Volume 1 / Part 1 — PART FIRST. (continued 3)

John Porter, called "Farmer Porter," came with his sons from Hingham, and bought up lands to the north of Duck or Crane River. His family before long held among them more land, it is probable, than any other. He served many years as deputy in the General Court, first from Hingham and then from Salem. He is spoken of in the colonial records of Massachusetts as "of good repute for piety, integrity, and estate." The Barneys, Leaches, and others went eastwardly towards Bass River. The Putnams followed up Beaver Brook to Beaver Dam, and spread out towards the north and west; while Richard Hutchinson turned southerly to the interval between Whipple and Hathorne Hills, bought the Stileman grant, and cleared the beautiful meadows where the old village meeting-house afterwards stood. He was a vigorous and intelligent agriculturist, and a man of character. He died in 1681, at eighty years of age, leaving a large and well-improved estate. His will has this item: I give "five acres of land to Black Peter, my servant." He had given fine farms to his children severally, many years before his death. His second wife, who survived him, had no children. He had come by her into possession of a valuable addition to his estate. After distributing his property, and providing legacies for children and grandchildren, his will left it to the option of his widow to spend the residue of her days either in the family of his son Joseph, or elsewhere; if she should prefer to live elsewhere, then she should receive back, in her own right, all the property she had originally owned; if she continued to live to her death in Joseph's family, then her property was to go to him and his heirs. This, I think, shows that he was as sagacious as he was just.

Richard Ingersoll came from Bedfordshire in England in 1629, bringing letters of recommendation from Matthew Cradock to Governor Endicott. After living awhile in town, a tract of land of eighty acres was granted to him, on the east side of Wooleston River, opposite the site of Danversport, at a place called, after him, Ingersoll's Point. He there proceeded to clear and break ground, plant corn, fence in his land, and make other improvements. He also carried on a fishery. Subsequently he leased the Townsend Bishop farm, where he lived several years. He died in 1644. Not long before his death, he purchased, jointly with his son-in-law Haynes, the Weston grant. His half of it he bequeathed to his son Nathaniel. He was evidently a man of real dignity and worth, enjoying the friendship of the best men of his day. Governor Endicott and Townsend Bishop were with him in his last sickness, and witnesses to his will. His widow married John Knight of Newbury. In a legal instrument filed among the papers connected with a case of land title, dated twenty-seven years after her first husband's death, she expresses in very striking language the tender affection and respect with which she still cherished his memory.

William Haynes married Sarah, daughter of Richard Ingersoll, and occupied his half of the Weston grant. In company with his brother, Richard Haynes, he had before bought of Townsend Bishop five hundred and forty acres, covering a considerable part of the northern end of the village territory. They sold one-third part of it to Abraham Page. Page sold to Simon Bradstreet, and John Porter bought all the three parts from the Hayneses and Bradstreet. It long constituted a portion of the great landed property of the Porter family. These facts show that William Haynes was a person of means; and the manner in which he is uniformly spoken of proves that he was regarded with singular respect and esteem. He died about 1650, and his son Thomas became subsequently a leading man in the village.

There has been uncertainty where William Haynes came from, or to what family of the name he belonged. Among the papers of the Ingersoll family, it has recently been found that he is mentioned as "brother to Lieutenant-Governor Haynes." There seems to be no other person to whom this language can refer than John Haynes, who, after being Governor of Massachusetts, removed to Connecticut where he was governor and deputy-governor, in alternate years, to the day of his death. John Haynes, as Winthrop informs us, was a gentleman of "great estate." His property in England is stated to have yielded a thousand pounds per annum. Dr. Palfrey says he was "a man of family as well as fortune; and the dignified and courteous manners, which testified to the care bestowed on his early nurture, won popularity by their graciousness, at the same time that they diffused a refining influence by their example." If William of the village was brother to John of Connecticut, the fact that he and his brother Richard could make such large purchases of lands, and the remarkable respect manifested towards him, are well accounted for. The Ingersoll family traditions and entries would seem to be the highest authority on such a point.

Job Swinnerton was a brother of John who for many years was the principal physician in the town of Salem. He had several grants of land, and was a worthy, peaceable, unobtrusive citizen. He seems to have kept out of the heat of the various contentions that occurred in the village; and, although his influence was sometimes decisively put forth, he evidently did nothing to aggravate them. He died April 11, 1689, over eighty-eight years of age. He had a large family, and his descendants continue the name in the village to this day. Daniel Rea came originally to Plymouth, and in 1630 bought a dwelling-house, garden, and "all the privileges thereunto belonging," in that town. In 1632 he removed to Salem, and at once became a leading man in the management of town affairs. He had a grant of one hundred and sixty acres, which he occupied and cultivated till his death in 1662. He had but two children: one, the wife of Captain Lothrop; the other, Joshua Rea, became the founder of a large family who acted conspicuously in the affairs of the village for several generations. Jacob Barney was an original grantee, and for several years a deputy. His son of the same name became a large landholder, and, on the 5th of April, 1692, at the very moment when the witchcraft delusion was at its height, gave two acres conveniently situated for the erection of a schoolhouse. He conveyed it to inhabitants of the neighborhood to be used for that purpose, mentioning them severally by name. I give the list, as it shows who were the principal people thereabouts at the time: "Mr. Israel Porter; Sergeant John Leach; Cornet Nathaniel Howard, Sr.; Corporal Joseph Herrick, Sr.; Benjamin Porter; Joshua Rea, Sr.; Thomas Raymond, Sr.; Edward Bishop, secundus; John Trask, Jr.; John Creesy; Joshua Rea, Jr.; John Rea; John Flint, Sr." Lawrence Leach received a grant of one hundred acres; and others of the same name and family had similar evidence that they were regarded as valuable accessions to the population. William Dodge and Richard Raymond had grants of sixty acres each; Humphrey and William Woodbury had forty each. The families of Leach, Raymond, Dodge, and Woodbury, still remain in the community of which their ancestors were the founders. John Sibley had a grant of fifty acres. Robert Goodell was a grantee, and became a large landholder.

The descendants of the two last-named persons are very numerous, and have maintained the respectability of their family names. They are each, at this day, represented by gentlemen whose enthusiastic interest in our antiquities is proved by their invaluable labors and acquisitions in the interesting departments of genealogy and local history,—John L. Sibley, Librarian of Harvard University; and Abner C. Goodell, Register of Probate for the County of Essex.

Besides Townsend Bishop, there were two other persons of that name among the original inhabitants of Salem. They do not appear to have been related to him or to each other. Richard Bishop, whose wife Dulcibell had died Aug. 6, 1658, married the widow Galt, July 22, 1660. He died Dec. 30, 1674.

Edward Bishop was in Salem in 1639, and became a member of the church in 1645. In 1660 he was one of the constables of Salem, an original member of the Beverly Church in 1667, and died in January, 1695. He was an early settler on the Farms; his lands were on both sides of Bass River, the parcels on the west side being above and below the Ipswich road. His own residence was on the Beverly side; and he was not usually connected with the concerns of the village. His name appears but once in the witchcraft proceedings, and then in favor of an accused person.

Edward Bishop, commonly called "the sawyer," from the tenor of conveyances of land, dates, and other evidences, appears to have been a son of the preceding. In his earlier life, he was somewhat notable for irregularities and aberrations of conduct. With his wife Hannah, he was fined by the local court, in 1653, for depredating upon the premises of his neighbors. During the subsequent period of his history, he bore the character of an industrious and reputable person. At some time previous to 1680, he married Bridget, widow of Thomas Oliver. On the 9th of March, 1693, he married Elizabeth Cash. He lived originally in Beverly; afterwards, at different times, on the land belonging to his father in Salem Village,—the estate he occupied being on both sides of the Ipswich road. His last years were passed in the town of Salem. He died in 1705. His daughter Hannah, born in 1646, became the wife of Captain William Raymond, one of the founders of the numerous family of that name.

Edward Bishop, son of the preceding, called, for distinction, "husbandman," was born in 1648. He married Sarah, daughter of William Wilds, of Ipswich. He was a respectable person, and lived in the village on an estate also occupied by "the sawyer." His house was west of the avenue leading to Cherry Hill. In 1703 he removed to Rehoboth.

Edward Bishop, the eldest of his sons, married Susanna, daughter of John Putnam, and in 1713 removed to that part of Ipswich now Hamilton. Prior to 1695, these four Edward Bishops were all living; and the youngest had a wife and children. All will be found connected with our story, the second and third prominently. The fourth owed his safety, perhaps, to the influential connections of his wife.

