Kitabı oku: «The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1», sayfa 6
In 1638 the court passed a curious law regulating the use of tobacco, which runs as follows:
"The Court finding since ye repealing of ye former laws against tobacco ye law is more abused than before, it hath therefore ordered that no man shall take any tobacco in ye field except in his iourney, or meale times, vpon pain of 12d for every offence, nor shall take any tobacco in (or near) any dwelling house, barne, Corn or Haye, as may be likely to endanger ye fireing thereof, vpon paine of 2s for every offence, nor shall take any tobacco in any Inne or common victualling house; except in a private room there; so as neither the master of the same house nor any other gueste there shall take offence thereat; wch if they doo, then such p son is forth wth to forebeare, vpon paine of 2s 6d for every offence."
One office created by the court of that early period it might not be a bad idea for the authorities of the present day to revive. Wardens were appointed annually to "take care of and manage ye affairs of ye School; they shall see that both ye Master & Schollar, perform, their duty, and Judge of and End any difference that may arrise between Master & Schollar, or their Parents, according to Sundry Rules & Directions," set down for their guidance.
In all matters coming within the province and jurisdiction of the colonial church the law was even more exacting than in merely civil affairs; and singularly enough, the town authorities took it upon themselves to seat all persons who attended divine service in the meeting-house where it seemed to them most proper. With the full approbation of the selectmen, responsible persons were sometimes allowed to construct pews or seats for themselves and their families in the meeting-house; but it appears on one occasion that three citizens undertook to "make a seat in ye meeting-house," without first getting the full permission and consent of the town fathers, an act deemed exceedingly sinful, and for which they were arraigned before the town at a special meeting and publicly censured. After duly considering the case it was decided to allow the seat to remain, provided it should not be disposed of to any person but such as the town should approve of, and that the offending parties acknowledge their "too much forwardness," in writing, which they did in the following manner:
"We whose names are underwritten, do acknowledge that it was our weakness that we were so inconsiderate as to make a small seat in the meeting-house without more clear and full approbation of the town and selectmen thereof, though we thought upon the conference we had with some of the selectmen apart, and elders, we had satisfying ground for our proceeding therein; wch we now see was not sufficent; therefore we do desire that our failing therein may be passed by; and if the town will grant our seat that we have been at so much cost in setting up, we thankfully acknowledge your love unto us therein, and we do hereupon further engage ourselves that we will not give up nor sell any of our places in that seat to any person or persons but whom the elders shall approve of, or such as shall have power to place men in seats in the assembly.
[Signed]. INCREASE ATHERTON,
SAMUEL PROCTOR,
THOMAS BIRD.
At another time one Joseph Leeds, a member of the church, was accused of maltreating his wife; the charge was sustained, and after the case had been considered at several special meetings, it was settled by his confessing and promising "to carry it more lovingly to her for time to come." But Jonathan Blackman, another erring brother, was charged with misdemeanors that could not be so easily overlooked; he was accused of lying and also of stealing. He had been whipped for these offences, but refused to come before the church for wholesome discipline, and ran away out of the jurisdiction. Accordingly he was "disowned from his church relation and excommunicated, though not deliuered up to Satan, as those in full communion, but yet to be looked at as a Heathen and a Publican unto his relations natural and civil, that he might be ashamed."
Another class of statutes—laws that have a queer sound in nineteenth-century Massachusetts—were designed for the encouragement of special public service. Here are examples of some of them:
"1638. For the better encouragement of any that shall destroy wolves, it is ordered that for every wolf any man shall take in Dorchester plantation, he shall have 20s by the town, for the first wolf, 15s for the second, and for every wolf afterwards, 10s besides the Country's pay."
"1736. Voted, that whosoever shall kill brown rats, so much grown as to have their hair on them, within ye town of Dochester, ye year ensuing, until our meeting in May next, and bring in their scalps with ye ears on unto ye town treasurer, shall be paid by ye town treasurer Fourpence for every rat's scalp."
The same year the town offered a bounty for the destroying of striped squirrels.
Now that the recent death of Wendell Phillips brings freshly to mind the bitter opposition with which the early champions of abolution were treated in Boston and vicinity, it is pleasant to find in the musty records of the Dochester Plantation emphatic evidence that they not only recognized slavery as an evil, and the slave-trade as a heinous crime, but that they set their faces like a flint against it. The traffic in slaves began among the colonists in the winter of 1645-6, and in the following November the court placed on record this outspoken denunciation of the practice:
"The Gen'all Co'te conceiving themselves bound by ye first opertunity to bear Witness against ye haynos & crying sin of man stealing, as also to prscribe such timely redresse for what is past, and such a law for ye future as may sufficiently deter all others belonging to us to have to do in such vile and odious courses, iustly abhored of all good and iust men, do order yt ye negro interpreter wth others unlawfully taken, be ye first opertunity (at ye charge of ye country for psent), sent to his native country in Ginny, & a letter wth him of ye indignation of ye Corte thereabout, and iustice hereof, desiring or honored Govrnr would please put this order in execution."
