W’m Gaston.

WILLIAM GASTON.

By ARTHUR P. DODGE.

Victor Hugo has written: “The
historian of morals and ideas has a mission
no less austere than that of the historian
of events. The latter has the
surface of civilization, the struggles of
the crowns, the births of princes, the
marriages of Kings, the battles, the assemblies,
the great public men, the revolutions
in the sunlight, all exterior;
the other historian has the interior, the
foundation, the people who work, who
suffer and who wait … Have
these historians of hearts and souls lesser
duties than the historian of exterior
facts?”

There is much unwritten history of
the Bay State: of the exterior, much
is recorded; of the interior, far less.
Both are valuable to posterity. It is believed
that succeeding ages will hold of
far greater value, and the youth of our
day be benefitted more by the study of
the underlying principles and causes of
those events which are given a conspicuous
place in history, rather than by
the mere record of the surface facts.

It is profitable to study the habits and
methods of individuals who stand out
in bold relief in history. To derive the
greatest interest and value from such
lives it is well to follow them from early
childhood. Indeed it is profitable to
trace back the ancestry and lineage from
which the man has descended, to study
the characteristics peculiar to each generation,
and to note the result of racial
mixtures tending to the typical and representative
American of to-day.

Many prominent men received their
first incentive to ambition and industry
and perseverence by reading—when their
minds were immature, but fresh and retentive—of
the life and achievements
of Benjamin Franklin and such other
grand models for the young.

No history of a country or state is
complete without studies of the lives
of those men who have made and are
making history.

William Gaston comes from an honored
and distinguished ancestry on both
his paternal and maternal side as will be
seen by the succeeding genealogical
notes.

He was born at Killingly, Connecticut,
October 3, 1820.

Springing from such ancestry in which
are joined the characteristics of the
French Huguenot, the Scotch Presbyterian,
the Scotch-Irish patriot, the follower
of Roger Williams, the May Flower
Pilgrim, one is not surprised to find in
William Gaston a strong man; a man
who inherited as a birthright the qualities
of leadership.

His father was a well known merchant
of Connecticut, of sterling integrity,
and of remarkably strong force of character.
He was commissioned a Captain
at the early age of twenty-two, and was
for many years in the Legislature. The
father of the latter was also in the Connecticut
Legislature for many years.

In early youth William gave promise
of a superb manhood by displaying those
qualities which have since distinguished
him. He was a studious boy, eager for
knowledge. He attended the Academy
in Brooklyn, Connecticut, and subsequently
fitted for College at the Plainfield
Academy. At the age of fifteen
he left his quiet village home for
Brown University, where his intellect
was trained in a routine sanctioned by
the experience of centuries, and where
contact with his fellows soon roused his
ambition and gave him confidence in his
own ability to enter the struggle with
the world for place and honor. William,
having a married sister, who was many
years his senior, residing in Providence,
his father decided to send him, then
scarcely more than a lad, to Brown
University where he would be surrounded
by family influences and enjoy
the social advantages offered by his
sister’s home. He maintained a high
rank, graduating with honors in 1840.

For his life work he decided upon the
legal profession—a wise choice as subsequent
time has shown his peculiar fitness
therefor. He first entered the office
of Judge Francis Hilliard of Roxbury,
remaining for a time and then continued

his legal studies with the distinguished
lawyers and jurists Charles P. and Benjamin
R. Curtis of Boston, with whom
he remained until his admission to the
Bar in 1844.

At Roxbury in 1846 he opened his
first law office, taking comparatively
soon a leading position at the Bar.
He there continued his practice until
1865 when he formed with the late
Hon. Harvey Jewell and the since
associate justice of the Supreme Judicial
Court, the Hon. Walbridge A. Field,
the famous and successful law firm,
having offices at number 5 Tremont
street, of Jewell, Gaston and Field.
This firm continued until the election of
Mr. Gaston to the gubernatorial chair
of Massachusetts in 1874. He was the
Democratic candidate the year previous
for this office, his competitor being Mr.
Washburn, who was elected but did not
long retain the chair of State, being
elected to the United States Senate.
At the convention nominating William
B. Washburn for Governor there were
four other candidates for the honor:
Alexander H. Rice, George B. Loring,
Harvey Jewell and Benjamin F. Butler.
The latter created no little unquiet
by the zeal and strength of his support.
The upshot was that there was a
harmonious combination of the forces of
the four contestants of Butler upon Mr.
Washburn. It is remembered that
some of the party organs were upon nettles,
fearing that General Butler would
bolt the nomination, but he came out
squarely and declared that as he had
staked his issues with the convention he
would abide the result.

In the canvass of 1874 Mr. Gaston
was opposed by Hon. Thomas Talbot,
who, by reason of Governor Washburn’s
election to the Senate as stated, was
acting as Governor, having been elected
Lieutenant Governor on the ticket with
Mr. Washburn. Governor Gaston’s majority
over Mr. Talbot was 7,033. In
the following canvass of 1875, Mr. Gaston
having been re-nominated by the
Democracy, his competitor was Hon.
Alexander H. Rice. By this time, that
part of the country represented by the
strongly-intrenched Republican party,
was fully aroused to the exigency of the
hour. The edict came from the political
centre at Washington to the effect
that the Republican party could not
stand another defeat in Massachusetts,
especially on the eve of a presidential
campaign. The national organization
concentrated a wonderfully efficient auxiliary
force in aid of the intense activity
already exerted by the local managers,
who so well understood the popularity
of Mr. Gaston and of the
strong hold he had upon the people. It
seems now that the Democratic managers
accepted or anticipated failure as a
foregone conclusion, and no great fight
was made; otherwise they would probably
have won the election, as Mr. Rice
was elected by only the small plurality
of 5,306 votes. This is very significant,
taken in connection with the fact that
General Grant carried Massachusetts in
1872 by 74,212 majority.

In 1876, that memorable year—memorable
as the year of the electoral
commission—Governor Gaston magnanimously
declined the re-nomination,
which a large majority of the convention
was undoubtedly eager to confer.
The nomination of Charles Francis
Adams was to the rank and file and to
the party managers a disappointment,
and the enthusiasm that he was expected
to arouse was not materialized.

The press of the State justly commended
Mr. Gaston’s conduct in not
forcing his own nomination, a course so
completely in accord with his character,
and his entire devotion to the party

welfare. He did not display the least
semblance of self-seeking.

He has seen not a little of public
life, but with the exception of five
years, has succeeded in conducting his
large and important professional practice
the entire period from his early beginning
to this day. The five years referred
to were: two years, 1861 and
1862, while he was Mayor of the city
of Roxbury; the two years, 1871 and
1872, as Mayor of Boston (this being
after the annexation of Roxbury),
and the year 1875 when Governor.

His mayoralty term of Roxbury antedated
the years he was Mayor of Boston
by just ten years. While such
Mayor of Roxbury in 1861-2 he was
very active in speechmaking and raising
troops in preservation of the American
Union. He went to the front several
times, and was enthusiastically patriotic
during the entire critical period.

He was five years City Solicitor of
Roxbuxy. In 1853 and 1854 he was
elected to the Legislature as a Whig,
and in 1856 was re-elected by a fusion
of Whigs and Democrats in opposition
to the Know-Nothing candidate. In
1868, although the district was strongly
Republican, he was elected as a Democrat
to the State Senate.

In the fall of 1872 Mr. Gaston positively
declined the further use of his
name in the Mayoralty election in Boston
that year. He concluded to be a
candidate, however, upon the earnest
solicitation of so many of the best citizens,
and of the press, and in consideration
of the perfectly unanimous action
of the ward and city committee, in reporting
in favor of his re-nomination and
speaking of him as a man pre-eminently
qualified for the duties which required
“wisdom, discretion, firmness and courage
when needed, combined with the
most exalted integrity and unselfish devotion
to the honor, welfare, and prosperity
of the city.”

In commenting on this subject the
Post in an editorial, November 26,
1872, said in commendation of the
above words of the committee: “The
language employed is none too strong or
emphatic. The history of Mayor Gaston’s
two administrations is an eminently
successful one, so far as he is
personally responsible for them, and
there is not the least room to question
that if he were to be re-elected and
supported by a board of aldermen of
similar character and purpose the city
would at once find the uttermost requirements
of its government satisfied.”
In that election in December, 1872, for
the year 1873 his opponent, Hon. Henry
L. Pierce, was declared elected Mayor
by only seventy-nine plurality. This
fact indicates Mr. Gaston’s popularity,
as General Grant had carried Boston
the year previous by about 5,500
majority. As her Representative, her
presiding officer, her head of affairs,
Mayor Gaston was a success; an honor
to the great city which honored him.

In 1870 he was a candidate for Congress,
but failed of an election, Hon.
Ginery Twitchell receiving a majority
of the votes.

In 1875 Harvard College and also
his Alma Mater, Brown University, conferred
upon him the degree of LL.D.

While he was Governor the somewhat
notorious Jesse Pomeroy case was the
occasion of more or less criticism; the
Governor himself receiving pro and con
his full share thereof. He was in some
instances charged with a lack of firmness,
but time has completely vindicated
his course. Many of those alleging
at the time the Governor’s want of
“back-bone” have lived long enough
to fully realize that his firmness consisted
in adhering with an honest persistency

to his convictions, indicating the
identical course he pursued in that as
in all other matters of public import.

Among those who know him best
there exists the consciousness that Mr.
Gaston is not only an exceedingly cautious
man, but consistently conscientious.
Bringing such lofty principles,
together with a discerning mind and
sound judgement, into activity in the
discharge of his duty, his administration
was, it was generally conceded,
a wise one. It should be
borne in mind that he occupied
a somewhat novel position, there having
been no Democratic Governor
of the State for many years. The scrutiny
directed to him and his acts was
intense. His success in bringing his
official relations as excessive to such a
happy termination is abundant proof of
his being the man this paper endeavors
to picture him.

It was during his term of office that
the lamented Henry Wilson died. At the
State House, in Doric Hall, in November,
1875, Governor Gaston, on receiving
the sacred remains in behalf of the Commonwealth,
said in his address to the
committee: “Massachusetts receives
from you her illustrious dead. She will
see to it that he whose dead body you
bear to us, but whose spirit has entered
upon its higher service, shall receive honors
befitting the great office which in life
he held, and I need not assure you that
her people, with hearts full of respect, of
love, and of veneration, will not only
guard and protect the body, the coffin,
and the grave, but will also ever cherish
his name and fame. Gentlemen, for
the pious service which you have so
kindly and tenderly rendered, accept the
thanks of a grateful Commonwealth.”

Among the appointments made by
Governor Gaston were the following:
that of the late Hon. Otis P. Lord
to be Associate Justice of the Supreme
Judicial Court; Honorable Waldo
Colburn and Honorable William S.
Gardner to Associate Justiceships of
the Superior Court.

The writer has preserved in his scrap
books various selections from Mr. Gaston’s
public utterances, so excellent
and so numerous that it would be difficult
to single out any of them for insertion
here, even would space permit so doing.

It is incomparable, the duties he has
performed, the labors he has accomplished.
His life is, and ever has been,
a busy life. One marvels to know how
he accomplishes so much.

In the political world, in literature, in
the legal profession, monuments have
arisen in testimony of his toil.

As a lawyer his successes have been
such as have been vouchsafed to but
few. The word success is applied both
where it ought to be applied and where
not deserved. Gaining great wealth,
distinguished professional standing, extensive
political renown, pre-eminence
in other avenues may be, or may not be,
in the highest sense, success. Most
men of strong points are sadly deficient
in other and essential traits needed to
constitute a well-biased, grandly-rounded
life. It is rare, indeed, that a person
is encountered possessing such well-proportioned,
evenly-balanced, distinguishing
characteristics as it has been
Mr. Gaston’s lot to enjoy.

His steady, onward march over the
rough places and up the hill in his
learned profession abundantly attest his
greatness. No being can occupy, nor
even approach, the very foremost
rank in the legal arena save he be
great. Of all representatives of human
experiences the lawyer, and more particularly
the advocate, has the least opportunity
to occupy falsely a position of
real prominence. Advocacy is the

most jealous of mistresses. Undoubtedly
it is true that nowhere else must
there be ever present and ever ready
to respond at a moment’s notice such
a happy combination of those qualities
already noted.

It is not long ago that one of the most
worthy of Boston’s Judges remarked to
the writer: “You can count the really
excellent advocates at the Suffolk Bar
upon the fingers of both hands.” He
began by naming the subject of this
sketch, following with the names of Honorable
A.A. Ranney, Honorable William
G. Russell, Honorable Robert M. Morse,
Jr., and others. The learned Judge
must, it seems, have had in mind a very
high standard of advocacy, for there
are not a few among the something like
two thousand Boston lawyers who have
well earned, and justly, the right to be
called able and eloquent.

In his historical article entitled “The
Bench and Bar,” by Erastus Worthington,
and contained in the “History of
Norfolk County, Massachusetts,” after
writing of those eminent advocates,
Ezra Wilkinson and John J. Clarke, he
refers to Governor Gaston and Judge
Colburn in the following words: “The
successors to the leadership of the bar,
after the retirement of Mr. Wilkinson
and Mr. Clarke, were William Gaston of
Roxbury, and Waldo Colburn of Dedham.
Mr. Gaston was not admitted to
practice in this county, but he studied
law with Mr. Clarke, and practiced in
this county for many years, and considered
himself a Norfolk lawyer. He was
an eloquent and successful advocate and
had an excellent practice. He had removed
to Boston prior to the annexation
of Roxbury.

“Mr. Colburn practiced in Dedham
until he was appointed an Associate
Justice of the Superior Court in
1875. He attained a high position in
his profession as a wise counsellor, an
able trier of causes, and a lawyer in
whose hands the interests of his clients
were always safe.”

On his election to the Governorship
Mr. Gaston absolutely relinquished his
practice and gave his undivided attention
to the duties of his office. He
had been quite unable to devote his
customary labor to the benefit of his
law partnership and the good of their
clientage during the two years that he
was Mayor of Boston.

When he retired from the executive
chair it is said that he had neither a
“case” nor a client.

He took offices in Sears Building and
it was not long before he was again enjoying
a large and lucrative practice.
In 1879 he took into partnership C.L.B.
Whitney, Esq.; and last year William
A. Gaston, Esq., was admitted to the firm.