The first notice we have of Bray Wilkins is in the Massachusetts colonial records, Sept. 6, 1638, when he was authorized to set up a house and keep a ferry at Neponset River, and have "a penny a person." On the 5th of November, 1639, the General Court accepted a report made by William Hathorne and Richard Davenport, commissioners appointed for the purpose, and, in accordance therewith, laid out a farm for Richard Bellingham, who had been deputy-governor, was then an assistant, and afterwards governor, "on the head of Salem, to the north-west of the town; there being in it a hill, and an Indian plantation, and a pond." This nice little farm included seven hundred acres, and "about one hundred or one hundred and fifty acres of meadow" beside. The next thing we hear about the matter is a petition to the General Court, May 22, 1661, of "Bray Wilkins and John Gingle, humbly desiring that the farm called by the name of Will's Hill, which this Court granted to the worshipful Richard Bellingham, Esq., and they purchased of him, may be laid to, and appointed to belong to, Salem; being nigh its lands, and the petitioners of its society." The Court granted the request. It seems that, about a year before, on the 9th of March, "Bray Wilkins, husbandman, and John Gingle, tailor, both of Lynn," had bought the Bellingham farm for two hundred and fifty pounds, of which they paid at the time twenty-five pounds, and mortgaged it back for the residue. The twenty-five pounds was paid as follows: twenty-four pounds in a ton of bar-iron, and one pound in money. Wilkins had, some time before, removed from Neponset, and perhaps had been working in one of the iron-manufactories then in operation at Lynn. When the balance of his wages over his expenses enabled him, with the aid of Gingle, to raise a ton of iron and scrape together twenty shillings, they entered upon their bold undertaking. He had not a dollar in his pocket; but he had what was better than dollars,—industrious habits, a resolute will, a strong constitution, an iron frame, and six stout sons. After a while, he took into the work, in addition to his own effective family force, two trusty kinsmen, Aaron Way and William Ireland, conveying to them good farms out of his seven hundred acres. He enlarged his farm, from time to time, by new purchases, so as to more than make up for what he sold to Way and Ireland. In 1676 the mortgage was fully discharged. He and his sons bought out the heirs of Gingle, and the work was done. They held, free from debt, in one tract, a territory about two miles in length on the Reading line. Each member of the family had a house, barns, orchards, gardens, meadows, upland, and woodland; and the homestead of the old patriarch was in the midst of them, the enterprise of his laborious life crowned with complete success. The innumerable family of the name, scattered all over the country, has largely, if not wholly, been derived from this source. Bray Wilkins, and the members of his household in all its branches, were always on hand at parish meetings in Salem Village. Over a distance, as their route must have been, of five miles, they came, in all seasons and all weathers, by the roughest roads, and, in the earlier period, where there were no roads at all, through the woods, fording streams, to meeting on the Lord's Day. He continued vigorous, hale, and active to the last; and died, as he truly characterizes himself in his will, "an ancient," Jan. 1, 1702, at the age of ninety-two.

This was the way in which the large grants made to wealthy and eminent persons, governors, deputy-governors, and assistants, came into the possession and under the productive labor of a yeomanry who made good their title to the soil by the force of their characters and the strength of their muscles. One of the terms of Wilkins's purchase was, that, if he found and wrought minerals on the land, he was to pay to Bellingham or his heirs a royalty of ten pounds per annum. Believing that the best mine to be found in land is the crops that can be raised from it, he never tried to find any other.

Bray Wilkins will appear to have shared in the witchcraft delusion, and been very unhappily connected with it; but he lived to behold its termination, and to participate in the restoration of reason. The minister of the parish at the time of his death, the Rev. Joseph Green, kept a diary which has been preserved. He thus speaks of the old man: "He lived to a good old age, and saw his children's children, and their children, and peace upon our little Israel."

It is rather curious to notice such indications as the mineral clause in Wilkins's deed affords of the prevalent expectation, at the beginning of settlements in this region, that valuable minerals would be found in it. What makes it worthy of particular inquiry is, that they were found and wrought for some time, but that no one thinks of looking after them now. Simon Bradstreet, Daniel Dennison, and John Putnam put up and carried on together, upon a large scale, iron-works, in 1674, at Rowley Village, now Boxford. Samuel and Nathan Leonard were employed to construct them, and carried them on by contract. These iron-works were long regarded as a promising enterprise and valuable investment. The Leonards were probably of the same family that, at Raynham and the neighborhood, engaged in this business to a great extent, and for a long period, making it a source of wealth and the foundation of eminent families. We know that the business was carried on extensively in Lynn, and that Governor Endicott was quite sure that he had found copper on his Orchard Farm. Who knows but that modern science and more searching methods of detection may yet discover the hidden treasures of which the fathers caught a glimpse, and their enterprises be revived and conducted with permanent energy and success?

In 1669, Joseph Houlton testified, that, when he was about twenty years of age, in 1641, he was "a servant to Richard Ingersoll," and worked on his land at Ingersoll's Point. About the year 1652, he married Sarah, daughter of Richard Ingersoll, and widow of William Haynes. By her he had five sons and two daughters, who lived to maturity. He gave to each of them a farm; and their houses were in his near neighborhood. The sons were respectable and substantial citizens, and persons of just views and amiable sentiments. The father was one of the honored heads of the village, and lived to a good old age. He died May 30, 1705. From him, it is probable, all of the name in this country have sprung. It will be for ever preserved in the public annals and on the geographical face of the country. Samuel Houlton, great-grandson of the original Joseph, was a representative of Massachusetts for ten years in the old Congress of the Confederation, for a time presiding over its deliberations. He was also a member of the first Congress under the Constitution, and subsequently, for a very long period, Judge of Probate for the county of Essex. He was a true patriot and wise legislator; enjoyed to an extraordinary degree the confidence and love of the people; had a commanding person and a noble and venerable aspect; and was always conspicuous by the dignity and courtesy of his manners. He was a physician by profession; but his whole life was spent in the public service. He was in both branches of the Legislature of the State, also in the Executive Council. He was major of the Essex regiment at the opening of the Revolution; was a member of the Committee of Safety, and of every convention for the framing of the Government; and, for more than thirty years, a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He died, where he was born and had his home for the greater part of his life, in Salem Village, Jan. 2, 1816, in the seventy-eighth year of his age.

In 1724 a petition was presented to the Legislature, commencing as follows: "Whereas Salem is a most ancient town of Massachusetts Province, and very much straitened for land," the petitioners pray for a grant in the western part of the province. The petition was allowed on condition that one lot be reserved for the first settled minister, one for the ministry, and one for a school. Each grantee was required to give a bond of twenty-five pounds to be on the spot; have a house of seven feet stud and eighteen square at least, seven acres of English hay ready to be mowed, and help to build a meeting-house and settle a minister, within five years. A grandson of Joseph Houlton, of the same name, led the company that emigrated to the assigned location. The first result was the town of New Salem, in Franklin County, incorporated in 1753; named in honor of the old town from which their leading founder had come. But the people were not satisfied with having merely a school. They must have an academy. They went to work with a will, and an academy was established and incorporated in 1795. This was the second result. The academy did not flourish to an extent to suit their views, and they beset the Legislature to grant them a township of land in the woods of Maine to enable them to endow it. They carried their point, and in 1797 obtained the grant. The effort had been great, and great was the rejoicing at its successful issue. But, as bad luck would have it, just at that time land could not be sold at any price. The grant became worthless; and deep and bitter was the disappointment of the people of New Salem. The doom of the academy seemed to be settled, and its days numbered and finished. But there were men in New Salem who were determined that the academy should be saved. They met in consultation, and, under the lead of still another Joseph Houlton, of the same descent, fixed their purpose. They sold or mortgaged their farms, which more than half a century of labor had rendered productive, and which every association and every sentiment rendered dear to them. With the money thus raised they bought the granted tract, paying a good price for it. The preservation and endowment of the academy were thus secured; but all benefit from it to themselves or their descendants was wholly relinquished. It was the only way in which the academy could be saved. Some must make the sacrifice, and they made it. They packed up bag and baggage; sold off all they could not carry; gathered their families together; bid farewell to the scenes of their birth and childhood, the homes of their life, and the fruits of their labor; and started in wagons and carts on the journey to Boston. Their location was hundreds of miles distant, far down in the eastern wilderness, and inaccessible from the extremes of settlement at that time on the Penobscot. As the only alternative, they embarked in a coasting-vessel; went down the Bay of Fundy to St. John, N.B.; took a river-sloop up to Fredericton,—a hundred miles; got up the river as they could, in barges or canoes, eighty miles further to Woodstock; and there, turning to the left, struck into the forest, until they reached their location. The third result of this emigration, in successive generations and stages, from Salem Farms, is to be seen to-day in a handsome and flourishing village, interspersed and surrounded with well-cultivated fields,—the shire town of the county of Aroostook, in the State of Maine; which bears the name of the leader of this disinterested, self-sacrificing, and noble company. Three times was it the lot of this one family to encounter and conquer the difficulties, endure and triumph over the privations, and carry through the herculean labors, of subduing a rugged wilderness, and bringing it into the domain of civilization,—at Salem Village, New Salem, and Houlton. It would be difficult to find, in all our history, a story that more strikingly than this illustrates the elements of the glory and strength of New England,—zeal for education,—enterprise invigorated by difficulties,—and prowess equal to all emergencies.

