Part 11

When that work of mine to which I have already referred,--the “Three Episodes of Massachusetts History,”--appeared, now ten years ago, the introductory part was entitled “The First Settlement of Boston Bay.” Recently, a fifth impression has been called for, and this afforded me an opportunity for a second preface to it, of some significance. When the book first appeared, it naturally passed into the hands of reviewers. As a rule, those reviews were not unfriendly; but the writer of one of them displayed, in perfect good faith, his absolute and complete inability to grasp the elementary significance of the work before him. Supposing that the “First Settlement” there referred to was that of Winthrop, in 1630, he intimated doubt as to the necessity for any further account of that incident, it having been already sufficiently dealt with. The man failed to get even a glimmering perception of the fact that I was therein endeavoring to exhume, and, so to speak, to vivify, a pre-historic settlement, one anterior to that of Winthrop, and obliterated by it; as much obliterated by it as are the ruins of earlier Egyptian temples, a succession of which have occupied the same site. I was, in fact, a sort of historical resurrectionist. Thus, as I sought to show, the real first settlement of the region about Boston bay was considerably prior to that of Winthrop; and, beginning with Weston’s venture in June, 1622, was, some ten years later, merged in that of Boston. But, for years before Winthrop came, the region about Boston bay was occupied; and, moreover, nearly all those stragglers,--the “old planters” they were called,--came from Weymouth. Weymouth thus antedated Boston as a permanent European settlement by at least six years.

This fact I endeavored to establish, and fix in our Massachusetts history; and, moreover, the fact has singular historical interest. It was a struggle for possession between two forms of civilization and of religious faith. The Gorges settlement was ecclesiastical and feudal; that led by Winthrop was theological and democratic: that is, both as respects church and state, the Gorges attempt at Wessagusset was the antithesis, the direct opposite, to the Winthrop accomplishment at Shawmut. Moreover, the fate of the two settlements during the earlier and crucial period depended not on events in Massachusetts, but upon a struggle for supremacy going on in England. Gorges represented Charles I; Winthrop, the Parliament. If the fortune of war had turned otherwise than it did turn, and Charles I had emerged from the conflict victorious, there can be little question Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and not John Winthrop, would have shaped the destiny of Massachusetts. Its history would then have been wholly other than it was.

In discussing the developments of the past,--the sequence of history,--it is never worth while to philosophize over what might have been, had something, which did not happen, chanced to happen at the crucial moment. What did occur, actually occurred; and not something else. None the less, so far as Weymouth is concerned, the forgotten story of that abortive Gorges attempt at a feudal pre-emption, is history; and, moreover, it is an extremely suggestive bit of history. At one time, the chances seemed to preponderate in favor of Gorges, and against Winthrop. First on the ground, the Gorges settlement represented prerogative at a period when king and primate had it all their own way. The permanence of the Puritan colony was thus for a time at stake; and, indeed, it was years before the Gorges claims ceased to occasion anxiety in the Boston council chamber. More than once a royal intervention, from which there was no apparent avenue of escape, seemed imminent. The single possible recourse was to a policy of delay, of procrastination; and, while pursuing it, those entrusted with the fate of the infant commonwealth watched in fear and trembling the slow course of English events, as they unfolded themselves towards a doubtful end. Time, and the chances of war on the other side of the Atlantic, at last dispelled danger; but the Wessagusset settlement, prior in time, long made itself sensibly felt as a disturbing factor in Massachusetts development. And now, looking back on the celebration held here in 1874, and my own contribution to it, I think I may fairly claim that form and substance were at that time and there given to a chapter of history then altogether forgotten; but, when revived, not devoid of interest, because explanatory of much, before mysterious.

The Gorges settlement, moreover, was, I take it, a true settlement, not a mere attempt at trade exploitation. And by a true settlement I mean that it contained in itself the possibility of continued life; it was self-perpetuating, for those composing it were in part women. Of it, every line of contemporaneous record long since perished. That such a record once existed, we know. In the inventory made after his death of the property of William Blackstone, the recluse of Shawmut, among the titles of a not inconsiderable library is found the significant item, “ten paper books.” They were valued at six pence each; but, in all human probability, those “paper books” contained Blackstone’s day-by-day account of what occurred during the eleven years which elapsed between his landing at Wessagusset in 1623, and his removal from Boston in 1634. Those “paper books” we, moreover, know, preserved for over forty years and until the death of him who wrote in them, perished a month later in the flame and smoke which marked the outbreak of King Philip’s war. In the next century also when, about 1750, Thomas Prince compiled his Annals, he made reference to “manuscript letters, taken from some of the oldest people at Weymouth.” These also are hopelessly gone. Thus we have not, nor can we now reasonably hope ever to have, any direct and authentic memorials of earliest Weymouth. We do know, however, that Samuel Maverick came to Massachusetts bay in 1624, and that he was associated with Gorges. That he came to Wessagusset, cannot be asserted.[102] The place was outside the limits of the Robert Gorges patent, and Maverick permanently established himself across the bay at Chelsea, then known as Winnisimmet. He there married the widow of David Thompson, another Gorges associate and the first occupant of Thompson’s island, which, at the mouth of the Neponset, still perpetuates his name. To Samuel Maverick a son was born before 1630.