An imperishable chain binds Ex-Governor
Gaston to the bright side of the
history of the Commonwealth. His life
and its renown are one and inseparable.
Such is the inevitable result of a life that
has ever been linked to honorable endeavors
and principles. So thoroughly
identified with, and endeared to, her best
interests, it is difficult to believe that
Massachusetts can claim him by adoption
only. In private life Mr. Gaston is
all that can be desired. He is quiet,
and remarkably modest and unassuming.

He enjoys the delightful home quietness
away from his labors. But what
little time he has for such enjoyment!
He seems to love work. How he has
performed so much of it is a wonder, although
it is well known that he inherits
and enjoys remarkable powers of endurance.
Among his favorite authors are
Scott and Burke. He is temperate, refined
in his habits, has the manners of
a perfect gentleman, and deserves the
blessed fruits of a well directed life.

REMINISCENCES OF DANIEL WEBSTER.

BY HON. GEORGE W. NESMITH, LL.D.

The following is a copy of a letter
originally addressed to Rev. Mr. Savage
of Franklin, N.H. The original is
dated October 10, 1852, fourteen days
before the decease of Mr. Webster. It
was dictated to his Clerk, C.J. Abbott,
Esq. It was the same letter that gave
rise to the humorous anecdote, so well
related by Mr. Curtice in his Biography
of Mr. Webster, vol. 2, page 683.

We now present this letter to the
public to show how worthily one of the
last days of Mr. Webster was employed.
In this case he presented a Peace Offering
to old friends, which proved effectual
in preventing a severe litigation
and consequent loss of money and
friendship:

This interesting letter produced the
happy effect of reconciling the contending
parties, and bringing about an honorable
and satisfactory settlement of all
difficulties between them. The letter
was timely, bringing healing in its wings.
Here were “words fitly spoken, like
apples of gold in pictures of silver;”
to the parties it soon was the voice from
the dead, “proclaiming peace on earth,
and good will towards men.” As adviser
and counsel of the mother, my
own exertions for peace had proved impotent,
but the letter of the eminent
dying statesman, containing the salutary
advice of an old friend, proved
irresistible in its influence, and brought
to the troubled waters immediate quiet,
without resort to the Church or other
legal tribunal.

Mr. Webster made allusion to the
honored name of Taylor, then of Sanbornton.

Both father, and son were
brave officers of Revolutionary stock.
The father, Captain Chase Taylor,
commanded a company composed
chiefly of Sanbornton and Meredith
men, at the battle of Bennington, on
the sixteenth of August, 1777, and was
there severely wounded—his left leg
being broken, which disabled him for
life. He died in 1805. In 1786 he
received a small pension from the State.
His surgeon, Josiah Chase of Canterbury,
and his Colonel, Stickney of Concord,
each furnishing their certificates
in his behalf. Early in the history of
the Revolutionary war the son, Nathan
Taylor, was commissioned as a Lieutenant
in the Corps of Rangers, commanded
by Colonel Whitcomb. Lieutenant
Taylor had the command of a
small detachment of fourteen men.
On the sixteenth day of June, 1777,
being stationed on the western bank of
Lake Champlain, at a place which has
ever since been called Taylor’s Creek,
he was surprised by a superior force of
Indians. Taylor bravely resisted this
attack, and was successful in driving
the enemy off, though at the expense of
a severe wound in his right shoulder.
Three others of his band were also
wounded. Both father and son were
confined at home in the same house
several months before recovery from
their wounds. Lieutenant Taylor returned
to active service in the army.
He afterwards received the military
title of Major, and occupied many civil
offices after the war in his own town, as
well as in behalf of the State. He was
member of the House of Representatives,
also of the Senate and Council,
for a number of years. He died in
March, A.D. 1840, aged 85, much
lamented.

Then there was John Taylor of Revolutionary
fame. He and many of his
descendants have occupied high and
enviable stations in Sanbornton, and their
biography and good deeds have been
ably commemorated by the historian,
Rev. M.T. Runnels. In adhering to the
Taylor families Mr. Webster obeyed the
injunction of Solomon who said, “Thine
own friend, and thy father’s friend forsake
not.” Mr. Webster’s letter furnishes
strong evidence, that he did not forsake
“his own friend,” Parker Noyes.
The friendship between these men commenced
when Mr. Noyes entered the
Law office of Thomas W. Thompson
as early as 1798, and continued intimate,
cordial, unabated, “fast” during
their lives. The earthly existence of
both terminated in the same year, Mr.
Noyes having deceased August, 19,
1852, and Mr. Webster on the twenty-fourth
of the succeeding October.

The dwelling houses of both in
Franklin were within the distance of
twenty rods; their intercourse was frequent
during the last fifty-four years of
their lives.

During the time Mr. Webster practiced
law in New Hampshire they often
met at the same bar, and measured intellectual
lances in various legal contests.
These meetings were most frequent
when Mr. Webster first settled in
Boscawen in 1805, and for the next two
years, before his removal to Portsmouth.

We were present in A.D. 1848, when
these two friends met and recited many
of the interesting and humorous events
that occurred in their early practice.
In those days, they often had for a veteran
client a man who then resided in
West Boscawen, now Webster, by the
name of Corser. He was represented
as one who loved the law, not for its
pecuniary profits, but for its exciting,
stimulating effects. It was said of him,
that at the end of a term of the Court,
once held at Hopkinton, he was found

near the Court House by a friend, shedding
tears. The friend inquired the
cause of his great sorrow. His answer
was, “I have no longer a case in
court.” The same Corser had been a
Revolutionary soldier, and belonged to
the army when discharged by Washington
at Newburg, at the termination of
the war. He had but little money to
bear his expenses home. When he
reached Springfield, Massachusetts, his
money was exhausted, and he was
obliged to resort to his talent at begging.
Accordingly he called at a farm
house, and requested the good loyal
lady of the establishment to give him a
pie, adding at the same time, that he
wanted another for his Brother Jonathan.
The lady well supposing that his
Brother Jonathan was then his companion
in arms, and in the street suffering
with hunger, readily granted his request,
when in truth and in fact Jonathan was
then at home cultivating his farm in
Boscawen.

Brother Jonathan, upon learning the
conduct of his brother, rebuked him
for useing his name, instead of his own,
thereby deceiving the good woman. In
justification of his conduct, the brother
answered, “My hunger was great. I
contrived to satisfy it. The kind woman
had my thanks; you was not injured.
At most, by strict morals, I committed
only a pious fraud in getting two pies,
instead of one.” Mr. Webster remarked,
that he was once present when this case
was stated, and argued by the two brothers,
and was much interested in the discussion
of the celebrated pie case.

THE DARK DAY.

BY ELBIDGE H. GOSS.

The Spragues of Melrose, formerly
North Malden, were one of the old families.
They descended from Ralph
Sprague, who settled in Charlestown in
1629. The first one, who came to Melrose
about the year 1700, was named
Phineas. His grandson, also named
Phineas, served during the Revolutionary
War, and a number of interesting anecdotes
are told about him. He was a slaveholder,
and Artemas Barrett, Esq., a native
of Melrose, owns an original bill of sale
of “a negro woman named Pidge, with
one negro boy;” also other documents,
among which is Mr. Sprague’s diary,
wherein he gives the following account of
the wonderfully dark day in 1780, a good
reminder of which we experienced September
6, 1881, a century later:

NAMES AND NICKNAMES.

BY GILBERT NASH.

To the antiquarian, the historian, or
the general scholar, there are few more
interesting studies than that of names.
It is a pursuit of rare delight to trace
out the derivation of those with which
we have been long familiar, and to follow
up the associations that have rendered
them dear, curious or ridiculous, as the
case may be. The names themselves
may be of no value, but the spot or
circumstance that gave them birth cannot
fail to throw around them an atmosphere
of peculiar interest. The subject
is a broad one and may be, with
time and inclination, extensively cultivated;
and, even in the limits of a
short article, many phases of it of general
importance and interest may be
satisfactorily treated, and it is proposed
in the following paragraphs to present
only a few of them.

In the present rage for nicknames,
pet names, diminutives and contractions
there is fair prospect of an abundant
harvest of trouble and perplexity to the
genealogist and historian of the future.
In fact, the students of the present day
are already beginning to realize, in no
small degree, the annoyance that arises
from the custom. The changes are so
many and intricate that to understand
them fully requires much valuable time
and the patience that could better be
employed in more important work.

The difficulty arises, of course, from
indifference, inadvertence or carelessness,
rather than from set purpose; yet the
result is the same in its evil effects. It
is true there are some of these nicknames
that have been so long in use,
and have become so common that no
one is disturbed by them and their employment,
and they are readily understood.
Many of these, however, have
served their turn and are gradually
going out of use, and will, in a short
time, be only “dead words” to the
community.

Of this class are the familiar favorites
of our grandparents, such as Sally, for
Sarah; Polly or Molly, for Mary; Patty,
for Martha, and Peggy, for Margaret,
representative names of the class.
Some of these, with perhaps slight
changes, have become legitimatized, and
their origin has been nearly, or quite,
forgotten. Of such we recognize Betsy,
or its modern equivalent, Bettie or
Bessie, as a very proper name. Few,
perhaps, of our present generation
would recognize in “Nancy,” the features
of its parent, “Ann” or “Nan.”

Some of these old nicknames have already
gone nearly or quite out of use,
so much so that many of our young
people will be surprised to learn that
Patty was, not long ago, the vernacular
for Martha, and would never imagine
that “Margaret” could ever have responded
to the call of “Peggy;”
“Hitty” and “Kitty,” for the staid and
sober “Mehitable,” and the volatile
Katherine, are more easily recognized,
while it might require several guesses
to establish the relationship between
“Milly” and “Amelia,” or “Emily.”

Stranger than either, perhaps because
both the proper name and its diminutive
have become so uncommon, is
that transformation which reduced
“Tabitha,” to “Bertha,” with the accent
upon the first syllable, and its vowel
long. A curious instance of the change
in this name, and the further variation

made in it in consequence of its forgotten
derivation, has recently occurred in
the record of the death of an old lady
who was baptized “Tabitha,” called in
her youth “Bitha,” and now in her
obituary styled Mrs. “Bertha,” probably
from the similarity of sound to her
youthful nickname. Her relatives of
the present generation had forgotten
her real name and knew her only under
that of an imitation of her diminutive.
The transition from “Bitha” to
“Bertha” is easy, but how is the perplexed
genealogist to ascertain the original
when he has only the records for
his guide?

Such illustrations might be multiplied
almost indefinitely, but those already
given are enough to show what an infinite
amount of trouble has come and
must still come from their continued
usage. They also serve well to show
with how much care and watchfulness
the historian must pursue his work; how
constantly he must be upon his guard,
and how closely and critically he must
scrutinize the names that pass under his
eye.

Nor was this custom of nicknames
confined to the daughters of the family,
but the boys, also, were among its subjects,
perhaps in not so great a variety,
yet very general. Among the more
common we only need mention such as
Bill, Ned, Jack, and Frank, to illustrate
this. Nor were there wanting among
the masculine nicknames those whose
derivations seem very remote and far-fetched,
as “El” for “Alphus;” “Hal”
for “Henry;” “Jot” for “Jonathan;”
“Seph” for “Josephus;” “Nol” for
“Oliver;” “Dick” for “Richard,” and
a multitude of others equally well known.

The instances named are old and
have been in general use so long that
those who are called upon to deal with
them are upon their guard and not
likely to be led astray by them, but the
class of pet names, now, for a few years
in use, will necessarily be more misleading
because they are new, and in many
cases very blind; in many instances
the same nickname being used to represent
perhaps a dozen different proper
names, so that it is impossible to tell,
from the nickname, what the real name
is. Among the most annoying of this
class are those that not only represent
several names each, but are masculine
or feminine, as occasion calls.

Of the latter class are “Allie” for
Alice, Albert or Alexander, and “Bertie,”
used in place of so many that it is needless
to specify, the latter being the worst
of its species, since it is wholly indefinite,
applying equally to boy or girl,
and for a multitude of either sex, some
of which are so far-fetched that all possible
connection is lost in the journey of
transmission. Most of the old fashioned
nicknames indicate the sex quite
distinctly, and in this they have much
the advantage of some of their modern
competitors. They were also much
more expressive if not so euphonious. A
person need but glance at any of our
town records for the past few years to
see how the use of these pet names has
increased, and it requires no prophet
to foresee what confusion must naturally
arise from the continuance of the
custom, and how difficult it will be in
the near future to follow the record
accurately.

Another and very different class of
nicknames are those derived from accident
or local circumstance, and have
no other connection with the real name
of the person to whom they are attached,
and to whom they cling as a
foul excrescence long after the circumstances
that called them forth is forgotten.
These sometimes originate at
home in childhood, at school among

playmates, or after the arrival of the
person at mature age, and are oftentimes
ridiculous in the extreme. They
are nearly always a source of great mortification
to those who so unwillingly
bear them, who would give almost anything
to rid themselves of the nuisance;
yet these, once fixed, seldom lose their
hold, but must be borne with the best
grace possible.

It will not be necessary to cite instances
of this class, as every one will
recall many such that it might be highly
improper to mention publicly as being
personal or taken to be so. Some are
simply indicative of temperament; some
of a peculiarity of manner, or a locality
in which they happened to have first
seen the light; and others, perhaps the
most unfortunate of all and the most
mischievous, are derived from an ill-timed
word or act, said or done in a
moment of passion or thoughtlessness,
which the individual would like to recall
at almost any price, but cannot. The
saddest of all are those unfortunates,
for there are such, to whom their parents,
they knew not why, gave such
names.

Another class are those given at first
as a term of reproach or disgrace, accepted
without protest, and afterwards
borne as a title of honor. The name
“Old Hickory” will at once suggest
itself as such an instance. Truly fortunate
is the person who has the tact and
is in circumstances to do this, and thus
turn the weapons of his enemies against
themselves. There are others, again,
whose character and position are such
that they permit no familiarity, and every
name of reproach or ridicule rolls off
like shot from the iron shell of the monitor.
The name of our Washington suggests
such an individual. Whoever for an
instant thought of approaching him with
familiarity, or of applying to him a nickname
as a term of reproach or ridicule,
or even as an expression of good nature.

As will be readily seen, the evil resulting
from this custom is wide spread and
alarming. It would also seem to be almost
without remedy, since it is the result
of irresponsible action, committed
by persons who are not fully aware of
what they are doing, by those who are
indifferent, as to what may follow, or by
those who are actuated by malice;
against these there is no law except the
steady, persistent movement of the
thinking public setting its face squarely
against the practice, with the passage of
time, which usually brings about, we
know not always how, the remedy for
such evils; but we are seldom willing to
wait for such a cure.