How men so clear in their convictions of the rights of Africans could be guilty of the most heartless injustice to Quakers and their friends, it is not easy to explain; and yet they mercilessly persecuted one of their own fellow-citizens, Nicholas Upsall, and made him an exile from his home, for no greater crime than that of countenancing and befriending members of the Society of Friends. He kept the Dorchester hostelry, and was wont to entertain Quakers as he did any other decent people; but for this he was apprehended and tried by the court, and sentenced to pay a fine of £20 and be thrown into prison. Finally, finding it impossible to entirely prevent his friends from holding intercourse with him, he was banished from the settlement for the remainder of his life. That curious book, "Persecutors Maul'd with their own Weapons," contains the following account of the case:
"Nicholas Upsall, an old man full of years, seeing their (the authorities) cruelty to the harmless Quakers that they had condemned some of them to die, both he and elder Wisewell, or otherwise Deacon Wisewell, members of the church in Boston, bore their testimonies in public against their brethren's horrid cruelty to the said Quakers. And the said Upsall declared that he did look at it as a sad forerunner of some heavy judgment to follow upon the country; which they took so ill at his hands, that they fined him twenty pounds and three pounds more at another meeting of the court, for not coming to their meeting, and would not abate him one grote, but imprisoned him and then banished him on pain of death, which was done in a time of such extreme bitter weather for frost, snow and cold, that had not the heathen Indians in the wilderness woods taken compassion on his misery, for the winter season, he in all likelihood had perished, though he had then a good estate in houses and lands, goods and money, also a wife and children."
One of the officials who for a time had charge of poor Upsall during the period of his imprisonment was John Capen, of whom the old chroniclers have left a pleasanter record, namely, a transcript of several of his youthful love-letters. The following will serve as sample:
"SWEETE-HARTE,
"My kind loue and affection to you remembered; hauinge not a convenient opertunety to see and speake wth you soe oft as I could desier, I therefore make bold to take opertunety as occassione offers it selfe to vissit you wth my letter, desiering yt it may find acceptance wth you, as a token of my loue to you; as I can assuer you yt yours have found from me; for as I came home from you ye other day, by ye way I reseaued your letter from your faithfull messenger wch was welcom vnto me, and for wch I kindly thanke you, and do desier yt as it is ye first: so yt may not be ye last, but yt it may be as a seed wch will bring forth more frute: and for your good counsell and aduise in your letter specified, I doe accept, and do desier yt we may still command ye casse to god for direction and cleering vp of your way as I hope wee haue hitherto done; and yt our long considerations may at ye next time bring forth firme concessions, I meane verbally though not formally. Sweete-harte I have given you a large ensample of patience, I hope you will learn this instruction from y'e same, namely, to show ye like toward me if euer occassion be offered for futuer time, and for ye present condesendency vnto my request; thus wch my kind loue remembered to yor father and mother and Brothers and sisters wth thanks for all their kindness wch haue been vndeseruing in me I rest, leauing both them and vs vnto ye protection and wise direction of ye almighty.
"My mother remembers her love vnto yor father and mother; as also vnto your selfe though as it vnknown.
"Yors to command in anything I pleas.
"JOHN CAPEN."
In this connection may very properly be given another letter written at about the same date. Punkapoag, the summer residence of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, the poet editor of the Atlantic, was a part of colonial Dorchester and one of the points where the famous John Eliot began his missionary labors among the Indians. In the interest of the natives at that station he wrote the following letter to his friend, Major Atherton, in 1657:
"Much Honored and Beloved in the Lord:
"Though our poore Indians are molested in most places in their meetings in way of civilities, yet the Lord hath put it into your hearts to suffer us to meet quietly at Ponkipog, for wch I thank God, and am thankful to yourselfe and all the good people of Dorchester. And now that our meetings may be the more comfortable and p varable, my request is, yt you would further these two motions: first, yt you would please to make an order in your towne and record it in your towne record, that you approve and allow ye Indians of Ponkipog there to sit downe and make a towne, and to inioy such accommodations as may be competent to maintain God's ordinances among them another day. My second request is, yt you would appoint fitting men, who may in a fitt season bound and lay out the same, and record yt alsoe. And thus commending you to the Lord, I rest,
"Yours to serve in the service of Jesus Christ,
"JOHN ELIOT."