John Burton came early to Salem by way of Barbadoes. He combined the pursuits of a farmer and a tanner. He was a sturdy old Englishman, who, while probably holding the theological sentiments that prevailed in his day, abhorred the spirit of persecution, and was unwilling to live where it was allowed to bear sway. He does not appear to have been a Quaker, but sympathized with all who suffered wrong. In 1658, he went off in their company to Rhode Island, sharing their banishment. But his conscience would not let him rest in voluntary flight. He came back in 1661, to bear his testimony against oppression. He was brought before the Court, as an abettor and shelterer of Quakers. He told the justices that they were robbers and destroyers of the widows and fatherless, that their priests divined for money, and that their worship was not the worship of God. They commanded him to keep silent. He commanded them to keep silent. They thought it best to bring the colloquy to a close by ordering him to the stocks. They finally concluded, upon the whole, to let him alone; and he remained here the rest of his life. His descendants are through a daughter (who married William Osborne) and his son Isaac. They are numerous, under both names. Isaac was an active and respectable citizen of the village, and a farmer of enterprise and energy. He carried on, under a lease, Governor Endicott's farm of over five hundred acres on Ipswich River, and had lands of his own. In subsequent generations, this family branched off in various directions to Connecticut, Vermont, and elsewhere. One detachment of them went to Wilton, N.H., where the family still remains on the original homestead. The late Warren Burton, who was born in Wilton,—a graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1821, and well known for his invaluable services in the cause of education, philanthropy, and letters,—was a direct descendant of John Burton, and as true to the rights of conscience as the old tanner, who bearded the lion of persecution in the day of his utmost wrath, and in his very den.

Henry Herrick, who, as has been stated, purchased the Cherry-Hill farm of Alford, was the fifth son of Sir William Herrick, of Beau Manor Park, in the parish of Loughborough, in the county of Leicester, England. He came first to Virginia, and then to Salem. He was accompanied to America by another emigrant from Loughborough, named Cleaveland. Herrick became a member of the First Church at Salem in 1629, and his wife Edith about the same time. Their fifth son, Joseph, baptized Aug. 6, 1645, owned and occupied Cherry Hill in 1692. He married Sarah, daughter of Richard Leach, Feb. 7, 1667. He was a man of great firmness and dignity of character, and, in addition to the care and management of his large farm, was engaged in foreign commerce. As he bore the title of Governor, he had probably been at some time in command of a military post or district, or perhaps of a West-India colony. His descendants are numerous, and have occupied distinguished stations, often exhibiting a transmitted military stamp. Joseph Herrick was in the Narragansett fight. It illustrates the state of things at that time, that this eminent citizen, a large landholder, engaged in prosperous mercantile affairs, and who had been abroad, was, in 1692, when forty-seven years of age, a corporal in the village company. He was the acting constable of the place, and, as such, concerned in the early proceedings connected with the witchcraft prosecutions. For a while he was under the influence of the delusion; but his strong and enlightened mind soon led him out of it. He was one of the petitioners in behalf of an accused person, when intercession, by any for any, was highly dangerous; and he was a leader in the party that rose against the fanaticism, and vindicated the characters of its victims. He inherited a repugnance to oppression, and sympathy for the persecuted. His father and mother appear, by a record of Court, to have been fined "for aiding and comforting an excommunicated person, contrary to order."

William Nichols, in 1651, bought two hundred acres, which had been granted to Henry Bartholomew, partly in the village, but mostly beyond the "six-mile extent," and consequently set off to Topsfield. He had several other lots of land. He distributed nearly all his real estate, during his lifetime, to his son John; his adopted son, Isaac Burton; his daughters, the wives of Thomas Wilkins and Thomas Cave; and his grand-daughter, the wife of Humphrey Case. His only son John had several sons, and from them the name has been widely dispersed. In a deposition dated May 14, 1694, William Nichols declares himself "aged upwards of one hundred years." As his will was offered for Probate Feb. 24, 1696, he must have been one hundred and two years of age at his death.

William Cantlebury was a large landholder, having purchased three-quarters of the Corwin grant. He died June 1, 1663. His name died with him, as he had no male issue. His property went to his daughters, who were represented, in 1692, under the names of Small, Sibley, and Buxton. The Flints, Popes, Uptons, Princes, Phillipses, Needhams, and Walcotts, had valuable farms, and appear, from the records and documents, to have been respectable, energetic, and intelligent people. Daniel Andrew was one of the strong men of the village; had been a deputy to the General Court, and acted a prominent part before and after the witchcraft convulsion. But the great family of the village—greater in numbers and in aggregate wealth than any other, and eminently conspicuous on both sides in the witchcraft proceedings—remains to be mentioned.

John Putnam had a grant of one hundred acres, Jan. 20, 1641. With his wife Priscilla, he came from Buckinghamshire, England, and was probably about fifty years of age on his arrival in this country. He was a man of great energy and industry, and acquired a large estate. He died in 1662, leaving three sons,—Thomas, born in 1616; Nathaniel, in 1620; and John, in 1628. For a more convenient classification, I shall, in speaking of this family, refer, not to the original John at all, but to the sons as its three heads.

Thomas, the eldest, inherited a double share of his father's lands. He was of age when he came to America, and had received a good education. He appears to have settled, in the first instance, in Lynn, where for several years he acted as a magistrate, holding local courts, by appointment of the General Court. Upon removing to Salem, he was chosen, as the town-records show, to the office of constable. This was considered at that time as quite a distinguished position, carrying with it a high authority, covering the whole executive local administration. Thomas Putnam was the first clerk of Salem Village, and acted prominently in military, ecclesiastical, and municipal affairs. He seems to have been a person of a quieter temperament than his younger brothers, and led a somewhat less stirring life. Possessing a large property by inheritance, he was not quite so active in increasing it; but, enjoying the society and friendship of the leading men, lived a more retired life. At the same time, he was always ready to serve the community if called for, as he often was, when occasion arose for the aid of his superior intelligence and personal influence. He married first, while in Lynn, Ann, daughter of Edward Holyoke, great-grandfather of the President of Harvard College of that name whose son, the venerable centenarian, Dr. Edward Augustus Holyoke, is remembered as a true Christian philosopher by the generation still lingering on the stage. Having lost his wife on the 1st of September, 1665, he married, on the 14th of November, 1666, Mary, widow of Nathaniel Veren; coming, through her, into possession of property in Jamaica and Barbadoes, in which places Veren had resided, more or less, in the prosecution of commercial business. His homestead, as shown on the map, was occupied by his widow in 1692, and, after her death, by her son Joseph, the father of General Israel Putnam. He had also a town residence on the north side of Essex Street, extending back to the North River. Its front on Essex Street embraced the western part of the grounds now occupied by the North Church, and extended to a point beyond the head of Cambridge Street. He left the eastern half of this property to his son Thomas, and the western half to his son Joseph. To his son Edward he left another estate in the town, on the western side of St. Peter's Street, to the north of Federal Street.

Thomas Putnam died on the 5th of May, 1686. He left large estates in the village to each of his children, and a valuable piece of meadow land, of fifteen acres, to a faithful servant.

Nathaniel Putnam married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Hutchinson, and, besides what he received from his father, came, through his wife, into possession of seventy-five acres. On that tract he built his house and passed his life. The property has remained uninterruptedly in his family. One of them, the late Judge Samuel Putnam, of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, enjoyed it as a country residence, and it is still held by his children. Nathaniel Putnam was a deputy to the General Court, and constantly connected with all the interests of the community. He had great business activity and ability, and was a person of extraordinary powers of mind, of great energy and skill in the management of affairs, and of singular sagacity, acumen, and quickness of perception. He died July 23, 1700, leaving a numerous family and a large estate.

John Putnam had the same indefatigable activity as Nathaniel. He was often deputy to the General Court, and accumulated a very great landed property. He married Rebecca Prince, step-daughter of John Gedney, and died on the 7th of April, 1710. He was buried with military honors. He left a large family of sons and daughters. We shall often meet him in our narrative, and gather the materials, as we go along, to form an opinion of his character. The earliest rate-list in the parish record book is for 1681. At that time the three brothers were all living; the aggregate sum assessed upon ninety-four names was two hundred pounds. The rate of Thomas was £10. 6s. 3d.; that of Nathaniel, £9. 10s.; that of John, £8. No other person paid as much as either of them.

These brothers, as well as many others of the large landholders in the village, adopted the practice of giving to their sons and sons-in-law, outright, by deed, good farms, as soon as they became heads of families; so that, as the fathers advanced in life, their own estates were gradually diminished; and, when unable any longer to take an active part in managing their lands, they divided up their whole remaining real estate, making careful contracts with their children for an adequate maintenance, to the extent of their personal wants and comfort. Joseph Houlton did this: so did the widow Margery Scruggs, old William Nichols, Francis Nurse, and many others. In his last years, John Putnam was on the rate-list for five shillings only, while all his sons and daughters were assessed severally in large sums. In this way they had the satisfaction of making their children independent, and of seeing them take their places among the heads of the community.