As before intimated parents are sometimes
guilty of this offence, and thus
place upon a child a stigma that will
follow it through life. A little care on
their part will remedy the evil, to that
extent, and they surely should be willing
to do their share in the work.
Teachers and those who have the charge
of the young are sometimes thoughtless
enough to commit the same fault.
Should it not be crime? For they have
no right to be thus inconsiderate, when a
little restraint upon their part will prevent
the wrong as far as they are concerned.
With these two influences setting in the
right direction, added to that of the
thinking community, a current may
very likely be formed that shall obliterate
wholly the custom and deliver us
from its attendant difficulties.

Another practice now quite common,
and one which bids fair to create much
confusion, is that which permits the
wife to take the Christian name of her
husband: for instance, Mrs. Mary, wife
of John Smith, signs her name Mrs.
John Smith, a name which has no legal
existence, which she is entitled to use

only by courtesy, and which should be
allowed in none but necessary cases to
distinguish her from some other bearing
the same name, or to address her
when her own Christian name is not
known. Mrs. is but a general title to
designate the class of persons to which
she belongs, and not a name, any more
than Mr. or Esq. Who ever knew a man
to sign his name Mr. so and so, or so
and so, Esq.?

To show the absurdity and impropriety
of this misuse of the name it
will be needful to mention but a single
illustration. Suppose a note or check
is made payable to Mrs. John Smith.
Mrs. being only a title, and no part of
the name, the endorsement would be
plain John Smith, and nobody, not even
his wife, has any right to forge his signature.
An instrument thus drawn is a
mistake, since no one can be authorized
to execute it.

The trouble to the genealogist and
historian is of a somewhat different nature,
since he merely desires to identify
the individual and cares nothing about
the money value of the document.
Much the safer and better way is for
the wife always to sign and use her
proper name and to add, if she thinks
it necessary to be more explicit, “wife
of,” using her husband’s name. By doing
this a vast deal of perplexity would
be avoided, and sometimes a serious
legal difficulty.

Another custom, as common, and
quite a favorite one with many married
ladies, is that which changes her middle
name by substituting her maiden surname;
for example, Mary Jane Smith
marries James Gray, and immediately
her name is assumed to be Mary Smith
Gray, instead of Mary Jane Gray, her
legal name. The wife, if she so chooses,
has the right by general consent, if not
by law, to retain her full name, adding
her husband’s surname; but she has no
right to use her own maiden surname in
place of her discarded middle name.
Much confusion might arise from this
practice, as the following illustration will
show. Mary Jane Gray receives a check
payable to her order, and she, being in
the habit of signing her name Mary
Smith Gray, thus endorses it, and forwards
it by mail or otherwise for collection,
and is surprised when it comes
back to her to be properly executed.

Again, Mary Jane Gray has a little
money which she deposits in the savings
bank, and, for the reason already
given, takes out her book in the name
of Mary S. Gray. She dies and her administrator
finding the book tries to collect
the money, but he being the administrator
of Mary Jane Gray and not of
Mary S. Gray may find the Treasurer of
the bank unwilling to pay over the
money until he is satisfied as to the identity
of the apparently two Mary Grays,
which, under some circumstances, might
be a difficult process.

These changes are usually made
thoughtlessly, but the result is none the
less serious than though it were done
with the intent to deceive or mislead,
and the mischief that often arises in consequence
is very great. These changes
that have been noted from the nature
of the case can only occur with
women, since men have no occasion to
make them, and in point of fact cannot;
but there are those, quite analagous in
character, that are common to both
sexes and should be avoided unless the
necessity is very apparent. Double
names are sometimes very convenient
for purposes of identification, but they
may also prove fruitful sources of difficulty
and trouble. As an illustration,
Mary Jane Smith is known at home by
her family and to her acquaintances as
Mary. For some fanciful reason or

local circumstance she wearies of that
name and becomes Jane. Both are
equally hers, but her acquaintances who
knew her as Mary might well plead ignorance
when asked about Jane Smith;
and the acquaintances of the latter
might never surmise that Mary Smith
had ever existed.

Again, James Henry Gray is known
at home in his youth as James H. Gray,
and the name is very satisfactory to him;
but as he arrives at manhood he enters
a new business and finds a new residence.
For some reason he thinks that a change
of name also may be of benefit to him,
and therefore he signs himself J. Henry
Gray, and henceforth is a stranger to his
former acquaintances. He has some
money in bank at his old home which
he draws for under his new name, and
wonders when his check comes back to
him dishonored, forgetting that he has
never notified the officers of his change
of name.

He finds it necessary, upon some occasion,
to write to one of his former
friends for information of importance,
and is surprised that his old associate
declines to give it to a stranger, for he
does not remember, that, while he may
easily retain his own identity, under any
change of name, it may not be so easy
to assure it to another at a distance. It
can thus be seen how easily, and at
times, how unavoidably, a great deal of
vexation may be produced by this practice,
and yet it is extensively followed.

Looking at the subject in another aspect,
we find a grievance that has borne
and is now bearing with intolerable
weight upon many an individual, who
would, at almost any sacrifice, relieve
himself of it, but it is saddled upon
him in such a manner, and is surrounded
by such circumstances as to render it
quite impossible for him to do so. It is
a practice, all too common, but none the
less reprehensible, to give to children
legitimate names of such a character as
to render them veritable “old men of
the sea,” so graphically described by
Sindbad.

They are given for various reasons,
sometimes simply for their oddity, sometimes
because the name has been borne
by a relative or friend, or it may have
been borrowed from the pages of some
favorite author, or suggested by accidental
circumstance. A boy whose
Christian name was Baring Folly, and
we should not have far to go to find its
counterpart in real life, could hardly be
expected to get through the world without
feeling severely the burden and ridicule
of such a name, each part proper
and well enough in its place as a surname,
but particularly unfortunate when
united and required to do duty as a
Christian name.

We ridicule, and it may be wisely,
the old-fashioned custom of giving a
child a name merely because it happened
to be found in the Scriptures,
where with its special meaning it was
singularly appropriate, yet, when used
as a name without that special signification,
it would be equally inappropriate.
But are we wholly free from the same
fault in another direction? How many
children have been so burdened with a
name that had been made illustrious by
the life and services of its original
bearer that they were always ashamed
to hear it spoken; that very name of
honor becoming in its present position
a reproach and a hindrance, rather than
a stimulus, because the bearers feel
that they cannot sustain its ancient renown,
and therefore they become mere
nothings, simply from the fact of having
been borne down to the dust under
the burden of a great name.

Who can tell how many have become
notorious, or have committed vagaries

which have rendered them ridiculous,
and destroyed their usefulness, from a
sincere desire to bear worthily an honored
name? Who shall say that the eccentricities
of a certain celebrity of
acknowledged talent, whose name would
be quickly recognized, were not the result
of the same cause, the length, and
weight of the name given him at his
birth proving too great an incumbrance
for him to overcome.

How many ignoble George Washingtons,
Henry Clays, Patrick Henrys, and
other equally illustrious names, are
wandering aimlessly about our streets,
shiftless, worthless, utterly unworthy the
names they bear, simply because they
bear them, when, had they been given
plain, honest, common names, they
might have been held in respect and esteem.
The burden is too great for them.
A ship with a drag attached to her cannot
make progress, be she ever so swift
without it. Even the eagle will refuse
his flight when burdened with excessive
weight.

A little lack of consideration or want
of thought in this matter on the part of
parents often entail an immense amount
of suffering upon those who are wholly
innocent as to its cause. Let the boy
or girl be given such a name, as shall be
his or hers, worthy or unworthy, as the
bearer shall make. Give them all a fair
show. We may not be able to tell in all
cases, perhaps not in many, how this affair
of names has affected the lives of
their owners. Give a child a silly or ridiculous
name and the chances are that
the child’s character will correspond with
that name. Give a child a name already
illustrious and the chances are also fair
that the burden will prove its ruin.

It is unnecessary to extend the subject,
the present purpose being merely
to call attention to those practices, and
so to present them that more natural
and healthy customs will be sought after
and followed, that a true æsthetic taste
may be cultivated, and thus alleviate or
remove a part, at least, of the burden
under which society groans.

It is also intended to illustrate some
of the trials and perplexities that beset
the genealogist and historian in their researches,
arising from these unfortunate
habits that pervade society. It would
seem that the evils produced by the
practices, only need exposure to result
in reformation, and that no parent, with
the full knowledge of the possible, yes
probable, and almost inevitable effect,
would so thrust upon his offspring an
annoyance, to use the mildest possible
term, which should subject them to such
disagreeable consequences all through
life.

It would seem, also, that no guardian,
teacher, or other individual having the
care and oversight of children, could be
so thoughtless and inconsiderate, or
allow a personal or private reason so to
influence him, as to assume for the child
any name that would be liable to cause
it future shame or sorrow. Too much
care cannot be taken in this regard, and
it is a duty owing to the child that its
rights in this respect shall be strictly
guarded.

It is the object of this paper simply
to call attention to a few of the more
prominent points suggested by this subject
in order that it may be examined
and discussed, and, if it may be, more
judicious and wiser practices introduced,
that nature, art, and taste may combine
to produce a system of names that shall
be at the same time, convenient, useful
and beautiful, and that shall carry no
burden with them.

JOHN PRESCOTT, THE FOUNDER OF LANCASTER.

1603 TO 1682.

By HON. HENRY S. NOURSE.

The facts that have come down to us
whereupon to build a biography of John
Prescott are scanty indeed, but enough
to prove that he was that rare type of
man, the ideal pioneer. Not one of
those famous frontiersmen, whose figures
stand out so prominently in early American
history, was better equipped with
the manly qualities that win hero worship
in a new country, than was the
father of the Nashaway Plantation. Had
Prescott like Daniel Boone been fortunate
in the favor of contemporary historians,
to perpetuate anecdotes of his
daily prowess and fertility of resource, or
had he had grateful successors withal to
keep his memory green, his name and
romantic adventures would in like manner
adorn Colonial annals. Persecuted
for his honest opinions, he went out into
the wilderness with his family to found a
home, and for forty years thought,
fought and wrought to make that home
the centre of a prosperous community.
Loaded from his first step with discouragements,
that soon appalled every
other of the original co-partners in the
purchase of Nashaway from Showanon,
Prescott alone, tenax propositi, held to
his purpose, and death found him at his
post. His grave is in the old “burial
field” at Lancaster, yet not ten citizens
can point it out. Over it stands a rude
fragment from some ledge of slate rock,
faintly incised with characters which few
eyes can trace:

JOHN PRESCOTT DESASED

No date! no comment! That is his
only memorial stone; his only epitaph
in the town of which, for its first forty
years, he was the very heart and soul,
and for which he furnished a large share
of the brains. This fair township—now
divided among nine towns—and all it
has been and is and is to be may be
justly called his monument. The house
of Deputies in 1652 voted it to be
rightly his, and marked it by incorporative
enactment with his honored and
honorable name, Prescott. Unfortunately,
however, some years before he
had said something that seemed to favor
Doctor Robert Child’s criticisms of the
Provincial system of taxation without
representation; criticisms that grew and
bore good fruitage when the times were
riper for individual freedom; when Samuel
Adams and James Otis took up the
peoples’ cause where Sir Henry Vane
and Robert Child had left it. Therefore
when, in 1652, what had been known as
the Nashaway Plantation was fairly
named for its founder in accordance
with the petition of its inhabitants,
some one of influence, whether magistrate
or higher official, perhaps bethought
himself that no Governor of
the Colony even had been so honored,
and that it might be well, before dignifying
this busy blacksmith so much as
to name a town for him, to see if he
could pass examination in the catechism
deemed orthodox at that date in Massachusetts
Bay. Alas! John Prescott was
not a freeman. Having a conscience
of his own, he had never given public
adhesion to the established church covenant
and was therefore debarred from
holding any civil office, and even from
the privilege of voting for the magistrates.
There was a year’s delay, and,

in 1653, “Prescott” was expunged and
Lancaster began its history.

As in the broad area of the township
various centres of population grew into
villages and were one by one excised
and made towns, it would be supposed
that each of them would have been
eager to honor itself by adopting so euphonious
and appropriate a name as
Prescott. But no! The first candidate
for a new designation, in 1732, chose
the name of the generous Charlestown
clergyman, Harvard, for no appropriate
local reason now discoverable. Six years
later another body corporate imported
the name—Bolton. Two years passed
and a third district sought across the
ocean for its title Leominster. Then
Woonksechocksett forgetful of its benefactors
and of the grand Indian names
of its hills and waters borrowed the
title of a putative Scotch lord, who
bravely fought for our Independence,
and, in adopting, paid him the poor
compliment of misspelling it—Sterling.
The next seceder ambitiously chose the
name of a Prussian city—Berlin.
The sixth perpetuated its early admiration
of the great small-pox inoculator,
Boylston; and the last was named—for
a hotel. None so poor as to do Prescott
reverence. But surely, it would be
thought, banks and manufactories, halls
or at least a fire engine, might with tardy
respect have paid cheap tribute to his
name by bearing it. Is there any example!
Yes, at last a short street having
little connection sentimental or real
with the pioneer, bears his name—this
only in the aspiring town, almost a city,
of which John Prescott’s old millstone is
the visible foundation! Clinton.

I have stated that Prescott was an
ideal pioneer. Not that there was in
him anything of kinship to that race of
frontiersmen now deployed along the
outer verge of American civilization, like
the thread of froth stranded along a
beach outlining the extreme advance
made by the last wave of the tide.
The frontiersmen of to-day, bibulous
gamblers, reckless duelists, blasphemous
savages of mixed blood, had no prototype
in Colonial days, for even the human
harvest then gathered to the stocks,
the whipping-post and the gallows, was
of a far less obtrusive class of offenders
against morals and social decency. Prescott
was a Puritan soldier, a seeker of
liberty not license; fiercely rebellious
against tyranny, but no contemner of
moral law. It was no accident that put
him in the advance guard of Anglo-Saxon
civilization, then just starting on its westward
march from the shores of Massachusetts
Bay. The position had awaited
the man. When he set up his anvil and
with skilful blows hammered out the first
plough-shares to compel the virgin soil
of the Nashaway valley to its proper
fruitfulness, he was all unwittingly helping
to forge the destinies of this great
republic;—was in his humble sphere a
true builder of the nation. His neighbors
and friends, John Tinker, Ralph
Houghton, and Major Simon Willard,
doubtless excelled him in culture, but no
neighbor surpassed him in natural personal
force, whether physical, mental or
moral. Not only was he of commanding
stature, stern of mien and strong
of limb, but he had a heart devoid of
fear, great physical endurance and an
unbending will. These qualities his savage
neighbors early recognized and
bowed before in deep respect, and because
of these no Lancaster enterprise
but claimed him as its leader. His
manual skill and dexterity must have
been great, his mental capacity and
business energy remarkable, for we find
him not only a farmer, trader, blacksmith
and hunter, but a surveyor and builder
of roads, bridges and mills. The records

of the town show that he was seldom
free from the conduct of some public
labor. The greatest of his benefactions
to his neighbors were: His corn-mill
erected in 1654, and his saw-mill in
1659. The arrival of the first millstone
in Lancaster must have been an event of
matchless interest to every man, woman
and child in the plantation. Till that
began its tireless turning, the grain for
every loaf of bread had to be carried to
Watertown mill, or ground laboriously
in a hand quern, or parched and brayed
in a mortar, Indian fashion. Before
the starting of his saw-mill, the rude
houses must have been of logs, stone,
and clay, for it was an impossibility to
bring from the lower towns on the existing
“Bay road” and with the primitive
tumbril any large amount of sawn
lumber.

