaton of New Haven.

March 15, Gov. John Endecott of Boston, a. 77.

July 15, Capt. Richard Davenport, killed by lightning at Castle William, a. 59.

Rev. Adam Blackman of Stratford.

Dr. John Clark of Boston, a. 66.

NEW ENGLAND.

The following is an extract from "A NEW DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD,--London, printed for Hen. Rhodes, next door to the Swan Tavern, near Brides-Lane, in Fleet-Street, 1689."

_NEW ENGLAND_, an _English_ Colony in America, is bounded on the North-East with _Novumbegua_, on the Southwest with _Novum Belgium_; and on the other parts by the Woods and Sea coast; scituate in the middle of Temperate Zone, between the degrees of 41 and 44, equally distant from the Artick Circle, and the Tropick of _Cancer_; which renders it very temperate and very agreeable to the Constitution of _English_ Bodies, the Soil being alike Fruitful, if not in some places exceeding ours; all sorts of Grain and Fruit trees common with us growing kindly there; The Woods there are very great, wherein for the most part the Native _Indians_ dwell Fortefying themselves as in Towns or places of defence, living upon Deer and such other Creatures, as those vast Wildernesses whose extents are unknown to the _English_ abound with; there are in this Country store of Ducks, Geese, Turkies, Pigeons, Cranes, Swans, Partridges, and almost all sort of Fowl, and Cattle, common to us in _Old England_; together with Furs, Amber, Flax, Pitch, Cables, Mast, and in brief whatever may conduce to profit and pleasure; the Native _Indians_, in these parts are more tractable, if well used, than in any other; many of them though unconverted, often saying, that our God is a good God, but their _Tanto_ evil, which _Tanto_ is no other than the Devil, or a wicked Spirit that haunts them every Moon, which obliges them to Worship him for fear, though to those that are converted to Christianity he never appears.

This _English_ Colony after many Attempts and bad Successes was firmly Established 1620, at what time _New Plymouth_ was Built and Fortified; so that the _Indians_ thereby being over-aw'd, suffered the Planters without controul to Build other Towns, the chief of which are _Bristol_, _Boston_, _Barnstaple_, and others, alluding to the Names of Sea Towns in _Old England_; and are accommodated with many curious Havens commodious for Shipping, and the Country watered with pleasant Rivers of extraordinary largeness; so abounding with Fish, that they are not taken for dainties; and for a long time they were all Governed at their own dispose, and Laws made by a Convocation of Planters, _&c._ but of late they have submitted to receive a Governor from _England_.