Where this practice was followed, there were few quarrels in families over the graves of parents, and controversies seldom arose about the provisions of wills. In some cases no wills were needed to be made. It is apparent, that, in many respects, this was a wise and good practice. It was, moreover, a strictly just one. As the sons were growing to an adult age, they added, by their labors, to the value of lands,—inserted a property into them that was truly their own; and their title was duly recognized. In a new country, land has but little value in itself; the value is imparted by the labor that clears it and prepares it to yield its products. In 1686, Nathaniel Putnam testified that for more than forty years he had lived in the village, and that in the early part of that time unimproved land brought only a shilling an acre, while a cow was worth five pounds. In 1672, the rate of taxation on unimproved land was a half penny per acre, and, for land on which labor had been expended, a penny per acre. In 1685 it was taxed at the rates of three shillings for a hundred acres of wild land, and one penny an acre for "land within fence." The relative value of improved land constantly increased with the length of time it had been under culture. It may be said that labor added two-thirds to the value of land, and that he who by the sweat of his brow added those two-thirds, to that extent owned the land. An industrious young man went out into his father's woods, cut down the trees, cleared the ground, fenced it in, and prepared it for cultivation. All that was thus added to its value was his creation, and he its rightful owner. The right was recognized, and full possession given him, by deed, as soon as he had opened a farm, and built a house, and brought a wife into it.

The effect of this was to anchor a family, from generation to generation, fast to its ancestral acres. It strengthened the ties that bound them to their native fields. Its moral effect was beyond calculation. When a young man was thus enabled to start in life on an independent footing, it made a man of him while he was young. It invested him with the dignity of a citizen by making him feel his share of responsibility for the security and welfare of society. It gave scope for enterprise, and inspiration to industry, at home. It led to early marriages, under circumstances that justified them. Joseph Putnam, the youngest son of Thomas, at the age of twenty years and seven months, took as his bride Elizabeth, daughter of Israel Porter, and grand-daughter of William Hathorne, when she was sixteen years and six months old. We shall see what a valuable citizen he became; and she was worthy of him. A large and noble family of children grew up to honor them, one of the youngest of whom was Israel Putnam, of illustrious Revolutionary fame.

Though there were descendants of this family in every company of emigrants that went forth from Salem Village, in all directions, in every generation, to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, and all parts of the New England, Middle, Western, and Pacific States, there is about as large a proportionate representation of the name within the precincts of Salem Village to-day, as there ever was. Fifty Putnams are at present voters in Danvers, on a list of eight hundred names,—one-sixteenth of the whole number. The rate-schedule of 1712 shows almost precisely the same proportion.

Edward Putnam, whom we shall meet again, was baptized July 4, 1654. After serving as deacon of the church from its organization, a period of forty years, he resigned on account of advancing age; and in 1733, as he was entering on his eightieth year, gave this account of his family: "From the three brothers proceeded twelve males; from these twelve males, forty males; and from these forty males, eighty-two males: there were none of the name of Putnam in New England but those from this family." With respect to their situation in life, he remarks: "I can say with the Psalmist, I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor their seed begging bread except of God, who provides for all. For God hath given to the generation of my fathers a generous portion, neither poverty nor riches." When the infirmities of age prevented his longer partaking in the worship of the Lord's Day, this good old man relinquished his residence near the church, and removed to his original homestead, in the neighborhood of his children, which had then been included in the new town of Middleton. His will is dated March 11, 1731. It was offered in Probate, April 11, 1748. After making every reasonable deduction, in view of his share of responsibility for the earlier proceedings in the witchcraft prosecutions, we may participate in the affection and veneration with which this amiable and gentle-hearted man was regarded by his contemporaries.

The provisions of his will contain items which so strikingly illustrate his character, and give us such an insight of the domestic life of the times, that a few of them will be presented. According to the prevalent custom, he had given good farms to his several children when they became heads of families. In his will, he distributes the residue of his real estate among them with carefulness and an equal hand, describing the metes and bounds of the various tracts with great minuteness, so as to prevent all questions of controversy among them. He gives legacies in money to his daughters, ten pounds each; and, to his grand-daughters, five pounds each. To one of his five sons, he gives his "cross-cut saw." This was used to saw large logs crosswise, having two handles worked by two persons, and distinguished from the "pit saw," which was used to saw logs lengthwise. All his other tools were to be divided among his sons, to one of whom he also gives his cane; to another, his "Great Bible;" to another, "Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs's Works;" to another, "Mr. Flavel's Works;" and, to the other, his "girdle and sword." To one of them he gives his desk, and "that box wherein are so many writings;" to another, his "share in the iron-works;" and to another, his share "in the great timber chain." This, with other evidence, shows that there was a boom, and arrangements on a large scale for the lumbering business, at that time, on Ipswich River. The provisions for his wife were very considerate, exact, and minute, so as to prevent all possibility of there being any difficulty in reference to her rights, or of her ever suffering want or neglect. He gives to her, absolutely and for her own disposal, the residue of his books and all his "movable estate" in the house and out of it, including all "cattle, sheep, swine," the whole stock of the homestead farm, agricultural implements, and carriages. He makes it the duty of one of his sons to furnish her with all the "firewood" she may want, with ten bushels of corn-meal, two bushels of English meal, four bushels of ground malt, four barrels of good cider,—he to find the barrels—as many apples "as she shall see cause," and nine or ten score weight of good pork, annually: he was to "keep for her two cows, winter and summer," and generally to provide all "things needful." The will specifies, apartment by apartment, from cellar to garret, one-half of the house, to be for her accommodation, use, and exclusive control, and half of the garden. The sons were to pay, in specified proportions, all his funeral charges. One of the sons was to pay her forthwith four pounds in money; and they were severally to deliver to her annually, in proportions expressly stated, ten pounds for pocket money. When the relative value of money at that time is considered, and the other particulars above named taken into account, it will be allowed that he was faithful and wise in caring for the wife of his youth and the companion of his long life. There is no better criterion of the good sense and good feeling of a person than his last will and testament. The result of a quite extensive examination is a conviction that the application of this test to the early inhabitants of Salem Village is most creditable to them, particularly in the tender but judicious and effectual manner in which the rights, comfort, independence, and security of their wives were provided for.

In the third generation, the three Putnam families began to give their sons to the general service of the country in conspicuous public stations, and in the professional walks of life. Their names appear on the page of history and in the catalogues of colleges. Major-General Israel Putnam was a grandson of the first Thomas. On the 14th of May, 1718, Archelaus, a grandson of John, and son of James, died at Cambridge, while an undergraduate. Benjamin, a son of Nathaniel, in his will, presented for Probate, April 25, 1715, says, "I give my son Daniel one hundred and fifty pounds for his learning." Daniel lived and died in the ministry, at North Reading. His name heads the list of more than thirty—all, it is probable, of this family—in the last Triennial Catalogue of Harvard University.

The brightest name in the annals of Salem Village, though frequently referred to, has not yet been presented for your contemplation. I shall hold it up and keep it in your view by a somewhat detailed description, not only because it is necessary to a full understanding of our subject, but because it is good to gaze upon a life of virtue; to pause while beholding a portrait beaming with beneficence, and radiant with all excellent, beautiful, and attractive affections.

Nathaniel Ingersoll was about eleven years old at the death of his father. His mother married John Knights, of Newbury, who became the head of her household, and continued to carry on the Townsend Bishop farm for several years. Governor Endicott, the friend and neighbor of Richard Ingersoll, took Nathaniel, while still a lad, into his family. In a deposition made in Court, June 24, 1701, Nathaniel Ingersoll says, "I went to live with Governor Endicott as his servant four years, on the Orchard Farm." At that time, the term "servant" had no derogatory sense connected with it. It merely implied the relations between an employer and the employed, without the least tint of the feeling which we associate with the condition of servility. Here was a youth, who, by his father's will, was the owner of a valuable estate of seventy-five acres in the immediate neighborhood, voluntarily seeking the privilege of entering the service of his father's friend, because he thereby would be better qualified, when old enough, to enter upon his own estate. Governor Endicott's political duties were not then regarded as requiring him to live in Boston; and his usual residence was at the Orchard Farm, where he was making improvements and conducting agricultural operations upon so large a scale that it was the best school of instruction anywhere to be found for a young person intending to make that his pursuit in life. Young John Putnam, as has been stated, was there for the same purpose, under similar circumstances.

Having built a house and barn, and provided the necessary stock and materials, Nathaniel Ingersoll went upon his farm when about nineteen years of age. Soon after, probably, he married Hannah Collins of Lynn, who, during their long lives, proved a worthy helpmeet. His house was on a larger scale than was usual at that time. One of its rooms is spoken of as very large; and the uses to which his establishment was put, from time to time, prove that it must have had capacious apartments. Its site is shown on the map. The road from Salem to Andover passed it, not at an angle as now, but by a curve. The present parsonage of Danvers Centre stands on the lot. But Ingersoll's house was a little in the rear of the site occupied by the present parsonage. It faced south. In front was an open space, or lawn, called Ingersoll's Common. Here he lived nearly seventy years. During that long period, his doors were ever open to hospitality and benevolence. His house was the centre of good neighborhood and of all movements for the public welfare. His latch-string was always out for friend or stranger. In a military sense, and every other sense, it was the head-quarters of the village. On his land, a few rods to the north-east, stood the block-house where watch was kept against Indian attacks. There a sentinel was posted day and night, under his supervision. The spot was central to the several farming settlements; and all meetings of every kind took place there. To accommodate the public, he was licensed to keep a victualling-house; also to sell beer and cider by the quart "on the Lord's Day." This last provision was for the benefit of those who came great distances to meeting, and had to find refreshment somewhere between the services. To meet the occasions arising out of this business, he probably had a separate building. Indeed, the evidence, in the language used in reference to it, is quite decisive that there was an "ordinary," distinct from the dwelling-house. The location was thought to render such an establishment necessary, and his character secured its orderly maintenance.