Of Prescott’s wife we know only her
name: Mary Platts. But her daughters
were sought for in marriage by men of
whom we learn nothing that is not praiseworthy,
and her sons all honored their
mother’s memory, by useful and unblemished
lives. John Prescott was the
youngest son of Ralph and Ellen of
Shevington, Lancashire, England. He
was baptized in the Parish of Standish
in 1604-5 and married Mary Platts at
Wigan, Lancashire, January 21, 1629.
He was a land owner in Shevington, but
sold his possessions there and took up
his residence in Halifax Parish, Sowerby,
in Yorkshire. Leaving England to avoid
religions persecutions, his first haven was
Barbadoes, where he is found a land
owner in 1638. In 1640 he landed in
Boston, and immediately selected his
home in Watertown, where he became
the possessor of six lots of land, aggregating
one hundred and twenty-six acres.
In 1643, his name is found in association
with Thomas King of Watertown,
Henry Symonds of Boston, and others,
the first proprietors of the Nashaway
purchase. His children were eight in
number and all were married in due season.
They were as follows:

1. Mary, baptized at Halifax Parish
February 24, 1630, married Thomas
Sawyer in 1648. The young couple
selected their home lot adjoining Prescott’s
in Lancaster and there eleven
sons and daughters were born to them.

2. Martha, baptized at Halifax Parish
March 11, 1632, married John Rugg in
1655; and these twain began life together
in sight of her paternal home in
Lancaster. She died with her twin
babes in January 1656.

3. John, baptized at Halifax Parish
April 1, 1635, married Sarah Hayward
at Lancaster, November 11, 1668, and
had five children. He was a farmer and
blacksmith, lived with his father, and
succeeded him at the mills.

4. Sarah, baptized in 1637, at Halifax
Parish, married Richard Wheeler at
Lancaster, August 2, 1658, and lived in
the immediate vicinity of those before
named. Wheeler was killed in the massacre
of February 10, 1676, and the
widowed Sarah married Joseph Rice of
Marlborough. By her first husband she
had five children.

5. Hannah, was probably born at
Barbadoes in 1639. She became the
second wife of John Rugg May 4, 1660,
and had eight children. She became a
widow in 1696, and was slain by the Indians
in the massacre of September 11,
1697.

6. Lydia, born at Watertown August
15, 1641, married Jonas Fairbank at
Lancaster, May 28, 1658. He owned
the lands next south of Prescott’s home.
Fairbank had seven children. In the
massacre of February 10, 1676, he and
his son Joshua were victims. The widowed
Lydia married Elias Barron.

7. Jonathan—if twenty three years

old in 1670, as an unknown authority
has noted, or “about 38,” November 6,
1683, as stated in a deposition of that
date—was probably born in Lancaster
between 1645 and 1647. He was a
blacksmith and farmer, and married first
Dorothy, August 3, 1670, in Lancaster.
She died in 1674, leaving a son
Samuel, noted in the town history as the
unfortunate sentinel who, on November
6, 1704, killed by mistake his neighbor,
the beloved minister of Lancaster, Reverend
Andrew Gardner. Jonathan Prescott
married second, Elizabeth, daughter
of John Hoar of Concord, who died
in 1687 leaving six children. Jonathan’s
third wife was Rebecca Bulkeley
and his fourth Ruth, widow of Thomas
Brown. He did not reside in Lancaster
after the massacre of 1676, but became
an influential citizen of Concord, which
he served as representative for nine
years. He died December 5, 1721.

8. Jonas, born June, 1648, in Lancaster,
married Mary Loker of Sudbury,
December 14, 1672. The marriage
took place in Lancaster and here their
first child was born, (they had twelve
children in all), but later they removed
to Groton, where Jonas became Captain,
Selectman and Justice. He died in
Groton, December 31, 1723. Of his
more illustrious descendants were Colonel
William, and the historian William
H. Prescott.

In May 1644, John Winthrop records
that “Many of Watertown and
other towns joined in a plantation at
Nashaway “—and Reverend Timothy
Harrington in his Century Sermon states
that the organization of this company
of planters was due to Thomas King.
The immediate and final disappearance
of this original proprietor has seemed to
previous writers good warrant for charging
that King and his partner Henry
Symonds were but land speculators, who
bought the Indian’s inheritance to retail
by the acre to adventurers. I believe
this an unjust assumption. At the date
when Winthrop noted down the inception
of the Nashaway Company,
Henry Symonds had already been dead
seven months. He was that energetic
contractor of Boston noted as the leader
in the project for establishing tide mills
at the Cove, and was no doubt the capitalist
of the trading firm of Symonds &
King, who set up their “trucking house”
as early as 1643 on the sunny slope of
George Hill. Symond’s widow a few
months after his death married Isaac
Walker, who in 1645 was prominent
among the Nashaway proprietors. If
King really sold his share of the Indian
purchase, may it not have been therefore
because, his senior partner being
dead, he had no means to continue the
enterprise? He too died before the
end of the year 1644, not yet thirty
years of age. The inventory of his
estate sums but one hundred and fifty-eight
pounds, including his house and
land in Watertown, his stock in trade,
and seventy-three pounds of debts due
him from the Indians, John Prescott,
and sundry others. King’s widow made
haste to be consoled, and her second
husband, James Cutler, soon appears in
the role of a Nashaway proprietor.

The direction of the company was at
the outset in the hands of men whose
names were, or soon became, of some
note throughout the Colony. Doctor
Robert Child, a scholar who had won
the degrees of A.M. and M.D. at Cambridge
and Padua, a man of scientific
acquirements, but inclined to somewhat
sanguine expectations of mineral treasure
to be discovered in the New England
hills, seems to have been a leading
spirit in the adventure; and unfortunately
so, since his political views about
certain inalienable rights of man, which

now live, and are honored in the Constitution
of the Commonwealth, seemed
vicious republicanism to the ecclesiastical
aristocracy then governing the Colony
of the Massachusetts Bay; and the
odium that drove Child across the ocean,
attached also to his companion planters,
and perhaps through the prejudice of
those in authority unfavorably affected
for several years the progress of the settlement
on the Nashaway. Certainly
such prejudices found expression in all
action or record of the government respecting
the proprietors and their petitions.
The ecclesiastical figure head—without
which no body corporate could
have grace within the colony—was Nathaniel
Norcross. Of him, if we can
surmise aught from his early return to
England, it may be said, he was not imbued
with the martyr’s spirit, and his defection
was, some time later, more than
made good by the accession of the beloved
Rowlandson. But far more important
to the enterprise than these two
graduates from the English University—Child
the radical, and Norcross the
preacher,—were two mechanics, the restless
planners and busy promoters of the
company, both workers in iron—Steven
Day the locksmith and John Prescott
the blacksmith. Steven Day was the
first in America, north of Mexico,
to set up a printing-press. The Colony
had wisely recognized in him a public
benefactor, and sealed this recognition
by substantial grant of lands. He entered
upon the Nashaway scheme with
characteristic zeal and energy, if we
may believe his own manuscript testimony: but
Day’s zeal outran his discretion,
and his energy devoured his limited
means, for in 1644 we find him in jail
for debt remonstrating piteously against
the injustice of a hard hearted creditor.
He parted with all rights at Nashaway
before many years and finally delved as
a journey man at the press he had
founded.

John Prescott deserted of all his original
co-partners was sufficient for the
emergency, a host in himself. He sells
his one hundred and twenty six acres
and house at Watertown, puts his all
into the venture, prepares a rude dwelling
in the wilderness, moves thither his
cattle, and chattels, and finally, mounting
wife and children and his few remaining
goods upon horses’ backs, bids
his old neighbors good bye, and threads
the narrow Indian trail through the forest
westward. The scorn of men high
in authority is to follow him, but now
the most formidable enemy in his path
is the swollen Sudbury River and its
bordering marsh. We find the aristocratic
scorn mingling with the story of
Prescott’s dearly bought victory over
this natural obstacle, told in Winthrop’s
History of New England among what
the author classes as remarkable “special
providences.”

“Prescot another favorer of the Petitioners
lost a horse and his loading in
Sudbury river, and a week after his wife
and children being upon another horse
were hardly saved from drowning.”
That the kindly hearted Winthrop could
coolly attribute the pitiable disaster of
the brave pioneer to the wrath of God
towards the political philosophy of Robert
Child, pictures vividly the bigotry
natural to the age and race, a bigotry
which culminated in the horrors of the
persecution for witchcraft. This Sudbury
swamp was the lion in the path
from the bay westward during many a
decade. In 1645, an earnest petition
went up to the council from Prescott and
his associates, complaining that much
time and means had been spent in discovering
Nashaway and preparing for
the settlement there, and that on account
of the lack of bridge and causeway

at the Sudbury River, the proprietors
could not pass to and from the bay
towns—”without exposing our persons
to perill and our cattell and goods to losse
and spoyle; as yo’r petitioners are able to
make prooffe of by sad experience of
what wee suffered there within these few
dayes.” The General Court ordered
the bridge and way to be made, “passable
for loaden horse,” and allowed
twenty pounds to Sudbury, “so it be
donne w’thin a twelve monthe.” The
twelve month passed and no bridge
spanned the stream. That the dangers
and difficulties of the crossing were not
over-stated by the petitioners is proven
by the fact that more than one hundred
years afterwards, the bridge and causeway
at this place “half a mile long”—were
represented to the General Court
as dangerous and in time of floods impassable.
Between 1759 and 1761, the
proceeds of special lotteries amounting
to twelve hundred and twenty seven
pounds were expended in the improvement
of the crossing.

John Winthrop, writing of the Nashaway
planters, tells us that “he whom
they had called to be their minister,
[Norcross] left them for their delays,”
but omits mention of the fact recorded by
the planters themselves in their petition,
that the chief and sufficient cause of
their slow progress was in the inability
or unwillingness of the Governor and
magistrates to afford effective aid in providing
a passable crossing over a small
river.

Prescott, at least, was chargeable with
no delay. By June 1645, he and his
family had become permanent residents
on the Nashaway. Richard Linton,
Lawrence Waters the carpenter, and
John Ball the tailor, were his only neighbors;
these three men having been sent
up to build, plant, and prepare for the
coming of other proprietors. But two
houses had been built. Linton probably
lived with his son-in-law Waters, in his
home near the fording place in the
North Branch of the Nashaway, contiguous
to the lot of intervale land which
Harmon Garrett and others of the first
proprietors had fenced in to serve as a
“night pasture” for their cattle. Ball
had left his children and their mother
in Watertown; she being at times insane.
Prescott’s first lot embraced part
of the grounds upon which the public
buildings in Lancaster now stand, but
this he soon parted with, and took up
his abode a mile to the south west, on
the sunny slope of George Hill, where,
beside a little brooklet of pure cool water,
which then doubtless came rollicking
down over its gravelly bed with twice the
flow it has to-day, there had been built,
two years at least before, the trucking
house of Symonds & King. This trading
post was the extreme outpost of civilization;
beyond was interminable forest,
traversed only by the Indian trails,
which were but narrow paths, hard to
find and easy to lose, unless the traveller
had been bred to the arts of wood-craft.
Here passed the united trails from Washacum,
Wachusett, Quaboag, and other
Indian villages of the west, leading to
the wading place of the Nashaway River
near the present Atherton Bridge, and
so down the “Bay Path” over Wataquadock
to Concord. The little plateau
half way down the sheltering hill, with
fertile fields sloping to the southeast
and its never failing springs, was and is
an attractive spot; but its material advantages
to the pioneer of 1645 were
far greater than those apparent to the
Lancastrian of this nineteenth century
in the changed conditions of life. With
the privilege of first choice therefore,
it is not strange that Prescott and his
sturdy sons-in-law grasped the rich intervales,
and warm easily tilled slopes,

stretching along the Nashaway south
branch from the “meeting of the
waters” to “John’s jump” on the east,
and extending west to the crown of
George Hill; lands now covered by the
village of South Lancaster.

In 1650 John Prescott found himself
the only member of the company resident
at Nashaway. Of the co-partners
Symonds, King, and John Hill were
dead; Norcross and Child had gone to
England; Cowdall had sold his rights to
Prescott; Chandler, Davis, Walker, and
others had formally abandoned their
claims; Garrett, Shawe, Day, Adams,
and perhaps two or three others, retained
their claims to allotments, making
no improvements, and contributing
nothing by their presence or tithes to the
growth of the settlement, thus becoming
effectual stumbling blocks in the
way of progress. Prescott, very reasonably,
held this a grievance, and having
no other means of redress asked
equitable judgment in the matter from
the magistrates, in a petition which
cannot be found. His answer was the
following official snub:

“Whereas John Prescot & others,
the inhabitants of Nashaway p’ferd a
petition to this Courte desiringe power
to recover all common charges of all
such as had land there, not residinge
w^th them, for answer whereunto this
Court, understandinge that the place
before mentioned is not fit to make a
plantation, (so a ministry to be erected
and mayntayned there,) which if the
petitioners, before the end of the next
session of this Courte, shall not sufficiently
make the sey’d place appeare to
be capable to answer the ends above
mentioned doth order that the p’ties inhabitinge
there shalbe called there
hence, & suffered to live without the
meanes, as they have done no longer.”
This dire threat of the closing sentence
may have been simply “sound and fury,
signifying nothing,” or Prescott may
have been able to prove to the authorities
that Nashaway was fit and waiting
for its St. John, but found none willing
for the service. In fact, its St. John
was then a junior at Harvard College,
writing a pasquinade to post upon the
Ipswich meeting-house, and Nashaway
was “suffered to live without the
meanes,” waiting for him until 1654.

