Note 46 — HISTORICAL ADDRESS

This was the Rev. John Lyford. A detailed account of the somewhat high handed proceedings of the Plymouth authorities in regard to this individual and John Oldham is found in Bradford’s History. The ceremonial of Oldham’s expulsion from Plymouth was formal but peculiar. Morton gives the following account of it: “A lane of Musketiers was made, and hee compelled in scorne to passe along betweene, & to receave a bob upon the bumme be every musketier, and then a board a shallop, and so convayed to Wessaguscus shoare & staid at Massachussets, to whome Iohn Layford and some few more did resort, where Master Layford freely executed his office and preached every Lords day, and yet maintained his wife & children foure or five, upon his industry there, with the blessing of God, and the plenty of the Land, without the helpe of his auditory, in an honest and laudable manner, till hee was wearied, and made to leave the Country.” New English Canaan (p. 81); see also Bradford (p. 190). This took place early in 1625, but the Oldham and Lyford settlement was at Hull, not at Wessagusset, and lasted but little over a year; note to Bradford (p. 195).