Travellers through the country stopped at "Nathaniel Ingersoll's corner." The earliest path or roadway to and from the eastern settlements went by it. Here Increase and Cotton Mather, and all magistrates and ministers, were entertained. Here the wants of the poor and unfortunate were made known, and all men came for counsel and advice. From the first, even when he had not reached the age of maturity, he commanded to a singular extent the confidence and respect of all men. The influence of his bearing and character, thus early established, was never lost or abated, or disturbed for a moment during his long life. He was the umpire to settle all differences, but never made an enemy by his decisions. Although of moderate estate, compared with some of his neighbors, they all treated him with a deference greater than they sometimes paid to each other. It was his lot to be mixed up with innumerable controversies, to be in the very centre of the most vehement and frightful social convulsions, and to act decisively in some of them; but it is most marvellous to witness how uniform and universal was the consideration in which he was held. These statements are justified abundantly by evidence in records and documents.

When village business was to be transacted, or consultation of any kind had, the house of Deacon Ingersoll was designated, as a matter of course, for the place of meeting. Whether it was an ecclesiastical or a military gathering, a prayer-meeting or a train-band drill, it was there. Before they had a meeting-house, it cannot be doubted, they met for worship in his large room. We find it recorded, that, after the meeting-house was built, if from the bitterness of the weather, or any other cause, it was too uncomfortable to remain in, they would adjourn to Deacon Ingersoll's. Such a free use of a particular person's premises sometimes engenders a familiarity that runs into license, and is apt to breed contempt. Not so at all in his case. There was a native-born dignity, an honest manliness and pervading integrity about him, that were appreciated by all persons at all times. When wrong was meditated, his admonition was received with respectful consideration; when it had been committed, his rebuke awakened no resentment. The fact, that he was acknowledged and felt by all to be a perfectly just man, is apparent through the whole course of his action in all the affairs of life. His uprightness, freedom from unworthy prejudice, and clear and transparent conscientiousness, appear in all documents, depositions, and records that proceeded from him. He was often called to give evidence in land causes and other trials at law; and his testimony is always straightforward, fair, and lucid. You can tell from the style, temper, or tone of other witnesses, which side of the controversy they espoused, but not from his. In the great and protracted conflict in the courts, relating to the Townsend Bishop farm, he and all his most intimate connections and relatives were parties of adverse interest; but Zerubabel Endicott paid homage, and left it on record, to the truthfulness and uprightness of the testimony and the fairness of the course of Nathaniel Ingersoll. We shall meet other illustrations to the same effect in the course of our narrative.

Although it is anticipating the course of events, it may be well to trace the outlines of the life of this man to its distant close. Partaking of the general views of his age, he participated in the proceedings that led to the witchcraft prosecutions. He believed in what was regarded as decisive evidence against the accused, and acted accordingly. But no one ever felt that there was any vindictiveness in his course.

He lived to see the storm that desolated his beloved village pass away, and to enjoy the restoration of reason, peace, and good-will among a people who had so long been torn by strife, and subjected to untold horrors,—horrors that have never yet been fully described, and which I despair of being able adequately to depict. He did all that a good and true man could do to eradicate the causes of the mischief. He participated in the exercises of a day of Thanksgiving, set apart for the purpose, in 1700, to express the devout and contrite gratitude of the people to a merciful God for deliverance from the errors and passions that had overwhelmed them with such awful judgments. The removal of Mr. Parris having been effected, Joseph Green was settled near the close of the year 1697. He was a wise and prudent man. By kind, cautious, and well-timed measures, he gradually succeeded in extracting every root of bitterness, healing all the breaches, and restoring harmony to a long-distracted people. In this work, Deacon Ingersoll and his good associate, Edward Putnam, aided him to the utmost. When, by their united counsels and labors, the difficult work was about accomplished, Mr. Green was taken to his reward, in 1715. Greatly was he lamented; but Nathaniel Ingersoll had realized all his best wishes at last. The prayers he had poured forth for fifty years had been answered. He had seen the completed service of a pastor who had fulfilled his highest estimate of what a Christian minister should be. He lived to witness and share in the warm and unanimous welcome of Peter Clark to a useful, honored, happy ministry which lasted more than half a century. The ordination of Mr. Clark, which took place on the 8th of June, 1717, was made the occasion of demonstrating the complete re-establishment of social harmony and Christian love throughout that entire community. The storms of strife had commenced with the settlement of the first minister, more than forty years before: they had increased in violence, until, at the witchcraft delusion, they swept in a tornado every thing to ruin. The clouds had been slowly dispersed, and the angry waves smoothed down, by Mr. Green's benignant ministry. The long, and yet unbroken, "era of good feeling" was fully inaugurated. It was a day of great rejoicing. Old men and matrons, young men and maidens, met together in happy union. Tradition says that they carried their grateful festivities to the highest point allowable by the proprieties of that period. Having witnessed this scene, and beheld the church and village of his affections start on a new and sure career of peace and prosperity, the Good Parishioner folded his mantle and departed from sight. He died in 1719, in his eighty-fifth year. He was truly the "Man of Ross." The celebrated portrait, which poetry has drawn under this name, was from an actual example in real life, not more shining than his. He left no issue; but his brothers were the founders of a family widely diffused, many members of which have, in every subsequent age, contributed to the honor of the name. Innumerable branches have spread out from the same stock under other names. The children of the late Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch, through both father and mother, have descended from a brother of Nathaniel Ingersoll.

Citations and extracts from documents on file will justify all I have said of this man.

His wife was a spirit kindred to his own. Their only child, a daughter, died when quite young. Their hearts demanded an object on which to exercise parental affection, and to give opportunity for benevolent care, within their own household; and they induced their neighbor, Joseph Hutchinson, who had several sons, to give one of them to be theirs by adoption. When this child had grown to manhood, a deed was recorded in the Essex Registry, Oct. 2, 1691, of which this is the purport:—

"Benjamin Hutchinson, being an infant when he was given to us by his parents, we have brought him up as our own child; and he, the said Benjamin, living with us as an obedient son, until he came of one and twenty years of age, he then marrying from us, I, the said Nathaniel Ingersoll, and Hannah, my wife, on these considerations, do, upon the marriage of our adopted son, Benjamin Hutchinson, give and bequeath to him, his heirs and assigns for ever, this deed of gift of ten acres of upland, and also three acres of meadow," &c.

When Mr. Parris was settled, it occurred to Deacon Ingersoll, that it would be very convenient for him to have a certain piece of ground between the parsonage land and the Andover road; and he gave him a deed, from which the following is an extract. It is dated Jan. 2, 1689.

"To all Christian people to whom this present writing shall come, Nathaniel Ingersoll, of Salem Village, in the county of Essex, sendeth greeting. Know ye, that the said Nathaniel Ingersoll, husbandman, and Hannah, his wife, for and in consideration of the love, respect, and honor which they justly bear unto the public worship of the true and only God, and therefore for the encouragement of their well-beloved pastor, the Rev. Samuel Parris, who hath lately taken that office amongst them, and also for and in consideration of a very small sum of money to them in hand paid, with which they do acknowledge themselves fully contented and satisfied, do grant to said Samuel Parris and Elizabeth, his wife, for life, and then to the children of said Samuel and Elizabeth Parris, four and a half acres of land, adjoining upon the home field of the said Nathaniel Ingersoll; the three acres on the south alienated by gift, and the remainder by sale."

There was a fine young orchard on the land.

Joseph Houlton had conveyed to the parish a lot for the use of the ministry, attached to the parsonage house. A question having arisen in consequence of a lost deed, or some other imagined defect in the Houlton title, whether the land originally belonged to him or to Nathaniel Ingersoll, the latter disposed of it at once by an instrument recorded in the Essex Registry, of which the following is the substance:—

"Nathaniel Ingersoll to the Trustees of Salem Village Ministry land, for divers good causes and considerations me thereunto moving, but more especially for the true love and desire I have to the peace and welfare of Salem Village wherein I dwell, I hereby release, &c., all my right and title to five acres described in my brother Houlton's deed of sale," &c.

In the same Registry, the following extract is found, in a deed dated Jan. 28, 1708:—

"For the desire I have that children may be educated in Salem Village, I freely give four poles square of land to Rev. Joseph Green, to have and to hold the same, not for his own particular use, but for the setting a schoolhouse upon, and the encouragement of a school in this place."

The Essex Registry has a deed dated Jan. 6, 1714, of which the following is the substance:—

"For the good affection that I bear unto Deacon Edward Putnam, and the desire that I have of his comfortable attendance upon the public worship of God, I have freely given unto him, the said Deacon Edward Putnam, of Salem aforesaid, for him and his heirs for ever, a piece of land, bounded northerly upon the land of Joseph Green, next to his orchard gate, westerly on the highway, and southerly and easterly on my land."