Thomas Walford, also one of the Gorges following, that doughty blacksmith of Charlestown who, by killing a wolf, discharged the fine imposed on him because of nonconformity in church-going, was a married man.

Of William Jeffreys and John Burslam, we know only that they remained at Wessagusset, and were living here, apparently in prosperous circumstances, at the time the place was incorporated as Weymouth. We do not know positively that they were married, or had families; but the inference is strong that such was the case. They were not adventurers, mere wanderers, of the Thomas Weston and Thomas Morton stripe. They had given hostages to fortune, and had a stake in the country.

When my address of 1874 was published, in one of the foot-notes[103] to it I dismissed as improbable an entry in Prince’s Annals to the effect that, in 1624, there came “some addition to the few inhabitants of Wessagusset, from Weymouth, England,” having with them the Rev. Mr. Barnard, their first non-conformist minister. Mr. Nash, in his paper entitled “Weymouth in its First Twenty Years,” has taken a different view, setting forth in much detail his reasons for believing the fact stated. Very possibly I was wrong, and he is right; and certainly it is corroborative evidence of his rightness that Samuel Maverick fixes that year, 1624, as the time of his coming to New England, and Boston bay. Possibly he was one of Mr. Barnard’s company; and he certainly afterwards sympathized in Mr. Barnard’s religious views.

Into these questions it is unnecessary to enter. Nor would it be profitable so to do; for the salient facts are indisputably established that (1), the first Gorges contingent came out and set themselves down at Old Spain in September, 1623; that (2), the settlement there has been continuous from that day to this; (3), some of those thus sent out under the auspices of Gorges had families and left descendants; and finally, (4) that, starting from Wessagusset, these first planters established themselves at points favorable for commercial dealings in pelts and supplies on the north, as well as the south, side of Boston bay. That William Blackstone, the earliest occupant of the historic peninsula on which Boston rose, was one of the Gorges company admits of no question at all; that he came over as one of the companions of Capt. Robert Gorges and the Rev. William Morell scarcely admits of question. Beyond this, while all is matter of surmise, that “all” is merely a question of more or less.

But, whether the infant community was a puny bantling or a vigorous brat, I now find myself compelled to admit that its significance, and the secret of its later history down to the time when, in 1644,--a full score of years after the first settlement,--it was swallowed up, and its individuality forever lost, in an all absorbing environment,--the significance, I say, of this later history wholly escaped my observation when I prepared the address of 1874. As I have said, Mr. Nash has, to a certain extent, since made good my deficiencies; I suspect, however, that even yet the riddle is but partially read. To be adequately treated, its treatment should be patient and microscopic. It should be studied in close connection with the course both of foreign events and of events in that subsequent agitation which, rending in twain the nascent commonwealth, permanently influenced the character of Massachusetts. By so doing it also went far towards shaping its destiny. I can now do no more than throw out a few suggestions,--mere hints, perhaps, or possibly surmises,--which it must be for others, members of your Society, to consider, giving them such weight as may properly be their due.

To appreciate fully what now here occurred during that formative period between 1630 and 1644, we must revert to the initial fact that Weymouth, or Wessagusset, as it was still called, was the New World centre from which the Gorges movement had gone forth; or, as the founder of Massachusetts would more probably have expressed it, it was the plague spot from which disease might spread. In the parlance now much in vogue among the less scientific, that disease had to be stamped out; and the magistrates of the colony of Massachusetts Bay proceeded to stamp it out. They did, also, a very thorough piece of stamping-out work; but, however thoroughly it may be done, stamping-out is at best a rough and even brutal method of reaching results; and, as a rule, it is the recourse of men of intense and narrow minds,--those who never for an instant doubt that they are right. Whether priest and inquisitor, or minister and magistrate,--fulfilling their mission on Jews in Spain, or Huguenots in France, or Lutherans in Holland, or non-conformists in England, or churchmen in Massachusetts,--they know perfectly that they are engaged in the Lord’s work; and, being engaged in it, they will not hold their hands. Why should they? Are they not God’s chosen implement? Now it is an indisputable fact that every person on the Massachusetts shore connected with that earlier settlement, the old Gorges “planters,” so-called, was soon or late either harried out of the country, or made so uncomfortable in it that he voluntarily withdrew,--in other words, went into exile. Morton of Mount Wollaston, he of May-pole fame, was the first victim. Of Morton it must be admitted little that is good can be said. He was an ungodly roysterer. His trading-post was a public menace as well as a nuisance; and, as such, was very properly abated. But there is no sort of reason to suppose that there was in the beginning any connection between Morton and Gorges.