John Prescott retained possession of
his early home,—the site of the “trucking
house,” which he had purchased of
John Cowdall,—as long as he lived, but
did not reside there many years. No
sooner had the plantation attained the
dignity of a township under the classic
name of Lancaster, than its founder
bent all his energies towards those enterprises
best calculated to promote the
comfort and prosperity of its then inhabitants,
and to attract by material advantages,
a desirable and permanent
immigration. His practical eye had
doubtless long before marked the best
site for a mill in all the region round
about, and on the slope, scarce a gun
shot away, he set up a new home, afterwards
well known to friend and savage
foe as Prescott’s Garrison. Those who
remain of the generation familiar with
this region before the invention of the
power loom made such towns as Clinton
possible, remember the depression
that told where Prescott dug his cellar.
The oldest water mill in New England
was scarce twenty years old when Prescott
contracted to grind the com of the
Nashaway planters. His “Covenant to
build a Corne mill” has been preserved
through a copy made by Ralph Houghton,
Lancaster’s first Clerk of the Writs,
and is as follows:

In six months from that date the
mill was done, and Prescott “began
to grind corne the 23d day of the 3
mo, 1654.”

The commissioners, appointed by the
General Court to oversee the prudential
management of the town, met at John
Prescott’s in 1657 and confirmed “the
imunityes provided for” in the above
covenant specifying that they “should
continue and remayne to him the said
Jno. Prescott his heyres and assignes
vntil the 23d of May, in the yeare of
our Lord sixteen hundred sixty and
two.”

The corn mill was located a little
lower upon the brook than the extensive
factory buildings now utilizing its
water power. The half used force of
the rapid stream, and the giant pines of
the virgin forest then shadowed all the
region about, were full of reproach to
the restless miller. His busy brain was
soon planning a new benefaction to his
fellow citizens, and when his means
grew sufficiently to warrant the enterprise,
his busy hands wrought its consummation.
As before, a formal agreement
preceded the work:

Monday, the seventeenth of February,
1659, “the Company granted him to
fall pines on the Com’ons to supply his
saw-mill.”

In April 1659, Ensign Noyes came to
make accurate survey of the eighty
square miles granted to the town,
and John Prescott was deputed by the
townsmen at their March meeting to aid
in the survey and “mark the bounds.”
Among his varied accomplishments, natural
and acquired, Prescott seems to
have had some practical skill in surveying,
the laying out of highways and the
construction of bridges. In 1648 John
Winthrop records: “This year a new
way was found out to Connecticut by
Nashua which avoided much of the hilly
way.” As appears by a later petition
Prescott was the pioneer of this new
path. In 1657 he was appointed by
the government a member of a committee
upon the building of bridges “at
Billirriky and Misticke.” In 1658 he
with his son-in-law Jonas Fairbank was
appointed to survey a farm of six hundred
and fifty acres for Captain Richard
Davenport, upon which farm the chief
part of West Boylston now stands.

To the General Court which met October
18, 1659, the following petition
was presented:

One hundred acres of land were
granted him, and speedily laid out near
the Washacum ponds, where now stand
the railroad buildings at Sterling Junction.

We get very few glimpses of Prescott
from the meagre records of succeeding
years, but those serve to indicate that
he was busy, prosperous and annually

honored by his neighbors with the public
duties for which his sturdy integrity,
shrewd business tact, and wisely directed
energy peculiarly fitted him. He had
taken the oath of fidelity in 1652. Such
owning of allegiance was by law prerequisite
to the holding of real estate.
Refusing such oath he might better have
been a Nipmuck so far as civil rights or
privileges were concerned. He was not
yet a member of the recognized church
however, and therefore lacked the political
dignities of a freeman; although his
intimate relations with Master Joseph
Rowlandson, and his personal connection
with the earlier cases of church
discipline in Lancaster, sufficiently attest
the austerity of his puritanism. Doubtless
Governor John Winthrop in his
hasty and harsh dictum respecting the
Nashaway planters, classed John Prescott
among those “corrupt in judgment.”
But it must be remembered
that in Winthrop’s visionary commonwealth
there was no room for liberty of
conscience. All were esteemed corrupt
in judgment or even profane whose
religious beliefs, when tested all about
by the ecclesiastic callipers, proved not
to have been cast in the doctrinal mould
prescribed by the self-sanctified founders
of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. No
known fact in any way warrants even
the conjecture that Prescott was not a
sincere Christian earnestly pursuing his
own convictions of duty, without fear
and without reproach.

Prescott’s mechanical skill and business
ability had more than a local reputation.
In 1667, we find him contracting
with the authorities of Groton, to
erect “a good and sufficient corne mill
or mills, and the same to finish so as
may be fitting to grind the corne of the
said Towne.” … For the fulfillment
of this agreement he received five hundred
and twenty acres of land, and mill
and lands were exempted from taxation
for twenty years. Assistance towards
the building of the mill were also promised
to the amount of “two days worke
of a man for every house lott or family
within the limitts of the said Towne,
and at such time or times to be done or
performed, as the said John Prescott
shall see meete to call for the same,
vpon reasonable notice given.” The
covenant was fulfilled by the completion
of a mill at Nonacoiacus, then in
the southern part of Groton. The mill
site is now in Harvard. Prescott’s
youngest son, Jonas, was the first miller.
The history of the old mill is obscured
by the shadows of two hundred
years, but a bright gleam of romantic
tradition concerning the first miller is
warm with human interest now. Perhaps
at points the romantic may infringe
upon the historic, but:

Down by the green meadows of Sudbury
there dwelt a bewitchingly fair
maiden, the musical dissyllables of whose
name were often upon the lips of the
young men in all the country round
about, and whose smile could awaken
voiceless poetry in the heart of the most
prosaic Puritan swain. There is little of
aristocratic sound in Mary Loker’s name,
but her parents sat on Sunday at the
meeting house in a “dignified” pew,
and were rich in fields and cattle.
Whether pushed by pride of land or
pride of birth, in their plans and aspirations,
this daughter was predestinated
to enhance the family dignity by an aristocratic
alliance. In Colonial days a
maiden who added a handsome prospective
dowry to her personal witchery was
rare indeed, and Mary Loker had, coming
from far and near, inflammable suitors
perpetually burning at her shrine.
From among these the father and

mother soon made their choice upon
strictly business principles, and shortly
announced to Mary that a certain ambitious
gentleman of the legal profession
had furnished the most satisfactory
credentials, and that nothing remained
but for her to name the day. Now the
fourth commandment was very far from
being the dead letter in 1670 that it is
in 1885, and it was matter for grave surprise
to the elders that their usually obedient
daughter, when the lawyer proceeded
to plead, refused to hear, and
peremptorily adjourned his cause without
day. Maternal expostulation and
paternal threats availed nothing. The
because of Mary’s contumacy was not
far to seek. A stalwart Vulcan in the
guise of an Antinous, known as Jonas
Prescott, had wandered from his father’s
forge in Lancaster down the Bay Path
to Sudbury. Mary and he had met, and
the lingering of their parting boded ill
for any predestination not stamped with
their joint seal of consent. With that
lack of astuteness proverbially exhibited
by parents disappointed in match-making
designs upon their children, the
vexed father and mother began a course
of vigorous repression, and thereby
riveted more firmly than ever the chains
which the errant young blacksmith and
his apprentice Cupid had forged. In
due time, they perforce learned that
love’s flame burns the brighter fed upon
a bread and water diet; and that confinement
to an attic may be quite endurable
when Cupid’s messages fly in and
out of its lattice at pleasure.

Finally Mary was secretly sent to an
out-of-the-way neighborhood in the vain
hope that the chill of absence might
hinder what home rule had only served
to help. But one day Jonas on a hunting
excursion made the acquaintance of
some youth, who, among other chitchat,
happened to break into ecstatic praise of
the graces of a certain fair damsel
who had recently come to live in
a farm-house near their home. Of
course the anvil missed Jonas for the
next day, and the next, and the next,
while he experienced the hospitalities of
his new-found friends—and their neighbors.
It was time for a recognition of
the inevitable by all concerned, but
when, and with what grace Mary’s stubborn
parents yielded, if at all, is not recorded.
But what mattered that? Old
John Prescott installed Jonas at the
Nonacoicus Mill, and endowed him with
all his Groton lands, and in Lancaster,
December 14, 1672, Jonas and Mary
were married. For over fifty years fortunes
railed upon their union. Four sons
and eight daughters graced their fireside,
and the father was trusted and clothed
with local dignities. In after time the
memory of Jonas and Mary has been
honored by many worthy descendants,
and especially by the gallant services of
Colonel William Prescott at Bunker Hill,
and the literary renown of William
Hickling Prescott, the historian.

In 1669, John Prescott was proclaimed
a Freeman. He may have been long a
Church member, or may not even at
this date have yielded the conscientious
scruples that had a quarter of a century
earlier subjected him to the reproach
of an ecclesiastical oligarchy. The
laws concerning Freemen, in reluctant
obedience to the letter of Charles II.,
were so changed in 1665 that those not
Church members could become Freemen,
if freeholders of a sufficient estate,
and guaranteed by the local minister
“to be Orthodox and not vicious in their
lives.” Prescott had the true Englishman’s
love of landed possessions, and
about this time added a large tract to
his acreage by purchase from his
Indian neighbors. This transaction
gave cause for the following petition:

This request was referred to a special
committee, composed of Edward Tyng,
George Corwin and Humphrey Davie,
who reported as follows:

This report was approved. James
Wiser alias Quanapaug, the Christian
Nashaway Chief, who appears as grantor
of the land, was a warrior whose bravery
had been tested in the contest between
the Nipmucks and the Mohawks;
and was so firm a friend of his white
neighbors at Lancaster, that when Philip
persuaded the tribe with its Sagamore
Sam, to go upon the war path, James
refused to join them. He even served
as a spy and betrayed Philip’s plans to
the English at imminent risk of his life,
doing his utmost to save Lancaster from
destruction. General Daniel Gookin
acknowledged that Quanapaug’s information
would have averted the horrible
massacre of February 10, 1676, had it
been duly heeded. The fact of the
friendly relations existing between Prescott
and the tribe whose fortified residence
stood between the two Washacum
ponds is interesting and confirms tradition.
It is related that at his first coming
he speedily won the respect of the
savages, not only by his fearlessness and
great physical strength, but by the
power of his eye and his dignity of mien.
They soon learned to stand in awe of
his long musket and unerring skill as a
marksman. He had brought with him
from England a suit of mail, helmet and
cuirass such as were worn by the soldiers
of Cromwell. Clothed with these, his
stately figure seemed to the sons of the
forest something almost supernatural.
One day some Indians, having taken
away a horse of his, he put on his armor,
pursued them alone, and soon
overtook them. The chief of the party
seeing him approach unsupported, advanced
menacingly with uplifted tomahawk.
Prescott dared him to strike, and
was immediately taken at his word, but
the rude weapon glanced harmless from
the helmet, to the amazement of the
red men. Naturally the Indian desired
to try upon his own head so wonderful
a hat, and the owner obligingly gratified
him claiming the privilege, however, of
using the tomahawk in return. The

helmet proving a scant fit, or its wearer
neglecting to bring it down to its proper
bearings, Prescott’s vengeful blow not
only astounded him but left very little
cuticle on either side of his head, and
nearly deprived him of ears. Prescott
was permitted to jog home in peace
upon his horse.

After hostilities began, it is said that
at one time the savages set fire to his
barn, but fled when he sallied out clad
in armor with his dreaded gun; and
thus he was enabled to save his stock,
though the building was consumed.
More than once attempts were made to
destroy the mill, but a sight of the man
in mail with the far reaching gun was
enough to send them to a safe distance
and rescue the property. Many stories
have been told of Prescott’s prowess,
but some bear so close a resemblance to
those credibly historic in other localities
and of other heroes, that there attaches
to them some suspicions of adaptation
at least. Such perhaps is the story that
in an assault upon the town “he had
several muskets but no one in the house
save his wife to assist him. She loaded
the guns and he discharged them with
fatal effect. The contest continued for
nearly half an hour, Mr. Prescott all the
while giving orders as if to soldiers, so
loud that the Indians could hear him,
to load their muskets though he had no
soldiers but his wife. At length they
withdrew carrying off several of their
dead and wounded.”

In 1673 Prescott had nearly attained
the age of three score and ten. The
weight of years that had been full of exposure,
anxiety and toil rested heavily
upon even his rugged frame, and some
sharp touch of bodily ailment warning
him of his mortality, he made his will.
It is signed with “his mark,” although
he evidently tried to force his unwilling
hand to its accustomed work, his peculiar
J being plainly written and followed
by characters meant for the remaining
letters of his first name. To earlier
documents he was wont to affix a simple
neat signature, and although not a
clerkly penman like his friends John
Tinker, Master Joseph Rowlandson and
Ralph Houghton, his writing is superior
to that of Major Simon Willard.

But John Prescott’s pilgrimage was
far from ended, and severer chastenings
than any yet experienced awaited him.
He had survived to see the settlement
that called him father, struggle upward
from discouraging beginnings, to become
a thriving and happy community of
over fifty families. Where at his coming
all had been pathless woods, now fenced
fields and orchards yielded annually
their golden and ruddy harvests; gardens
bloomed; mechanic’s plied their
various crafts; herds wandered in lush
meadows; bridges spanned the rivers,
and roads wound through the landscape
from cottage to cottage and away to
neighboring towns. All this fair scene
of industry and rural content, of which
he might in modest truth say “Magna
pars fui,” he lived to see in a single day
made more desolate than the howling
wilderness from which it had been laboriously
conquered. He was spared
to see dear neighbors and kindred massacred
in every method of revolting
atrocity, and their wives and children
carried into loathsome captivity by foes
more relentlessly cruel than wolves.
When now weighed down with age and
bodily infirmities, the rest he had
thought won was to be denied him, and
he and his were driven from the ashes
of pleasant homes—about which clustered
the memories of thirty years’
joys and sorrows—to beg shelter from
the charity of strangers. For more
than three years his enforced banishment
endured. In October 1679, John
Prescott with his sons John and Jonathan,
his sons-in-law Thomas Sawyer and
John Rugg, his grand-son Thomas Sawyer,
Jr. and his neighbor’s John Moore,
Thomas Wilder, and Josiah White, petitioned
the Middlesex Court for permission
to resettle the town, and their prayer
was granted. Soon most of the inhabitants
who had survived the massacre
and exile, were busily building new
homes, some upon the cinders of the
old, others upon their second division
lands east of the rivers where they were
less exposed to the stealthy incursions
of their savage enemies. The two John
Prescotts rebuilt the mills and dwelt
there. Whether the pioneer’s life long
helpmate died before their settlement, in
exile, or shortly after the return, has not
been ascertained, but it would seem that
he survived her. Jonathan having married
a second wife remained in Concord.
For two years the old man lived with
his eldest son, seeing the Nashaway
Valley blooming with the fruits of civilized
labor; seeing new families filling
the woeful gaps made in the old by
Philip’s warriors; seeing children and
grandchildren grasping the implements
that had fallen from the nerveless hold
of the earliest bread-winners, with hopeful
and pertinacious purpose to extend
the paternal domain; seeing too, may
we not trust, from the Pisgah height of
prophetic vision the glorious promise
awaiting this his Canaan; these softly
rounded hills and broad valleys dotted
with the winsome homes of thousands
of freemen; churches and schools,
shops of artisans, and busy marts of
trade clustered about his mill site; and,
above all, seeing the assertion of political
freedom and liberty of conscience
which Governor John Winthrop had reproached

him for favoring in the petition
of Robert Child, become the corner
stone of a giant republic.