Deacon Putnam was, at this time, sixty years of age. His homestead was at some distance; and it was often difficult for him to get to meeting. Ingersoll had always enjoyed the convenience of having only a few rods to go to the place of worship; and he desired to have his beloved colleague enjoy the same privilege. Besides, he longed to have him near. The proffer was probably accepted. We find that church-meetings were held at the house of Deacon Putnam, which would not probably so often have been the case, had he remained on his farm; and we know that there were two dwelling-houses, some time afterwards, on the Ingersoll lot. It was a pleasant arrangement: the two deacons and the minister being thus brought close together, and reaching each other through Ingersoll's garden and the minister's orchard. Of the personal friendship, attachment, and genial affection between the two good old deacons, the foregoing extract is a pleasing illustration.

Nathaniel Ingersoll's property was never very large; and, as he had enjoyed the luxury, all his life long, of benevolence and beneficence, there was no great amount to be left after suitably providing for his wife. But there was enough to enable him to express the family affection to which he was always true, and to give a parting assurance of his devotion to the church and people of the village. By his will, certain legacies were required to be paid by the residuary legatee and final heir within a reasonable time specified in the document. It bears date July 8, 1709, and was offered for Probate, Feb. 17, 1719. It begins thus:—

"In the name of God, Amen. I, Nathaniel Ingersoll, of Salem, in the county of Essex, in the Province of Massachutetts Bay, in New England, being through God's mercy in good health of body and of perfect memory, but not knowing how soon my great change may come, do make this my last will, in manner and form following: First, I give up my soul to God, in and through Jesus Christ my Redeemer, when he shall please to call for it, hoping for a glorious resurrection, in and through his merits; and my body to decent burial, at the discretion of my executors; and, as for the worldly estate God hath been pleased to give me, I dispose of it in the manner following," &c.

He gives a small sum of money, varying from thirty shillings to four pounds, to each and every nephew and niece then living, twenty-two in number. He provides for an annuity of twenty shillings a year for a sister, the only remaining member of his own immediate family, to be paid into the hands of the daughter who took care of her. Not being able to leave a large amount to any, he preferred to express his love for all. There were two items in the will which may be specially preserved from oblivion.

"I give to the church in Salem Village the sum of fifty shillings in money, for the more adorning the Lord's Table, to be laid out in some silver cup, at the discretion of the Pastor, Deacons, and my overseers."—"After my wife's decease, I give to Benjamin (my adopted son) who was very dutiful to me, while he lived with me, and helpful to me since he has gone from me, all the remaining part of my whole estate, both real and personal,—excepting a small parcel of land of about two acres, that lyeth between M^rs. Walcots and George Wyotts by the highway, which I give to the inhabitants of Salem Village, for a training place for ever."

The bonds required of the executors by the Probate Court were to the amount of two hundred pounds only, showing that his movable or personal estate was a very moderate one. There is a feature in the will, which is, I think, worthy of being mentioned, as evincing the excellent judgment and practical wisdom of this man.

"I give to Hannah, my well-beloved wife, the use and improvement of my whole estate during her natural life: and my will is, that, if my wife should marry again, he that she so marrieth, before she marry, shall give sufficient security to my overseers not to make strip or waste upon any of my estate; and, if he do not become so bound, I give one-half of my whole estate to Benjamin Hutchinson, at the time of my wife's marriage."

He did not cut her off entirely, as is sometimes attempted to be done, in the event of a second marriage, but secured her and the estate against suffering in case she took that step. He adopted an effectual method to prevent any one from seeking to marry her for the purpose of getting the benefit of her whole income and a comfortable establishment upon his property without providing for its preservation; and, if she should be so improvident as to marry again without having his conditions complied with, he took care that she should not thereby expose to injury or loss more than one-half of his estate. Ingenuity is much exercised in making wills, particularly in reference to the rights, interests, and security of wives. It is worthy of consideration, whether, all things considered, Nathaniel Ingersoll's plan is not about as skilful and just as any that has been devised.

We shall meet this man again in the course of our story. I trust to your good feeling in vindication of the space I have given to his biography; being strongly impressed with a conviction, that you will agree with me,—taking into view the influence he constantly exerted, his steadfast integrity and honor, his personal dignity and public spirit,—that the life of this citizen of a retired rural community, this plain "husbandman," is itself a monument to his memory more truly glorious than many which have been reared to perpetuate the names of men whom the world has called great. The "training place" has been carefully preserved. Occupying a central point, by the side of the principal street, this pretty lawn is a fitting memorial of the Father of the village. In its proper character, as a training-field, it is invested with an interest not elsewhere surpassed, if equalled. Within its enclosure the elements of the military art have been imparted to a greater number of persons distinguished in their day, and who have left an imperishable glory behind them as the defenders of the country, a brave yeomanry in arms, than on any other spot. It was probably used as a training field at the first settlement of the village. From the slaughter of Bloody Brook, the storming of the Narragansett Fort, and all the early Indian wars; from the Heights of Abraham, Lake George, Lexington, Bunker Hill, Brandywine, Pea Ridge, and a hundred other battle-fields, a lustre is reflected back upon this village parade-ground. It is associated with all the military traditions of the country, down to the late Rebellion. Lothrop, Davenport, Gardners, Dodges, Raymonds, Putnams, Porters, Hutchinsons, Herricks, Flints, and others, who here taught or learned the manual and drill, are names inscribed on the rolls of history for deeds of heroism and prowess.

There was the usual diversity and variety of character among the people of the village. John Procter originally lived in Ipswich, where he, as well as his father before him, had a farm of considerable value. In 1666, or about that time, he removed to Salem, and carried on the Downing farm, which had before been leased to the Flints. After a while, Procter purchased a part of it. If a conclusion can be drawn from the prevalent type of his posterity of our day, he was a man of herculean frame. There is, I think, a tradition to this effect. At any rate, his character was of that stamp. He had great native force and energy. He was bold in his spirit and in his language,—an upright man, no doubt, as the whole tone of the memorials of him indicate, but free and imprudent in speech, impulsive in feeling, and sometimes rash in action. He was liable from this cause, as we shall see, to get into contention and give offence. There was Jeremiah Watts, a representative of a class of men existing in every community where the intellect is stimulated and idiosyncrasies allowed to develop themselves. By occupation he was a dish-turner, but by temperament an enthusiast, a zealot, and an agitator. He was not satisfied with things as they were, nor willing to give time an opportunity to improve them. He took hold of the horns of the altar with daring hands. He denounced the Church and the world,—undertook to overturn every thing, and to put all on a new foundation. He entered on a crusade against what he called "pulpit preaching," whereby particular persons, called ministers, "may deliver what they please, and none must object; and this we must pay largely for; our bread must be taken out of our mouths, to maintain the beast's mark; and be wholly deprived of our Christian privileges. This is the time of Antichrist's reign, and he must reign this time: now are the witnesses slain, and the leaders in churches are these slayers. But I see plainly that it is a vain thing to debate about these things with our fellow-brethren; for they are all for lording it, and trampling under foot." This man imagined that he "was singled out alone to give his testimony for Christ, discovering Antichrist's marks." "If any," he cried out, "will be faithful for Christ, they must witness against Antichrist, which is self-love, and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. The witnesses are now slain, but shortly they will rise again," &c. He tried to get up "private Christian meetings," to run an opposition to "pulpit preaching." After going about from house to house, declaiming in this style, denouncing all who would not fall in with his notions and act with him, and not succeeding in overthrowing things in general, he hit upon a new expedient. As his neighbors had wit enough to let him alone, and did not suffer themselves to be tempted to resort to the civil power to make him keep quiet, he did it himself. He instituted proceedings against the ministers and churches, on the charge, that, by taking the rule into their own hands, they were supplanting the magistrates and usurping the civil power. This was not in itself a bad move; but the Court wisely declined to engage in the proceedings. They neither prosecuted the case nor him, but let the whole go by. They adhered severely to the do-nothing policy. What a world of mischief would have been avoided, if all courts, everywhere, at all times, had shown an equal wisdom! Watts was allowed to vex the village, torment the minister, and perplex those who listened to him by the ingenuity and ability with which he urged his views. He continued his brawling declamations until he was tired; but, not being noticed by ministers or magistrates, no great harm was done, and he probably subsided into a quiet and respectable citizen.