Following this missive a letter on quite a different subject, dictated by the redoubtable Indian chief, King Philip, may be interesting. It bears date of 1672, and is addressed to Captain Hopestill Foster of Dorchester:
"Sr you may please to remember that when I last saw You att Walling river You promised me six pounds in goods; now my request is that you would send me by this Indian five yards of White light collered serge to make me a coat and a good Holland shirt redy made; and a pr of good Indian briches all of which I have present need of, therefoer I pray Sr faile not to send them by my Indian and with them the severall prices of them; and silke & buttens & 7 yards Gallownes for trimming; not else att present to trouble you wth onley the subscription of
"KING PHILIP,
"his Majesty P.P."
One of the best commentaries on the lives and characters of the chief actors in the history of the Dorchester Plantation may be read on the tombstones that mark the places where their precious dust was deposited. From Rev. Richard Mather, the most noted pastor of the church of that period, to the humblest contemporary of his who enjoyed the rights and priveleges of a free-holder, none was so mean or obscure that a characteristic, if not fitting, epitaph did not mark the place of his sepulture. From the many well worth perusing, the following are singled and transcribed for the readers of this sketch.
Epitaph of James Humfrey, "one of ye ruling elders of Dorchester," in the form of an acrostic:
"I nclos'd within this shrine is precious dust.
A nd only waits ye rising of ye just.
M ost usefull while he liu'd, adorn'd his Station,
E uen to old age he Seur'd his Generation.
H ow great a Blessing this Ruling Elder be
U nto the Church & Town: & Pastors Three.
M ather he first did by him help Receiue;
F lynt did he next his burden much Relieue;
R enouned Danforth he did assist with Skill:
E steemed high by all; Bear fruit Untill,
Y eilding to Death his Glorious seat did fill."
When Elder Hopestill Clapp died his pastor, Rev. John Danforth, composed the following verses for his grave stone:
"His Dust waits till ye Jubile,
Shall then Shine brighter than ye Skie;
Shall meet and join to part no more,
His soul that Glorify'd before.
Pastors and Churches happy be,
With Ruling Elders such as he;
Present useful, Absent Wanted,
Liv'd Desired, Died Lamented."
William Pole, an eccentric citizen of the village, before his demise, composed an epitaph to be chiseled on his monument, "Yt so being dead he might warn posterity; or, a resemblance of a dead man bespeaking ye reader;" so under a death's head and cross-bones it stands thus:
"Ho passenger 'tis worth your paines to stay
& take a dead man's lesson by ye way.
I was what now thou art & thou shall be
What I am now what odds twixt me and thee
Now go thy way but stay take one word more
Thy staff for ought thou knowest stands next ye door
Death is ye dore yea dore of heaven or hell
Be warned, Be armed, Believe, Repent, Fairewell."
The virtues of one who was "downright for business, one of cheerful spirit and entire for the country" are recorded in this fashion:
"Here lyes ovr Captaine, & Major of Suffolk was withall:
A Goodley Magistrate was he, and Major Generall,
Two Troops of Hors with him here came, svch worth his loue did crave;
Ten Companyes of Foot also movrning marcht to his grave.
Let all that Read be sure to Keep the Faith as he has don.
With Christ his liues now, crowned, his name was Hvmfrey Atherton."
The following was written on the death of John Foster, who is mentioned in the old annals as a "mathematician and printer":
"Thy body which no activeness did lack,
Now's laid aside like an old Almanack;
But for the present only's out of date,
'Twill have at length a far more active state.
Yes, tho' with dust thy body soiled be.
Yet at the resurrection we shall see
A fair EDITION, and of matchless worth.
Free from ERRATAS, new in Heaven set forth.
'Tis but a word from God the great Creator,
It shall be done when he saith Imprimator."
The clerk of the old Dorchester Church seems also to have been a maker of elegiac verse; for after the decease of Rev. Richard Mather, the pastor, and one of the ablest divines of colonial New England, the church records contain the two complimentary stanzas quoted below, the first being an evident attempt at anagram:
"Third in New England's Dorchester,
Was this ordained minister.
Second to none for faithfulness,
Abilities and usefulness.
Divine his charms, years seven times seven,
Wise to win souls from earth to heaven.
Prophet's reward his gains above,
But great's our loss by his remove."
Sacred to God his servant Richard Mather,
Sons like him, good and great, did call him father.