No record of John Prescott’s death
is found; but when upon his death bed,
feeling that the changed condition of
his own and his son Jonathan’s affairs
required some modification of the will
made in 1673, he summoned two of his
townsmen to hear his nuncupative codicil
to that document. From the affidavit,
here appended, it is certain that
his death occurred about the middle
of December, 1681.

Though two or more years short of
fourscore at the time of his death he
was Lancaster’s oldest inhabitant. His
fellow pioneer, Lawrence Waters, who
was the elder by perhaps a years, till survived,
though blind and helpless; but he
dwelt with a son in Charlestown, after
the destruction of his home, and never
returned to Lancaster. John and Ralph
Houghton, much younger men, were
now the veterans of the town.

A GLIMPSE.

BY MARY H. WHEELER.

EARLY HISTORY OF THE BERMUDA ISLANDS.

By JAMES H. STARK.

The singular collection of islands
known as the Bermudas are situated
about seven hundred miles from Boston,
in a southeast direction, and about the
same distance from Halifax, or Florida.
The nearest land to Bermuda is Cape
Hatteras, distant 625 miles.

Within sixty-five hours’ sail from New
York it is hardly possible to find so
complete a change in government, climate,
scenery and vegetation, as Bermuda
offers; and yet these islands are
strangely unfamiliar to most well-informed
Americans.

Speaking our own language, having
the same origin, with manners, which in
many ways illustrate those prevalent in
New England a century
ago, the people are
bound to us by many
natural ties; and it is
only now that these
islands, having come to
the front as a winter resort,
have led us to inquire
into their history
and resources. Settled
in 1612, Virginia only
of the English colonies
outdating it, life in Bermuda has been as
placid as its lovely waters on a summer
day; no agitation of sufficient occurrence
having occurred to attract the attention
of the outside world, from which it is so
absolutely isolated.

The only communication with the
mainland is by the Quebec Steamship
Company, who dispatch a steamer every
alternate Thursday between New York
and Hamilton, Bermuda, the fare for the
round trip, including meals and stateroom,
is fifty dollars. During the crop
season, in the months of April, May
and June, steamers are run weekly.

The Cunard Company also have a
monthly service between Halifax, Bermuda,
Turks Island and Jamaica, under
contract with the Admiralty.

The Bermudas were first discovered
in 1515 by a Spanish vessel, called La
Garza, on a voyage from Spain to Cuba,
with a cargo of hogs, and commanded
by Juan Bermudez, and having on board
Gonzalez Oviedo, the historian of the
Indies, to whom we are indebted for
the first account of these islands.
They approached near to the islands,
and from the appearance of the place
concluded that it was
uninhabited. They resolved
to send a boat
ashore to make observations,
and leave
a few hogs, which might
breed and be afterwards
useful. When, however,
they were preparing to
debark a strong contrary
gale arose, which obliged
them to sheer off and be
content with the view already obtained.
The islands were named by the Spaniards
indifferently, La Garza from the ship
and Bermuda from the captain, but
the former term is long since disused.

INSCRIPTION ON SPANISH ROCK

It does not appear that the Spaniards
made any attempt to settle there, although
Philip II. granted the islands to
one Ferdinand Camelo, a Portuguese,
who never improved his gift, beyond
taking possession by the form of landing
in 1543, and carving on a prominent

cliff on the southern shore of the
island2 the initials of his name and the
year, to which, in conformity with the
practical zeal of the times, he super-added
a cross, to protect his acquisition
from the encroachments of roving
heretics and the devil, for the stormy
seas and dangerous reefs gave rise to so
many disasters as to render the group
exceedingly formidable in the eyes of
the most experienced navigators. It
was even invested in their imagination
with superstitious terrors, being considered
as unapproachable by man, and
given up in full dominion to the spirits of
darkness. The Spaniards therefore
called them “Los Diabolos,” the Devil’s
Islands.

Fac-simile reproduction of a Map of Bermuda made in 1614 by Captain John Smith.

View of the State House and reference as to location of the fort, bridges, etc., shown herewith on Smith’s map of 1614. (Fac-simile reproduction.)

These islands were first introduced to

the notice of the
English by a dreadful
shipwreck. In 1591
Henry May sailed to
the East Indies, along
with Captain Lancaster,
on a buccaneering
expedition. Having
reached the coast of
Sumatra and Malacca,
they scoured
the adjacent seas, and
made some valuable
captures. In 1593
they again doubled
the Cape of Good
Hope and returned
to the West Indies
for supplies, which
they much needed.
They first came in
sight of Trinidad,
but did
not dare to approach
a coast
which was in
possession of
the Spaniards,
and their distress
became so
great that it
was with the
utmost difficulty
that the
men could be
prevented from
leaving the
ship. They
shortly afterwards
fell in
with a French
buccaneer,
commanded by La Barbotiere, who
kindly relieved their wants by a gift
of bread and provisions. Their stores
were soon again exhausted, and, coming
across the French ship the second
time, application was made to the
French Captain for more supplies, but he
declared that his own stock was so much
reduced that he could spare but little,
but the sailors persuaded themselves

that the Frenchman’s scarcity was
feigned, and also that May, who conducted
the negotiations, was regailing
himself with good cheer on board without
any trouble about their distress.
Among these men, inured to bold and
desperate deeds, a company was formed
to seize the French pinnace, and then
to capture the large vessel with its aid.
They succeeded in their first object, but
the French Captain, who observed their
actions, sailed away at full speed, and
May, who was dining with him on
board at the time, requested that he
might stay and return home on the vessel
so that he could inform his employers
of the events of the voyage and
the unruly behavior of the crew. As
they approached Bermuda strict watch
was kept while they supposed themselves
to be near that dreaded spot, but
when the pilot declared that they were
twelve leagues south of it they threw
aside all care and gave themselves up to
carousing. Amid their jollity, about
midnight, the ship struck with such violence
that she immediately filled and
sank. They had only a small boat, to
which they attached a hastily-constructed
raft to be towed along with it; room,
however, was made for only twenty-six,
while the crew exceeded fifty. In the
wild and desperate struggle for existence
that ensued May fortunately got
into the boat. They had to beat about
nearly all the next day, dragging the raft

after them, and it was almost dark before
they reached the shore; they were
tormented with thirst, and had nearly
despaired of finding a drop of water
when some was discovered in a rock
where the rain waters had collected.

St. George’s and Warwick Fort in 1614. (Fac-simile of Smith’s engraving.)

The land was covered with one unbroken
forest of cedar. Here they would
have to remain for life unless a vessel
could be constructed. They made a
voyage to the wreck and secured the
shrouds, tackles and carpenters’ tools,
and then began to cut down the cedars,
with which they constructed a vessel of
eighteen tons. For pitch they took lime,
rendered adhesive by a mixture of turtle
oil, and forced it into the seams, where
it became hard as stone.

During a residence of five months
here May had observed that Bermuda,
hitherto supposed to be a single island,
was broken up into a number of islands
of different sizes, enclosing many fine
bays, and forming good harbors. The
vessel being finished they set sail for
Newfoundland, expecting to meet fishing
vessels there, on which they could
obtain passage to Europe. On the eleventh
of May they found themselves with
joy clear of the islands. They had a very
favorable voyage, and on the twentieth
arrived at Cape Breton. May arrived in
England in August, 1594, where he gave
a description of the islands; he stated
that they found hogs running wild all
over the islands, which proves that this
was not the first landing made there.

It was owing to a shipwreck that Bermuda
again came under the view of
the English, and that led England to
appropriate these islands.

In 1609, during the most active period
of the colonization of Virginia, an
expedition of nine ships, commanded
by Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers
and Captain Newport, bound for
Virginia, was dispersed by a great storm.
One of the vessels, the Sea Adventure,
in which were Gates, Somers and Newport,
seems to have been involved in
the thickest of the tempest. The vessel
sprung aleak, which it was found
impossible to stop. All hands labored
at the pumps for life, even the Governor
and Admiral took their turns, and gentlemen
who had never had an hour’s hard
work in their life toiled with the rest.
The water continued to gain on them,
and when about to give up in despair,
Sir George Somers, who had been watching
at the poop deck day and night,
cried out land, and there in the early
dawn of morning could be seen the welcome
sight of land. Fortunately they
lighted on the only secure entrance
through the reefs. The vessel was run
ashore and wedged between two rocks,
and thereby was preserved from sinking,
till by means of a boat and skiff the
whole crew of one hundred and fifty, with
provisions, tackle and stores, reached
the land. At that time the hogs still
abounded, and these, with the turtle,
birds and fish which they caught, afforded
excellent food for the castaways.
The Isle of Devils Sir George Somers
and party found “the richest, healthfulest
and pleasantest” they ever saw.

Robert Walsingham and Henry Shelly
discovered two bays abounding in excellent
fish; these bays are still called by
their names. Gates and Somers caused
the long boat to be decked over, and
sent Raven, the mate, with eight men, to
Virginia to bring assistance to them, but
nothing was ever heard of them afterwards,
and after waiting six months all
hopes were then given up. The chiefs
of the expedition then determined to
build two vessels of cedar, one of eighty
tons and one of thirty. Their utmost
exertions, however, did not prevent disturbances,
which nearly baffled the enterprise.
These were fomented by persons

noted for their religious zeal,
of Puritan principles and the accompanying
spirit of independence. They
represented that the recent disaster had
dissolved the authority of the Governor,
and their business
was now to provide,
as they best could, for
themselves and their
families. They had come
out in search of an easy
and plentiful subsistence,
which could nowhere
be found in
greater perfection and
security than here, while
in Virginia its attainment
was not only
doubtful, but attended
with many hardships.
These arguments were
so convincing with the
larger number of the
men that, had it rested
with them, they would
have lived and died
on the islands.

Entrance to St. George Harbor, between Smith’s and Paget’s Islands. (Fac-simile re-production of Smith’s engraving. 1614.)

Two successive conspiracies
were formed by
large parties to separate
from the rest and form
a colony. Both were
defeated by the vigilance
of Gates, who allowed
the ringleaders to escape
with a slight punishment.
This lenity
only emboldened the
malcontents, and a third
plot was formed to seize
the stores and take entire
possession of the
islands. It was determined
to make an example
of one of the
leaders named Payne;
He was condemned to
be hanged, but, on the plea of being a
gentleman, his sentence was commuted
into that of being shot, which was immediately
done. This had a salutary effect,
and prevented any further trouble.

View of ancient forts. (Re-produced from Smith’s engraving, 1614)

Two children, a
boy and girl, were
born during this
period; the former
was christened
Bermudas
and the latter Bermuda;
they were
probably the first
human beings
born on these
islands.

Before leaving
the islands Gates
caused a cross to
be made of the
wood saved from
the wreck of his
ship, which he secured
to a large cedar;
a silver coin with the
king’s head was placed
in the middle of it, together
with an inscription
on a copper plate
describing what had
happened—That the
cross was the remains of
a ship of three hundred
tons, called the Sea
Venture, bound with
eight more to Virginia;
that she contained two
knights, Sir Thomas
Gates, governor of the
colony, and Sir George
Summers, admiral of
the seas, who, together
with her captain, Christopher Newport,
and one hundred and fifty mariners and
passengers besides, had got safe ashore,
when she was lost, July 28, 1609.

On the tenth of May, 1610, they
sailed with a fair wind, and, before
reaching the open sea, they struck on a
rock and were nearly wrecked the second
time. On the twenty-third they
arrived safely at Jamestown. This settlement
they found in a most destitute
condition on their arrival, and it was determined
to abandon the place, but Sir
George Summers, “whose noble mind
ever regarded the general good more
than his own ends,” offered to undertake
a voyage to the Bermudas for the
purpose of forming a settlement, from

which supplies might be obtained for
the Jamestown colony. He accordingly
sailed June 19, in his cedar vessel, and
his name was then given to the islands,
though Bermuda has since prevailed.

Entrance to Castle Harbor, between Castle and Southhampton Islands. (Fac-simile re-production of Smith’s engraving, 1614.)

Contrary winds
and storms carried
him to the northward,
to the vicinity
of Cape Cod.
Somers persevered
and reached the
islands, but age,
anxiety and exertion
contributed
to produce his end.
Perceiving the approach
of death
he exhorted his
companions to
continue their
exertions for the
benefit of the
plantations, and to
return to Virginia.
Alarmed at the
untimely fate of
their leader, the
colonists embalmed
his body,
and disregarding
his dying injunction,
sailed for
England. Three
only of the men
volunteered to remain,
and for
some time after
their companions
left they continued
to cultivate the
soil, but unfortunately
they found
some ambergris,
and they fell into
innumerable quarrels
respecting its
possession. They at length resolved
to build a boat and sail for Newfoundland
with their prize, but, happily
for them, they were prevented by
the arrival of a ship from Europe. An

extraordinary interest was excited in
England by the relation of Captain
Mathew Somers, the nephew and heir of
Sir George. The usual exaggerations
were published, and public impressions
were heightened by contrast with the
dark ideas formerly prevalent concerning
these islands. A charter was obtained
of King James I., and one hundred
and twenty gentlemen detached
themselves from the Virginia company
and formed a company under the name
and style of the Governor and Company
of the City of London, for the plantation
of the Somer Islands.