The prominent place Giles Corey is to occupy in the scene before us renders an account of him particularly necessary. It is not easy to describe him. He was a very singular person. His manner of life and general bearing and conversation were so disregardful, in many particulars, of the conventional proprieties of his day, that it is not safe to receive implicitly the statements made by his contemporaries. By his peculiarities of some sort, he got a bad name. In the Book of Records of the First Church in Salem, where his public profession of religion is recorded, he is spoken of as a man of eighty years of age, and of a "scandalous life," but who made a confession of his sins satisfactory to that body. It cannot be denied that he was regarded in this light by some; but there is no reason to believe, that, in referring to the sinfulness of his past life, the old man meant more than was usually understood by such language on such occasions. He was often charged with criminal acts; but in every instance the charge was proved to be either wholly unfounded or greatly exaggerated. He had a good many contentions and rough passages; but they were the natural consequences, when a bold and strong man was put upon the defensive, or drawn to the offensive, by the habit of inconsiderate aspersion into which some of his neighbors had been led, and the bad repute put upon him by scandal-mongers. He was evidently an industrious, hard-working man. He was a person of some means, a holder of considerable property in lands and other forms. Deeds are often found on record from and to him. He owned meadows near Ipswich River. His homestead, during the last thirty years of his life, was a farm of more than a hundred acres of very valuable land, which has been in the possession of the family, now owning it, for a hundred years. The present proprietor, Mr. Benjamin Taylor, some twenty years ago, ploughed up the site of Corey's dwelling-house; the vestiges of the cellar being then quite visible. It was near the crossing of the Salem and Lowell, and Georgetown and Boston Railroads, about three hundred feet to the west of the crossing, and close to the track of the former road, on its south side. The spot is surrounded by beautiful fields; and their aspect shows that it must have been, in all respects, an eligible estate. What is now known as "the Curtis Field" is a part of Corey's farm.

Giles Corey lived previously, for some time, in the town of Salem. He sold his house there in 1659. The contract with a carpenter for building his farmhouse is preserved. It was stipulated to be erected "where he shall appoint." While the carpenter was getting out the materials, he selected and bought the farm, on which he lived ever afterwards. The house was to be "twenty feet in length, fifteen in breadth, and eight feet stud." Nothing strikes us more, as strange and unaccountable, than the small size of houses in those days. One would have thought, that, where wood was so plenty and near at hand, and land of no account, they would have built larger houses. In a letter, dated Nov. 16, 1646, from Governor Winthrop to his son John, of Connecticut, he gives an account "of a tempest (than which I never observed a greater);" and mentions that the roof of "Lady Moody's house, at Salem," with all of the chimney above it, was blown off in two parts, and "carried six or eight rods. Ten persons lay under it, and knew not of it till they arose in the morning." The house had a flat roof, was of one story, and nine feet in height! Lady Deborah Moody was a person of high position, a connection of Sir Henry Vane, and a woman of property. She bought Mr. Humphreys' great plantation. But, like Townsend Bishop, she was dealt with, and compelled to quit the colony, on account of her doubts about infant baptism. Winthrop calls her a "wise and anciently religious woman." She went to Long Island, where her influence was so important, that Governor Stuyvesant consulted her in his administration, and conceded to her the nomination of magistrates. It seems very strange that such a lady should have had a house only nine feet high. The early houses were built either as temporary structures or with a view to enlargement. Perhaps Lady Moody intended to add a story to hers. They were low-studded for warmth. The farm-houses generally were designed to be increased in length, when convenience required. The chimney was very large, placed at one end, and so constructed, that, on the extension of the building, fire-places could be opened into it on the new end. A building of twenty feet was prepared to become one of forty feet in width or length, as the case might be; and then the chimney would be in the middle of it.

As has been intimated, Corey was in bad repute. Either he was a lawless man, or much misunderstood. I am inclined to the latter opinion. He belonged to that class of persons, instances of which we occasionally meet, who care little about the opinions or the talk of others. On one occasion, he was going into town with a cartload of wood. He met Anthony Needham, in company with John Procter whose house he had just passed. Procter accosted him thus: "How now, Giles, wilt thou never leave thy old trade? Thou hast got some of my wood here upon thy cart." Corey answered, "True, I did take two or three sticks to lay behind the cart to ease the oxen, because they bore too hard." This shows the free way in which Procter bantered with Corey, and the slight account the latter made of it. But the thing before long got to be too serious to be trifled with. It became the fashion to charge all sorts of offences against Corey; and, whatever any one lost or mislaid, he was considered as having abstracted it. The gossip against him was quite unrestrained, and created a bitter and angry feeling in the neighborhood. In the winter of 1676, a man named Goodell, who had been working on Corey's farm, was carried home to his friends by Corey's wife, in a feeble state of health, and died soon after. It was whispered about, and before long openly asserted, that he had come to his death in consequence of having been violently beaten by Corey, who was accordingly arrested and brought to trial for killing the man. There was a great excitement against him. He probably had punished the man severely for some alleged misconduct; and it was charged that the castigation had been so unmerciful and excessive as to have broken down his constitution and caused his death. There was conflicting evidence going to show that the man had been beaten, for some misconduct, after he had returned to his family. It was a circumstance in favor of Corey, that his wife had taken the invalid to his home; and there was no evidence of any ill feeling between her and the sick man during a stop they made at Procter's house on their way. The death, too, it was supposed by some, might have resulted from ordinary disease, and not from whipping, either at Corey's or at home. The result was, that, notwithstanding the prejudice against Corey, he was discharged on paying a fine; showing that the Court did not consider it a very serious offence. We shall hear of this affair again.

In the year 1678, there was a suit at law between Corey and a man named John Gloyd, a laborer on his farm, on a question of wages. The case was, by agreement of the parties, passed out of court into the hands of arbitrators mutually chosen. John Procter was one of the arbitrators, and, as it would seem, chosen as the friend of Gloyd: Nathaniel Putnam and Edmund Bridges were the others; one of them chosen by Corey, and the other mutually agreed upon. They brought in their award. Its precise character is not stated; but the circumstances indicate that it was favorable to Gloyd. The conduct of Corey on this occasion shows, that, though a rough man perhaps, and liable, from his peculiar ways, to be harshly spoken of, he had, after all, a generous, forgiving, and genial nature. Nathaniel Putnam and Edmund Bridges state, that, when they brought in their award, "it was greatly to the satisfaction of the parties concerned; and Giles Corey did manifest as much satisfaction, and gave as many thanks to every one of us, as ever we heard; and Goodman Corey did manifest, to our observation, as much satisfaction to John Procter as he did to the rest of the arbitrators." Captain Moore, being by when the award was brought in, says, "I did see and take notice of the abundance of love manifested from Corey to Procter, and from Procter to Corey: for they drank wine together; and Procter paid for part, and Corey for part."

This remarkable overflow of affection between these two men is rendered interesting, not merely by the collisions into which, before and after, their impulsive and imprudent natures brought them, but by the part they were destined to enact in an impending tragedy, which was to bring them to a fearful end in a manner and on a scene that will arrest the notice of all ages, and attest to their strong characters and heroic spirit. The passage has a unique interest, and is worthy of a painter.

It happened unfortunately, that, a few days after the loving embraces of these hardy men, Procter's house took fire. According to their habit, some of the neighbors at once started the idea, that Corey had set fire to it because of the award of the arbitrators, of whom Procter was one. Under the excitement of the conflagration, with his usual rashness, and forgetting the pledges of reconciliation that had just passed between them, Procter fell in with the accusation, and Corey was brought to trial. It appeared, in evidence, that John Phelps and Thomas Fuller, who lived on the western borders of the village, near Ipswich River, coming along the road towards Procter's Corner about two hours before daylight, on the way probably to Salem market, saw his roof on fire, gave the alarm, and stopped to help put it out. Thomas Gould and Thomas Flint thought it must be the work of an incendiary, or of "an evil hand," as they expressed it, from the place where it took and the hour when it occurred. On the other hand, it was testified by James Poland and Caleb and Jane Moore, that they heard John Procter say that his boy carried a lamp and set the fire by accident. This was said by him, probably before the idea of Corey's agency in the matter had been put into his head. The prisoner proved an alibi by the most conclusive evidence, which is so curious, as giving an insight of a farmer's life at that time, and of Corey's domestic condition, that it may well be inserted.

Abraham Walcot testifies, that, "Tuesday night last was a week, I lodged at Giles Corey's house, which night John Procter's house was damaged by fire; and Giles Corey went to bed before nine o'clock, and rose about sunrise again, and could not have gone out of the house but I should have heard him; and it must have been impossible that he should have gone to Procter's house that night; for he cannot in a long time go afoot, and, for his horse-kind, they were all in the woods. And further testifieth, that said Corey came home very weary from work, and went to bed the rather." His wife testified that he was in bed from nine o'clock until sunrise.

John Parker, one of Corey's four sons-in-law, testified as follows: "I being at work with my father, Goodman Corey, the day Goodman Procter's house was on fire. I going home with my father the night before, he complained that he was very weary, and said he would go to bed. I did, on our way going, ask him whether or no he would eat his supper: my father answered me again, no, he could not eat any thing that night; and so went to bed, and so I left him abed. And, the next morning, my father came to me about sun-rising, and asked me to go with Abraham Walcot to fetch a load of hay; and my father said he would try whether or not he could cart up a load of peas. I do also testify that he had no horse-kind near at home at that time."