Morton came out originally in June, 1622, and apparently as a companion of Thomas Weston’s brother Andrew, on the ship Charity. He then remained at Wessagusset some three or four months, while the vessel which brought him out continued on to Virginia, thence returning to Wessagusset. In early October he again embarked, going back to England. He thus made acquaintance with the vicinity of Weymouth Fore-river, and the region about Boston bay, during the summer months, their period of alluring aspect. So enamored was he of the country that he the next year piloted others back to it; one more band of pure adventurers, they came intent on exploiting the land, getting from it whatever of immediate value it might contain. But this second company, no more than the first, came out under the auspices of Gorges; nor did he look on it with favor. It must at least be said in favor of those sent out by him that they were uniformly men of education and substance; and they came to New England in good faith, here to establish themselves. Of this class were William Blackstone, Samuel Maverick, David Thompson and Thomas Walford.

Thomas Morton, and that strange, mysterious enigma who called himself “Sir Christopher Gardiner,” were of an altogether different stamp; but, though in the beginning Morton at least had no connection with Gorges, subsequently he entered into close relations with him, and the inference is at least reasonable that he was arrested, forced to leave the country, and saw his house burned and his plantation across the Fore-river, on Mount Wollaston, desolated, quite as much because of the jealousy the new comers entertained towards the old Gorges “planters” as from any disapproval of himself, or because of the misdeeds of his crew. On the other hand, Sir Christopher Gardiner already, when Winthrop came, was dwelling mysteriously with his female companion on the cedar-clad hummock overlooking the mouth of the Neponset. Gardiner was unquestionably an emissary of Gorges, probably his agent, here to watch over his interests. He was arrested and his establishment, such as it was, broken up. Personally held under surveillance for months, he at length went voluntarily away. But, while in Boston, during the summer of 1631, he seems to have been treated with courtesy, and even with a degree of consideration. Finally, in 1632, he went back to England of his own choice.

Next was William Blackstone, the hermit of Shawmut, the original planter from Wessagusset, who when Winthrop and his company landed at Charlestown in June, 1630, already had a house, with a young orchard about it, on the west side of Beacon hill, looking up the Charles towards Cambridge and Brighton. A recluse and a scholar, a missionary among the Indians, with whom he lived in peaceful and even friendly relations, this man, in every respect estimable, was, as Cotton Mather tells us, “of a particular humor, and he would never join himself to any of our churches, giving his reason for it, ‘I came from England because I did not like the lord-bishops; but I can’t join with you, because I would not be under the lord-brethren.’” These words, I fancy, furnish a key-note to the Gorges settlement. To those composing it, the new environment was unsympathetic; and, as early as 1633, Blackstone turned his face to the wilderness.

David Thompson, also one of the Gorges contingent, never was at Wessagusset. According to Thomas Morton, a Scottish gentleman, both a traveller and a scholar, quite observant of the habits of the Indians, he seems to have moved down from Portsmouth to Massachusetts bay about the year 1626, accompanied by his wife, and bringing with him several servants. A friend of Samuel Maverick’s, he established himself at the mouth of the Neponset, on the island which still bears his name, and he may, possibly, have been a fellow-occupant, with Maverick, of Winnisimmet. He died in 1628, two years before the coming of Winthrop. Like the other Gorges “planters,” he was a man of character, substance and education. As such, he also throws his ray of light on the Wessagusset company.

But Samuel Maverick, the first resident of East Boston, was perhaps, most typical of all the Gorges following. A man of gentle birth and fair education, later noted for his good fellowship and hospitality, he was active in social and business life, altogether a useful and public-spirited citizen. Distinctly of the Gorges connection and a churchman, he was “strong for the Lordly prelaticall power,” as the Puritanic speech went. So, always conscious of the hostile feeling entertained towards him, at last, but not until 1648,--when for a quarter of a century he had been resident at Noddle’s Island, as East Boston was called,--he was arrested, fined and imprisoned, and, subsequently, forced into exile. His crime was non-conformity.