Hard to discern a difference in degree,
'Twixt his bright learning and his piety.
Short time his sleeping dust lies covered down,
So can't his soul or his deserved renown.
From 's birth six lustres and a jubilee
To his repose: but labored hard in thee,
O, Dorchester! four more than thirty years
His sacred dust with thee thine honour rears."
This couplet to three brothers named Clarke must suffice for epitaphs:
"Here lie three Clarkes, their accounts are even,
Entered on earth, carried up to Heaven."
Before taking leave of these fascinating old records, so rich in facts and the stuff that fiction is made of, it will be interesting to have an estimate of the growth of the Dorchester Plantation; for this purpose the valuation of the town is given, a century from the date of its settlement:
The tax for that year, assessed on real estate, was £72 16s 6d; on personal estate, £9 14s 11d.
When all who took up the original claims on Allen's Plain had passed through the vicissitudes of their troubled lives and been numbered with the silent majority in the field of epitaphs, already alluded to, and their descendents were on the eve of the great struggle which was destined to sever them from the mother country, and the hearts of patriotic men began to feel the premonitory throbs of that spirit of independence soon to fire the first shot at Lexington, the Union and Association of Sons of Liberty in the province held a grand celebration in Boston, on the fourteenth of August, 1769. From John Adams's famous diary we learn that this jovial company, including the leading spirits of the time, first assembled at Liberty Tree, in Boston, where they drank fourteen toasts, and then adjourned to Liberty Tree Tavern, which was none other than Robinson's Tavern in Dorchester. There under a mammoth tent in an adjacent field long tables were spread, and over three hundred persons sat down to a sumptuous dinner. "Three large pigs were barbecued," and "forty-five toasts were given on the occasion," the last of which was, "Strong halters, firm blocks and sharp axes to all such as deserve them." The toasts were varied with songs of liberty and patriotism by a noted colonial mimic named Balch, and another song composed and sung by Dr. Church. "At five o'clock," says Mr. Adams, "the Boston people started home, led by Mr. Hancock in his chariot, and to the honour of the Sons, I did not see one person intoxicated."
HOLLIS STREET CHURCH
The demolition of Hollis Street Church in this city destroys another old historic land-mark, which, like King's Chapel, the old State House, and other venerable structures, have a record that endears them to the popular heart. A brief sketch of the three buildings which have successively occupied the site, which is so soon to be left vacant, is worthy of preservation.
The name of the church and the street on which it stood was bestowed in honor of Thomas Hollis, of London, noted for his liberal benefactions; and his nephew of the same name devoted a bell for the edifice, in 1734.
The land on which the original structure was erected, was presented for that purpose by Governor Belcher, in 1731; and in April of the same year, by permission of the selectmen of Tri-Mountain, or Boston, a wooden building, sixty feet long and forty feet wide, was began, which was finished and dedicated in midsummer of the following year.
In the great South End fire, on the twentieth of April, 1787, and in response to an imperative demand, a second, and larger wooden house, was erected on the site of the first, and made ready for occupancy in the course of the following year. This building was planned by Charles Bulfinch, and in its architecture resembled St. Paul's Church, now standing on Tremont street.
Within a year the Hollis Street Society has removed to an elegant new edifice on the Back Bay, and the brick building they left behind must now disappear in the march of improvement. It was erected in 1811, in order to accommodate the prosperous and rapidly-growing society for whom it stood as a place of worship. To make room for it, the wooden meeting-house already referred to was taken down in sections and removed to the town of Braintree.
The several clergymen who have been the honored pastors of Hollis Street Church are worthy of mention in this connection. The first was Rev. Mather Byles, a lineal descendant of John Cotton and Richard Mather, who was ordained pastor, December 20, 1732. He was dismissed August 14, 1776, on account of his strong Tory proclivities. His immediate successor was Rev. Ebenezer Wright, a young divine from Dedham and a graduate of Harvard, who remained the pastor until the new meeting-house was finished, in 1788, when he was dismissed at his own request, on account of ill-health.
The next pastor was a man in middle life, who made himself an acknowledged power among the Boston clergy, Rev. Samuel West, of Needham. He died in 1808, and was succeeded by Rev. Horace Holley, from Connecticut, who was installed in March, 1809, and remained till 1818. Rev. John Pierpont, who resigned in 1845, made way for Rev. David Fosdick, who preached there two years, when Rev. Starr King was settled in 1845, and remained till 1861, Rev. George L. Chaney then took the place till 1877, and was succeeded by Rev. H. Bernard Carpenter, the present pastor.