John Gloyd, the hired man, with whom he had the lawsuit that had been settled a day or two before by arbitrators, testified, in corroboration of Parker, and to show that the latter could not have had any thing to do with the fire, that he slept in the same room with said Parker that night, and that he came to bed between nine and ten o'clock in the evening, and never rose until the break of day. Gloyd's wife testified to the same effect. There turned out to be no evidence against Corey whatever, but abundant proof of his innocence. The hard-working, "weary" old man was triumphantly acquitted. He thought, however, from this high-handed and utterly groundless attempt to wrong and ruin him, and from calumnious general statements that had been made against him in the course of the trial, that it was time to put a stop to the malignant and mischievous slanders which had been current in the neighborhood. He instituted prosecutions of Procter and others for defamation, and recovered against them all. After this, we hear no more of him until he experienced religion and was received into the First Church. Whether he and Procter became reconciled again is not known. Probably they did; for they seem to have had points of attraction, and each of them traits of kind-heartedness and generosity, under a rather rough exterior. The manner in which they bore themselves in their last hours is a matter of history, and stamps them both with true manliness.

The incidents which have now been related, and the peculiar traits of this man, are perhaps sufficient to account for the fact, that he was spoken of as a person of "a scandalous" life. He had afforded food for scandal; and it is not surprising, that, in a rural community, where but few topics for talk occur beyond the village boundaries, all should have participated, more or less, in criticising his ways, and that the various difficulties into which he had been drawn, and the charges against him, should have made him the object of much prejudice. His wife Martha was also a noticeable character. She was a professor of religion, a member of the village church, and found her chief happiness in attendance upon public worship and in private devotions. Much of her time—indeed, all that she could rescue from the labors of the household—was spent in prayer. She was a woman of spirit and pluck, as we shall see.

Another notability of the village was Bridget Bishop. In 1666—then the widow Wasselbe—she was married to Thomas Oliver. After his death, she became the wife of Edward Bishop, who is spoken of as a "sawyer." This term did not describe the same occupation then to which it is almost wholly applied now. Firewood, in those days, was not, as a general thing, sawed, but chopped. The sawyer got out boards and joists, beams, and timber of all kinds, from logs; and before mills were constructed, or where they were not conveniently accessible, it was an indispensable employment, and held a high rank among the departments of useful industry. It was in constant requisition in shipyards. It was a manly form of labor, requiring a considerable outlay of apparatus, and developing finely the whole muscular organization. The implement employed, beside the ordinary tools, such as wedges, beetles, the broad-axe, chains, and crowbar, was a strong steel cutting-plate, of great breadth, with large teeth, highly polished and thoroughly wrought, some eight or ten feet in length, with a double handle, crossing the plate at each end at a right angle. It was worked by two men, and called a "pit-saw," because sometimes the man at the lower handle stood in a deep pit, dug for the purpose, and called a "saw-pit." But, among the early settlers, the usual method was to make a frame of strong timbers. The log to be sawed was raised by slings, or slid up an inclined plane, and placed upon cross-beams. Above it, a scaffolding was made on which one man stood; the other stood on the ground below. They each held the saw by both hands, and worked in unison. The log was pushed along by handspikes as they reached the cross-timbers, and wedges were used to keep the cleft open, that the saw might work free. So important was this business considered, that, from time to time, the General Court regulated by law the rates of pay to the sawyer. If a farmer had suitable woodlands, he provided in many cases a saw-frame or saw-pit of his own, got out his logs, and worked them into boards or square timber for sale. This was a profitable business.

Edward Bishop had resided, for some seven years previous to the witchcraft delusion, within the limits of Salem, near the Beverly line. His wife Bridget was a singular character, not easily described. She kept a house of refreshment for travellers, and a shovel-board for the entertainment of her guests, and generally seems to have countenanced amusements and gayeties to an extent that exposed her to some scandal. She is described as wearing "a black cap and a black hat, and a red paragon bodice," bordered and looped with different colors. This would appear to have been rather a showy costume for the times. Her freedom from the austerity of Puritan manners, and disregard of conventional decorum in her conversation and conduct, brought her into disrepute; and the tongue of gossip was generally loosened against her. She was charged with witchcraft, and actually brought to trial on the charge, in 1680, but was acquitted; the popular mind not being quite ripe for such proceedings as took place twelve years afterwards. She still continued to brave public sentiment, lived on in the same free and easy style, paying no regard to the scowls of the sanctimonious or the foolish tittle-tattle of the superstitious. She kept her house of entertainment, shovel-board, and other appurtenances. Sometimes, however, she resented the calumnies circulated about her being a witch, in a manner that made it to be felt that it was best to let her alone. A man called one day at the house of Samuel Shattuck, where there was a sick child. He was a stranger to the inmates of the family, and evidently had come to the place to make trouble for Bridget Bishop. He pretended great pity for the child, and said, among other things, in an oracular way, "We are all born, some to one thing, and some to another." The mother asked him what he thought her poor, suffering child was born to. He replied, "He is born to be bewitched, and is bewitched: you have a neighbor, that lives not far off, who is a witch." The good woman does not appear to have entertained any suspicion of the kind; but the man insisted on the truth of what he had affirmed. He succeeded in exciting her feelings on the subject, and, by vague insinuations and general descriptions of the witch, led her mind to fix upon Bridget Bishop. He said he should go and see her, and that he could bring her out as the afflicter of her child. She consented to let another of her boys go with him, and show the way. They proceeded to the house, and knocked at the door. Bridget opened it, and asked what he would have: he said a pot of cider. There was something in the manner of the man which satisfied her that he had come with mischievous intent. She ordered him off, seized a spade that happened to be near, drove him out of her porch, and chased him from her premises. When he and the boy got back, they bore marks of the bad luck of the adventure. Such things had perhaps happened before, and it was found that whoever provoked her resentment was very likely to come off second best from the encounter; yet Bridget was a member of Mr. Hale's Church in Beverly, and retained her standing in full fellowship there. It must have been thought, by the pastor and members of that church, that no charge seriously affecting her moral or Christian character was justly imputable to her.

The traveller of to-day, in passing over Crane-river Bridge, approaching the present village of "The Plains," near the eastern end of the Townsend Bishop or Nurse farm, will notice a roadway by the side of the bridge descending through the brook and going up to rejoin the main road on the other side. Such turnouts are frequent by the side of bridges over small streams. They are refreshing and useful, cooling the feet and cleansing the fetlocks of horses, and washing the wheels of carriages. One afternoon, Edward Bishop, with his wife behind him on a pillion, was riding home from Salem. Two women, mounted in the same way, joined them; and they chatted together pleasantly as their horses ambled along. When they came to the bridge, Bishop, probably merely for the fun of the thing, dashed down into the brook, instead of going over the bridge, to the great consternation and against the vehement remonstrances of his wife, who berated him soundly for his reckless disregard of her safety. They got through without accident; and the four jogged on together until the Bishops turned up to their house, and the other two kept on to their home in Beverly. But all the way from the bridge, until they parted company, Bishop was finding great fault with his wife, saying that he should not have been sorry if any mishap had occurred. She did not say much after her first fright and resentment were over; but he kept on talking very freely about her, and using some pretty hard language. This affair, which perhaps is not without a parallel in the occasional experiences of married life, was, with other things of an equally trivial and irrelevant character, brought to bear fatally against her at her trial on the charge of witchcraft, between seven and eight years afterward.

I can find no evidence against the moral character of this woman. One person, at least, who participated largely in getting up accusations against her, acknowledged, in a death-bed repentance, the wrong she had done. Mr. Hale, the minister of the Beverly congregation, states, in a deposition, that a certain woman, "being in full communion in our church, came to me to desire that Goodwife Bishop, her neighbor, wife of Edward Bishop, Jr., might not be permitted to receive the Lord's Supper in our church till she had given her satisfaction for some offences that were against her; namely, because the said Bishop did entertain people in her house at unseasonable hours in the night, to keep drinking and playing at shovel-board, whereby discord did arise in other families, and young people were in danger to be corrupted; that she knew these things, and had once gone into the house, and, finding some at shovel-board, had taken the pieces they played with and thrown them into the fire, and had reproved the said Bishop for promoting such disorders, but received no satisfaction from her about it." According to Mr. Hale's statement, the night after this complaint was brought to him, the woman was found to be distracted. "She continuing some time distracted, we sought the Lord by fasting and prayer." After a while, the woman recovered her senses, and, as Mr. Hale says he understood, expressed a suspicion "that she had been bewitched by Bishop's wife." He declares that he did not, at the time, countenance the idea, "hoping better of Goody Bishop." He says further, that he "inquired of Margaret King, who kept at or near the house," what she had observed concerning the woman who had been distracted. "She told me that she was much given to reading and searching the prophecies of Scripture." At length the woman appeared to have entirely recovered, went to Goody Bishop, gave satisfaction for what she had said and done against her, and they became friends again. Mr. Hale goes on to say, "I was oft praying with and counselling of her before her death." She earnestly desired that "Edward Bishop might be sent for, that she might make friends with him. I asked her if she had wronged Edward Bishop. She said, not that she knew of, unless it were in taking his shovel-board pieces, when people were at play with them, and throwing them into the fire; and, if she did evil in it, she was very sorry for it, and desired he would be friends with her, or forgive her. This was the very day before she died." That night her distemper returned, and, in a paroxysm of insanity, she destroyed herself.