Unlike the others, Thomas Walford, who I take it began his American experiences here at Wessagusset in 1623, was not an educated man or of the better class, so-called, in England; a smith by trade, he was one of John Winthrop’s “common people,” those who became two centuries later, Abraham Lincoln’s “plain people.” But, though a man of the anvil, he was also a churchman, an Episcopalian, and he sturdily stood by his creed. He had before 1630 made a home for himself and his family in Charlestown, where he dwelt in rude but secure independence. Accustomed to his wilderness liberty, and liking not the ways of the new comers, he would not submit to their severe rule, especially exercised in the matter of Sabbath observances. The old pioneer’s Sunday had, probably up to that time, partaken more of the continental and Catholic than of Puritan characteristics. So he soon was in trouble. He was arrested, fined and banished. At Portsmouth he found a refuge and a welcome. In due time becoming a selectman of the town and a warden of the church there, he died in 1660, much esteemed in the place of his exile.

So much for those followers and adherents of Sir Ferdinando Gorges who had gone forth from the mother community here at Wessagusset, or had, coming from elsewhere, set themselves down at her side. Unless, like David Thompson, they died betimes, one and all, soon or late, they were either exiled point-blank, or harried out of the land. Not character, nor occupancy of the soil, nor obedience to the law, were of avail; they were not of the Lord’s people! So much for the out-dwellers.

We now come back to the original settlement,--the plague centre! After 1625, and the return to England of the Rev. William Morell,--that first clergyman of Weymouth and the potential bishop _in partibus_ of New England,--those who came in his company, and as the companions of Capt. Robert Gorges, separated in search of more favored sites for trade and plantation. Of the savages, they seem to have felt no apprehension; with them they lived in perfect amity. This alone is significant of their character. As for trade, even then, before the advent of Winthrop and his company, Boston bay was well known to the fishermen who annually frequented the coast--“lone sails off headlands drear”--and they periodically looked into Boston bay for barter and refreshment. The Indians of the interior could communicate with the coast only by trail or by the water routes; and of these last there were but four, the Monatiquot, emptying into Boston bay by the Weymouth Fore-river, the Neponset, the Charles and the Mystic. Of these, so far as the back country was concerned, the Monatiquot was least considerable. So, naturally, those of the first comers who had means and servants, and who did not fear solitude, sought more favorable sites, establishing themselves at the mouth of the Neponset, or on the shores of the Charles or the Mystic. After this dispersion, the Wessagusset community seems to have settled down into the slow monotony of a pioneer existence. William Jeffreys and John Burslam appear to have been the leading men, and their names only, from among those there remaining, have come down to us. Ten years later it was described by one who visited it as “a small village; very pleasant and healthful, very good ground, well-timbered, and with good store of hay ground.”

But not until 1635, five years after the occupation of Boston, and when Wessagusset had been twelve years in existence, did the place receive any considerable, or, at least, certain accretion. Then, the Rev. Joseph Hull, with twenty-one families from England, was allowed by the Massachusetts-bay magistrates here to establish themselves; and Weymouth was at last incorporated by that name it has ever since borne. But it was still referred to as “a very small town;” though it has been computed that it then numbered from 350 to 600 souls. Now it was that trouble began. As the new Weymouth wine fermented in that old Wessagusset bottle, the scriptural adage received new illustration. But the story of what occurred is known only in part,--from hints and fragments scattered hither and yon, and which have painfully to be pieced together. What is known is, however, full of suggestion. With the new life came turmoil; and, in those times, the turmoil was sure to be theological in character.

It is safe to surmise that the departure of the Rev. William Morell to England, in 1624, and the withdrawal of Blackstone somewhat later, wearing doubtless the “old canonical gown” in which Winthrop six years later found him clad, did not, as things then went, deprive the little Wessagusset settlement of all spiritual nutriment. Those there remaining doubtless had, not a meeting-house, for they were Episcopalians, but a church, such as it was, in which religious services were duly conducted on each Lord’s day, the Prayer-book and ritual being in use. This had continued through a dozen years, when at last a veritable irruption set in. Of what ensued, nothing is clear; we have to grope our way in the gray glimmer of that early dawn. The Rev. Mr. Hull, we are told, made his advent in the interests of Episcopacy; but, if he did, he either brought with him, or encountered, a body of dissentients. That the old settlers eyed the new-comers askance is more than likely; but the enigma still awaits solution. All we know is that the little settlement, presumably at the foot of Great hill, and in and about Old Spain, was rent, not in twain, but in quarters; and soon their occupants were vociferously holding forth from no less than four rival pulpits. At last, so loud became the tumult of tongues, and so grievous was the state of spiritual affairs, that a delegation from the church of Boston made its appearance,--Heaven save the mark!--in the role of peacemakers.