On the twenty-eighth of April, 1612,
the first ship was sent out with sixty
emigrants, under the charge of Richard
Moore, who was appointed the Governor
of the colony. They met the boat
containing the three men left on the
island, who were overjoyed at seeing
the ship, and conducted her into the
harbor. It was not long before intelligence
of the discovery of the ambergris
reached the Governor; he promptly
deprived the three men of it. One of
them named Chard, who denied all
knowledge of it, and caused considerable
disturbance, which at one time seemed
likely to result in a sanguinary encounter,
was condemned to be hanged, and
was only reprieved when on the ladder.

The Governor now applied himself
actively to his duties. He had originally
landed on Smith’s Island, but he soon
removed to the spot where St. George’s
now stands, and built the town which
was named after Sir George Somers, and
which became, and remained for two
centuries, the capital of Bermuda. He
laid the foundation of eight or nine
forts for the defence of the harbor, and
also trained the men to arms in order
that they might defend the infant colony
from attack. This proved necessary,
for, in 1614, two Spanish ships attempted
to enter the harbor; the forts
were promptly manned and two shots
fired at the enemy, who, finding them
better prepared than they imagined,
bore away.

Before the close of 1615 six vessels
had arrived with three hundred and
forty passengers, among whom were a
Marshall and one Bartlett, who were
sent out expressly to divide the colony
into tribes or shares; but the Governor
finding no mention of any shares for
himself, and the persons with him, as
had been agreed on, forbade his proceeding
with his survey. The survey
was afterward made by Richard Norwood,
which divided the land into
tribes, now parishes; these shares form,
the foundation of the land tenure of the
islands, even to this day, the divisional
lines in many cases yet remaining intact.
Moore, whose time had expired,
went back to England in 1615, leaving
the administration of the government to
six persons, who were to rule, each in
turn, one month. They proceeded to
elect by lot their first ruler, the choice
falling upon Charles Caldicot, who then
went, with a crew of thirty-two men, in
a vessel to the West Indies for the purpose
of procuring plants, goats and
young cattle for the islands. The vessel
was wrecked there, and the crew
were indebted to an English pirate for
being rescued from a desert island on
which they had been cast.

For a time the colony was torn by
contention and discord, as well as by
scarcity of food. The news of these
dissensions having reached England the
company sent out Daniel Tucker as
Governor. Tucker was a stern, hard
master, and he enforced vigorous measures
to compel the people to work for
the company. The provisions and stores
he issued in certain quantities, and paid
each laborer a stated sum in brass coin,

struck by the proprietor for the purpose,
having a hog on one side, in commemoration
of the abundance of those
animals found by the first settlers, and
on the reverse a ship. Pieces of this
curious hog money, as it is called, is frequently
found, and it brings a high
price.

HOG MONEY.

Shortly after Governor Tucker arrived
he sent to the West Indies for
plants and fruit trees. The vessel returned
with figs, pine-apples, sugar-cane,
plantain and paw-paw, which were all
planted and
rapidly multiplied.
This vessel
also brought
the first slaves
into the colony,
an Indaian and
a negro.

The company
dispatched
a small
bark, called the
Hopewell, with
supplies for the
colony, under
the command
of Captain
Powell. On his
way he met
a Portuguese
vessel homeward
bound
from Brazil,
with a cargo of sugar, and, as Smith
adds, “liked the sugar and passengers
so well” he made a prize of
her. Fearing to face Governor Tucker
after this piratical act he directed his
course to the West Indies. On his
arrival there he met a French pirate,
who pretended to have a warm regard
for him, and invited him, with his officers,
to an entertainment. Suspecting
nothing he accepted the invitation, but
no sooner had they been well seated at
the table than they were all seized and
threated with instant death, unless they
surrendered their prize. This Powell
was, of course, compelled to do, and
finding his provisions failing him he put
the Portuguese crew on shore and sailed
for Bermuda, where he managed to excuse
himself to the Governor. Powell
again went to the West Indies pirating,
and in May he arrived with three prizes,
laden with meal, hides, and ammunition.
Tucker received him kindly and
treated him
with consideration,
until he
had the goods
in his own possession,
when
he reproached
the Captain
with his piratical
conduct
and called him
to account for
his proceedings.
The unlucky
buccaneer
was, in the
end, glad to
escape to England,
leaving
his prizes in
the hands of
the Governor.

The discipline
and hard labor required of
the people reduced them to a condition
but little better than that of
slaves, and caused many to make desperate
efforts to escape from the islands.
Five persons, neither of whom
were sailors, built a fishing boat for the
Governor, and when completed they borrowed
a compass from their preacher,
for whom they left a farewell epistle.
In this they reminded him how often

he had exhorted them to patience under
ill-treatment, and had told them
how Providence would pay them, if man
did not. They trusted, therefore, that
he would now practice what he had so
often preached.

Reproduction of Smith’s engraving, 1614, showing his coat of arms with the three Turk heads.

These brave men endured great hardships
in their boat of three tons during
their rash voyage; but at the end of
about forty-two days they arrived at
Ireland, where their exploit was considered
so wonderful that the Earl of
Thomond caused them to be received
and entertained, and hung up their boat
as a monument of this extraordinary
voyage. The Governor was greatly exasperated
at their escape, and threatened
to hang the whole of them if they
returned.

Another party of three, one of whom
was a lady, attempted in a like manner
to reach Virginia, but were never afterwards
heard of. Six others were discovered
before they effected their
departure, and one was executed. John
Wood, who was found guilty of speaking
“many distasteful and mutinous
speeches against the Governor,” was
also condemned and executed.

As there were at that time only about
five hundred inhabitants on these islands,
it would appear from Captain
Smith’s History that Tucker hanged a
good percentage of them. Many were

the complaints that were forwarded to
England concerning the tyrannical government
of Tucker, and he, fearing
to be recalled, at last returned to England
of his own accord, having appointed
a person named Kendall as
his deputy.

Kendall was disposed to be attentive
to his office, but wanted energy, and the
company took an early opportunity to relieve
him; this was not very agreeable
to the people, but they did not offer any
resistance.

Governor Butler arrived with four
ships and five hundred men on the
twentieth of October, 1619, which
raised the number of the colonists to
1000, and at his departure three years
later, it had increased to 1500.

On the first of August, 1620, in conformity
with instructions sent out by the
company, the Governor summoned the
first general assembly at St. George’s
for the dispatch of public business. It
consisted of the Governor, Council,
Bailiffs, Burgesses, Secretary, and Clerk.
It appears that they all sat in one house,
which was probably the “State House”
shown on Smith’s engraving. Most of
the Acts passed on this occasion were
creditable to the new legislators.

Governor Butler, as Moore had done
before him, turned his chief attention
to the building of forts and magazines;
he also finished the cedar Church at
St. George’s, and caused the assembly
to pass an Act for the building of three
bridges, and then initiated the useful
project of connecting together the principal
islands. When Governor Butler
returned to England he left the islands
in a greatly improved condition. But
in his time, also, there were such frequent
mutinies and discontent, that at last
“he longed for deliverance from his
thankless and troublesome employment.”
It was probably during Governor
Butler’s administration that Captain3
John Smith had a map and illustrations
of the “Summer Ils” made, for in
it we find the three bridges, numerous
well-constructed forts, and the State
House at St. George’s. The map and
illustrations were published in “Smith’s
General Historic of Virginia, New England
and the Summer Ils” 1624; they are
of the greatest value and importance, as
they show accurately the class of buildings
and forts erected on these islands
at that early period; such details even
are entered into as the showing of the
stocks in the market place of St.
George’s, and the architecture and the
substantial manner in which the buildings
were constructed is remarkable, especially
so when it is considered that
previous to 1620 the Puritans had not
settled at Plymouth, and it was ten
years from that date before the settlement
of Boston: in fact, with the exception
of Jamestown in Virginia, the English
had not secured a foot-hold in
North America at the time these buildings
and forts were constructed. There
are very few copies of this rare print in
existence, even in Smith’s history it is
usually found wanting, and it was only
after considerable trouble and expense
that the writer succeeded in obtaining a
reproduction of it.

The early history of Bermuda is in
many important points similar to that of
New England. Like motives had in
most instances induced emigration, and
the distinguished characteristics of those
people were repeated here.

Like the Salem and Boston colonists
they had their witchcraft delusions, anticipating

that, however, some twenty
years, Christian North was tried for it in
1668, but was acquited. Somewhat
later a negro woman, Sarah Basset, was
burned at Paget for the same offence.
The Quakers were persecuted by fines,
imprisonment, and banishment, by the
stem and dark-souled Puritans, who had
emigrated to this place to escape oppression,
and to enjoy religious toleration,
but were not willing to grant to
others who differed from them in their
religious belief the same privileges as
they themselves enjoyed.

The company discovered by degrees
that the Bermudas were not the Eldorado
which they had fondly imagined
them to be. The colonists were now
numerous, and every day showed a
strong disposition to break away from
the control of the company. The company
had issued an order forbidding the
inhabitants to receive any ships but such
as were commissioned by them. The
company complained against the quality
of tobacco shipped to London, as well
as the quantity.

The people were forbidden to cut
cedar without a special license, and as
they were in the habit of exporting
oranges in chests made of this wood,
the regulation operated very materially
to the injury of the place. Previous to
this order many homeward-bound West
Indiamen arrived at Castle Harbor to
load with this fruit for the English market.
Whaling was claimed as an exclusive
privilege, and was conducted for
the sole benefit of the proprietors. Numerous
attempts were made to boil sugar,
but the company directed the Governor
to prevent it, as it would require too
much wood for fuel.

In consequence of instructions from
England Governor Turner called upon
all the inhabitants of the islands to take
the oath of supremacy and allegiance to
his majesty, but as the Puritans had left
their native country on account of their
republican sentiments, they refused to
comply, and the prisons were soon filled
to overflowing.

The rapid change of affairs in England
during the civil war, in which the
Puritans were victorious, and Cromwell
was elevated to the Protectorship,
opened the doors of the prisons, and
stopped all further persecutions, both
political and religious.

It must be said in favor of the company
that they had, at an early period,
established schools throughout the colony,
and appropriated lands in most of
the tribes or parishes, for the maintainance
of the teachers.

From 1630 to 1680 many negro and
Indian slaves were brought to the colony;
the negroes from Africa and the
West Indies, and a large number of Indians
from Massachusetts, prisoners
taken in the Pequot and King Philip’s
wars. The traces of their Indian ancestry
can readily be seen in many of the
colored people of these islands at the
present time.

In October, 1661, the Protestant inhabitants
were alarmed by rumors of a
proposed combination between the negroes
and the Irish. The plan was to
arm themselves and massacre the whites
who were not Catholics. Fortunately the
plot was discovered in time, and measures
adopted to disarm the slaves and
the disaffected.

The proprietary form of government
continued until 1685, with a long succession
of good, bad, and indifferent
Governors.

Many acts of piracy were perpetrated
at different times by the inhabitants of
these islands. In 1665 Captain John
Wentworth made a descent upon the
island of Tortola and brought off about
ninety slaves, the property of the Governor

of the place. Governor Seymour
received a letter from him in which he
stated that “upon the ninth day of
July there came hither against me a
pirate or sea robber, named John
Wentworth, the which over-run my
lands, and that against the will of mine
owne inhabits, and shewed himself a tyrant,
in robbing and firing, and took my
negroes from my Isle, belonging to no
man but myself. And likewise I doe
understand that this said John Wentworth,
a sea robber, is an indweller
with you, soe I desire that you would
punish this rogue, according to your
good law. I desire you, soe soon as
you have this truth of mine, if you
don’t of yourself, restore all my negroes
againe, whereof I shall stay here three
months, and in default of this, soe be
assured, that wee shall speake together
very shortly, and then I shall be my
owne judge.”

This threatening letter caused great
consternation, and immediately steps
were taken to place the colony in the
best posture for defence, reliance being
had on the impregnability of the
islands, instead of delivering up the
plunder, especially as Captain Wentworth
held a commission from the Governor
and Council, and acted under
their instructions.

Isaac Richier, who became Governor
of the colony in 1691, was another celebrated
freebooter. The account of his
reign reads like a romance. The love
of gold, and the determination to possess
it, was the one idea of his statesmanship.
He was a pirate at sea and a
brigand on land. Nevertheless, it does
not appear that any of his misdeeds,
such as hanging innocent people, and
robbing British ships, as well as others,
led to his recall, or caused any degree
of indignation which such conduct
usually arouses. The fact appears to
be that, although Governor Richier was
a bold, bad man, yet few of his subjects
were entitled to throw the first stone at
his excellency.

Benjamin Bennett became Governor
of the colony in 1701. At this time
the Bahama Islands had become a rendezvous
for pirates, and a few years later,
King George the First issued a proclamation
for their dislodgment. Governor
Bennett accordingly dispatched
a sloop, ordering the marauders to surrender.
Those who were on shore on
his arrival gladly accepted the opportunity
to escape, and declared that they
did not doubt but that their companions
who were at sea would follow their
example. Captain Henry Jennings and
fifteen others sailed for Bermuda, and
were soon followed by four other Captains—Leslie,
Nichols, Hornigold, and
Burges, with one hundred men, who all
surrendered.

In 1710 the Spaniards made a descent
on Turk’s Island, which had been
settled by the Bermudians for the purpose
of gathering salt, and took possession
of the island, making prisoners
of the people. The Bermudians, at
their own expense and own accord, dispatched
a force under Captain Lewis
Middleton to regain possession of the
Bahama Cays. The expedition was
successful, and a victory gained over
the Spaniards, and they were driven
from the islands; they still, however,
continued to make predatory attacks on
the salt-rakers at the ponds, and on the
vessels going for and carrying away salt.
To repel these aggressions and afford
security to their trade, the Bermudians
went to the expense of arming their
vessels.

In 1775 the discontent in the American
provinces had broken out into open
opposition to the crown, and the people
were forbidden to trade with their

late fellow subjects. Bermuda suffered
great want in consequence, for at this
period, instead of exporting provisions
the island had become dependent on
the continent for the means of subsistence.
This, together with the fact that
many of the people possessed near
relatives engaged in the struggle with
the crown, tended to destroy good feelings
towards the British government.
These circumstances must be considered
in order to judge fairly of the following
transaction, which has always
been regarded to have cast a stain
upon the patriotism and loyalty of the
Bermudians.

At the outbreak of the American Revolution,
two battles were fought in the
vicinity of Boston—Lexington and Bunker
Hill, after which all intercourse with
the surrounding country ceased, and
Boston was reduced to a state of siege.
Civil war commenced in all its horrors;
the sundering of social ties; the burning
of peaceful homes; the butchery of kindred
and friends.

Washington was appointed by the
Continental Congress, Commander-in-Chief
of the American forces, and on
July 3, 1775, two weeks after the battle
of Bunker Hill, he took formal command
of the army at Cambridge. In
a letter to the President of Congress
notifying him of his safe arrival there, he
made the following statement. “Upon
the article of ammunition, I must re-echo
the former complaints on this subject.
We are so exceedingly destitute that
our artillery will be of little use without a
supply both large and seasonable. What
we have must be reserved for the small
arms, and that well managed with the
utmost frugality.” A few weeks later
General Washington wrote the following
letter on the same subject.4

This plan was approved by the Governor
and Committee of Rhode Island,
and Captain Abraham Whipple agreed
to engage in the affair, provided General
Washington would give him a certificate
under his own hand, that in case the
Bermudians would assist the undertaking,
he would recommend to the Continental
Congress to permit the exportation
of provisions to those islands from
the colonies.

General Washington accordingly
sent the following address to the
Bermudians.5

Captain Whipple had scarcely sailed
from Providence before an account appeared
in the newspapers of one hundred
barrels of powder having been
taken from Bermuda by a vessel supposed
to be from Philadelphia, and another
from South Carolina. This was
the same powder that Captain Whipple
had gone to procure. General Washington
and Governor Cooke were both
of the opinion it was best to countermand
his instructions. The other armed
vessel of Rhode Island was immediately
dispatched in search of the Captain with
orders to return.

But it was too late; he reached Bermuda
and put in at the west end of the
island. The inhabitants were at first
alarmed, supposing him to command a
king’s armed vessel, and the women and
children fled from that vicinity; but
when he showed them his commission
and instructions they treated him with
much cordiality and friendship, and informed
him that they had assisted in
removing the powder, which was made
known to General Gage, and he had
sent a sloop of war to the island. They
professed themselves hearty friends to
the American cause. Captain Whipple
being defeated in the object of his voyage
returned to Providence.

Soon after the inhabitants of Bermuda
petitioned Congress for relief, representing
their great distress in consequence
of being deprived of the supplies that
usually came from the colonies. In
consideration of their being friendly to
the cause of America, it was resolved by
Congress that provisions in certain
quantities might be exported to them.6

The powder procured from the Bermudians
led to the first great victory
gained by Washington in the Revolutionary
war, the evacuation of Boston by
the British army. After the arrival of
the powder Washington caused numerous
batteries to be erected in the immediate
vicinity of the town. On the
night of March 4, 1776, Dorchester
Heights were taken possession of and
works erected there, which commanded
Boston, and the British Fleet lying at
anchor in the harbor. This caused the
town to be evacuated, and General
Howe with his army and about one
thousand loyalists went aboard of the
fleet and sailed for Halifax, March
17, 1776.

Nothing could exceed the indignation
of Governor Bruere when he received
intelligence of the plundering of the
magazine; he promptly called upon the
legislature to take active measures for
bringing the delinquents to justice. No
evidence could ever be obtained, and
the whole transaction is still enveloped
in mystery. The Governor let no opportunity
escape him to accuse the Bermudians
of disloyality, and no doubt
severe punishment would have been inflicted
on the delinquents could they
have been discovered.

Two American brigs under Republican
colors arrived shortly after this and remained
some weeks at the west end of
the islands unmolested, and Governor
Bruere complained bitterly of this to
the assembly.7

Governor George James Bruere died
in 1780, and the administration devolved
on the Honorable Thomas Jones, who
was relieved by George Bruere as Lieutenant
Governor, in October, 1780.

Governor Bruere was soon openly at
variance with the assembly, and did not
hesitate to accuse the people of treason
in supplying the revolted provinces with
salt, exchanging it for provisions. Mr.
Bruere extremely exasperated at their
trading, which he considered to be treasonable

conduct, commented on it in
his message to the assembly in no
measured terms. Some intercepted
correspondence with the rebels added
fuel to the flame, and on the fifteenth of
August, 1781, he addressed them in a
speech which could not fail to be offensive,
although it contained much sound
argument. This was followed by a message
more bitter and acrimonious, all of
which they treated with silent contempt,
until the twenty-eight of September,
when they discharged their wrath in an
address, in which the Governor was
handled most roughly for his attacks on
the inhabitants of these islands. In
return he addressed a message, equally
uncourteous in its tone, and dissolved
the house.

The arrival of William Browne, whose
administration commenced the fourth of
January, 1782, put an end to Mr.
Bruere’s rule.

The high character of the new Governor
had preceded him in the colony,
and he was joyfully received on his arrival.
He was a native of Salem, Massachusetts,
and was high in office previous
to the Revolution, was Colonel of the
Essex regiment, judge of the Supreme
Court, and Mandamus Counselor. After
the passage of the Boston Port bill, he
was waited on by a committee of the
Essex delegates, to inform him, that “it
was with grief that the country had
viewed his exertions for carrying into
execution certain acts of parliament
calculated to enslave and ruin his native
land; that while the country would continue
the respect for several years paid
him, it resolved to detach, from every future
connection, all such as shall persist
in supporting or in any way countenancing
the late arbitrary acts of Parliament;
that the delegates in the name of the
country requested him to excuse them
from the painful necessity of considering
and treating him as an enemy to his
country, unless he resigned his office as
Counsellor and Judge.” Colonel Browne
replied as follows:

“As a judge and in every other capacity,
I intend to act with honor and integrity
and to exert my best abilities;
and be assured that neither persuasion
can allure me, nor menaces compel me,
to do anything derogatory to the character
of a Counselor of his Majesty’s
province of Massachusetts.”—William
Browne.

Colonel Browne was esteemed among
the most opulent and benevolent individuals
of that province prior to the
Revolution; and so great was his popularity
that the gubernatorial chair of
Massachusetts was offered him by the
“committee of safety,” as an inducement
for him to remain and join the
“sons of liberty.” But he felt it a duty
to adhere to government; even at the
expense of his great landed estate, both
in Massachusetts and Connecticut, the
latter comprising fourteen valuable
farms, all of which were afterwards
confiscated.

By preferring to remain on the side
representing law and authority, and unwilling
to adopt the course of the revolutionists,
this courtly representative of
an ancient and honorable family, this
sincere lover of his country, this skilled
man of affairs, this upright and merciful
judge, once so beloved by his fellow
townsmen, drew upon himself their
wrath, and he fled from his native country
never to return again. First he
sought refuge in Boston in 1774, then
in Halifax, and from there he went to
England in 1776, where he remained
till 1781, when he was appointed Governor
of Bermuda, as a slight return for
his great sacrifices and important services
in behalf of the Crown. Colonel
Browne married his cousin, the daughter

of Governor Wanton, of Rhode Island,
and was doubly connected with the
Winthrop family; the wives of the
elder Browne and Governor Wanton being
daughters of John Winthrop, great
grandson of the first Governor of Massachusetts.
Colonel Browne’s son William
was an officer in the British service
at the siege of Gibralter in 1784.

Under the judicious management of
Governor Browne the colony continued
to steadily flourish; he conducted the
business of the colony in the greatest
harmony with the different branches of
the legislature. He found the financial
affairs of the islands in a confused and
ruinous state, and left them flourishing.
In 1778 he left for England, deeply
and sincerely regretted by the people,
and was succeeded by Henry Hamilton
as Lieutenant Governor, during whose
administration the town of Hamilton was
built and named in compliment of him.

Near the close of the American Revolution
a plan was on foot to take Bermuda,
in order to make it “a nest of
hornets” for the annoyance of British
trade, but the war closed, and it was
abandoned. It, however, proved a nest
of hornets to the United States during
the late civil war. At that time St.
George’s was a busy town, and was one
of the hot-beds of secession. Being a
great resort for blockade runners, which
were hospitably welcomed here, immense
quantities of goods were purchased in
England, and brought here on large
ocean steamers, and then transferred to
swift-sailing blockade runners, waiting to
receive it. These ran the blockade into
Charleston, Wilmington and Savannah.

It was a risky business, but one that
was well followed, and many made
large fortunes there during the first
year of the war, but many were bankrupt,
or nearly so at its close.

Here, too, was concocted the fiendish
plot of Dr. Blackburn, a Kentuckian,
for introducing yellow fever into
northern cities, by sending thither boxes
of infected clothing.

HEART AND I.

BY MARY HELEN BOODEY.

ELIZABETH.

A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS.

BY FRANCES C. SPARHAWK, Author of “A Lazy Man’s Work.”

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

While delivering an address in Faneuil
Hall, in 1875, the late distinguished
Wendell Phillips declared that he had
never cast a ballot in his life.

Such a confession, coming from the
liberty-loving champion of the rights
and freedom of all people, was not a
little startling.

Months later he was requested to explain
what seemed to be a serious inconsistency,
as bearing on the question—how
can an American citizen wilfully
refrain from the high prerogative of exercising
his right and duty to vote?

The following is a copy of his letter
stating the reason why he had not
voted.

The letter hitherto has never been
made public. It is of historical value.

EASY CHAIR.

BY ELBRIDGE H. GOSS.

This is an age of magazines. Every
guild, every issue, has its monthly or
quarterly. If a new athletic exercise
should be evolved to-morrow, a new
magazine, in its interest, would follow;
and there seems to be a field for every
new venture.

Among our older magazines, Harper’s
“New Monthly” still pursues its popular
course. In June, 1850, I bought the
first number, and from that day to this
it has been one of my household treasures.
A complete set, sixty nine (69)
volumes, forms a most excellent library in
itself; a fair compendium of the world’s
history for the last thirty odd years.
Story, essay, and event, has filled these
sixty thousand pages. In October, 1851,
the department called the “Editor’s
Easy Chair,” was established by Donald
G. Mitchell, the genial “Ik: Marvel.”
Here are his first words:

“After our more severe Editorial work
is done—the scissors laid in our drawer,
and the monthly record, made as full as
our pages will bear, of history—we have
a way of throwing ourselves back into
an old red-back Easy Chair, that has

long been an ornament of our dingy
office, and indulging in an easy, and
careless overlook of the gossiping
papers of the day, and in such chit chat
with chance visitors, as keeps us informed
of the drift of the towntalk,
while it relieves greatly the monotony of
our office hours.” Here is the well remembered
flavor of the “Reveries of a
Bachelor” and “Dream-Life”!

A year or so afterward, George William
Curtis became a co-writer of a
part of the articles for this department,
and soon after he became the sole occupant
of the now famous “Easy Chair;”
and each month, as regularly as the appearance
of the magazine itself, these
very interesting, most readable, and instructive
notelets upon the current
topics of the time have appeared.
Their pure style, graceful and delicate
humor, and the vast range of culture
and observation, give them a distinctively
personal characteristic. He would
have made one of our first novelists;
but he has chosen to give the strength
of his powers to journalism, and the
study of political affairs.

It is safe to say that each number of
the magazine has had an average of
at least five pages of “Easy Chair,”
making very nearly or quite two thousand
(2,000) pages in all; or a quantity
more than sufficient to fill two and
a half volumes of the sixty nine (69)
thus far issued, each volume containing
eight hundred and sixty four (864)
pages. Before beginning to write these
delectable tid-bits, he had published
“Nile notes of a Howadji,” “The Howadji
in Syria,” and “Lotus Eating;”
soon after appeared “Potiphar Papers,”
“Prue and I,” and “Tramps.” For
twenty years he was constantly on the
lecture platform; and for twenty one
years he has been the political editor
of “Harper’s Weekly.” Although offered
missions to the courts of England and
Germany, and other positions of trust
and honor, he never accepted; his nearest
approach to the holding of any political
office was the accepting of an
appointment, for a while, of the chairmanship
of the “Civil Service Advisory
Board.” As has been well said by
George Parsons Lathrop, “The idea
often occurs to one that he, more than
any one else, continues the example
which Washington Irving set: an example
of kindliness and good nature
blended with indestructible dignity, and
a delicately imaginative mind consecrating
much of its energy to public
service.”

As for the “Easy Chair,” with me, its
leaves are first cut in each fresh number;
and while enjoying the last one, I wondered
why some deft hand had not
culled some of the choicest specimens,
and that the Harpers had not given
them to the world in a volume by themselves.
They are most certainly worthy
of it. A few passages taken here and
there, from these rich fields, will prove
this assertion. The subjects treated in
the whole “Easy Chair” number nearly
or quite twenty-five hundred (2,500),—reminiscences
of Emerson and Longfellow—first
presentation of a new
Oratorios—a celebrated painting—the
visit of a Lord Chief Justice of England,—a
vast range of topics. Consult
the nine closely printed octavo pages of
their titles in the “Index to the first
Sixty Volumes”—from “Abbott, Commodore,
xiii. 271,” to “Zurich, University
of, xlviii. 443,” and one will be
amazed at the great number and variety
of themes upon which the “Easy Chair”
has had its say. And it would seem
that its occupant has had some similar
thoughts to these, for, in a recent number
there is a retrospective glance—a
wondering as to what future generations

may have to say, and wish to know regarding
matters and things of this generation
about which it has discoursed:

“The Easy Chair, mindful of posterity,
and of that future loiterer in the retired
alcoves of coming libraries who will
turn to the pages of an old magazine to
catch some glimpse of the daily aspect
and the homely fact of our day, which
will be then a kind of quaint remembrance,
like the ‘Augustan age’ of Anne
to Victorian epoch, puts here upon record
for his unborn reader—whom he
salutes with hope and Godspeed—that
the winter of 1883-4 in the city of New
York was a gray and gloomy season almost
beyond precedent, during which
the persistent fogs and mists appeared
half to have obliterated the sun.”

Here are a few excerpts which may be
called “Gems for the Easy Chair;” but
those given are no better than thousands
of others that are scattered
through these many volumes.

A Madonna. Once in Dresden the
Easy Chair climbed into a little room
where an engraver was finishing a picture
which is now famous. He had
worked long and faithfully upon it. It
was truly a work of love, and it had
cost him his most precious and essential
possession for his art—his eyesight.
The engraver was Steinla, and
the picture was the Madonna di
Sisto…. It can be seen only by
those who go to Dresden. Among pictures
there is none more justly famous,
and the devoted engraver toiled long
and patiently, and at such enormous
sacrifice to re-produce it, so far as lines
could do it, from the same love and instinct
that produced the picture.

PUBLISHERS’ DEPARTMENT.

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.