Salem Witchcraft Part 9

"I have attached the body of George Burroughs he tendered to me,--for he said he had no pay,--and taken bonds to the value of fourteen pounds money, and read this to him.

Per me,

HENRY SKERRY, _Marshal_."

The bond is as follows. I give the names of the signers. The persons who interposed to rescue a persecuted man from unjust imprisonment deserve to be held in honored remembrance.

"We whose names are underwritten do bind ourselves jointly and severally to Henry Skerry, Marshal of Salem, our heirs, executors, and administrators, in the sum of fourteen pounds money, that George Burroughs shall appear at the next court at Salem, to answer to Lieutenant John Putnam, according to the summons of this attachment, and to abide the order of the court therein, and not to depart without license; as witness our hands this 2d of May, 1683.

"GEORGE BURROUGHS.

NATHANIEL INGERSOLL.

JOHN BUXTON.

THOMAS HAYNES.

SAMUEL SIBLEY.

WILLIAM SIBLEY.

WILLIAM IRELAND, JR."

The case was withdrawn, and Burroughs was glad to get away. He preferred the Indians at Cas...o...b..y to the people here. When we consider, that a committee of the parish pet.i.tioned the Court to have such a meeting of the inhabitants; that it was held, by an order of Court, in compliance with said pet.i.tion; that Burroughs came back to the village to attend it; that the meeting agreed, in answer to an inquiry from him to that effect, to conform to the order of the Court in making it the occasion of a full and final "reckoning" between them; that they spent two days and a half in bringing in and sifting all claims on either side; and that, when, at the time agreed upon,--the afternoon of the third day,--the whole body of the inhabitants had come together to ratify and give effect to the "reckoning," the marshal came in with a writ, and, evidently in violation of his feelings, was forced by John Putnam to arrest Burroughs, thereby breaking up the proceedings asked for by the parish and ordered by the Court, for a debt which he did not owe,--it must be allowed, that it was one of the most audacious and abominable outrages ever committed.

The scene presented in these doc.u.ments is perhaps as vivid, and brings the actual life before us as strikingly, as any thing that has come down to us from that day. We can see, as though we were looking in at the door, the spectacle presented in the old meeting-house: the farmers gathered from their remote and widely scattered plantations, some possibly coming in travelling family-vehicles,--although it is quite uncertain whether there were any at that time among the farmers; some in companies on farm-carts; many on foot; but the greater number on horseback, in their picturesque costume of homespun or moose-skin, with cowl-shaped hoods, or hats with a brim, narrow in front, but broad and slouching behind, hanging over the shoulders.

Every man was belted and sworded. They did not wear weapons merely for show. There was half a score of men in that a.s.sembly who were in the Narragansett fight; and some bore on their persons scars from that b.l.o.o.d.y scene of desperate heroism. Every man, it is probable, had come to the meeting with his firelock on his shoulder, to defend himself and companions against Indians lurking in the thick woods through which they had to pa.s.s. Their countenances bespoke the pa.s.sions to which they had been wrought up by their fierce parish quarrels,--rugged, severe, and earnest. We can see the grim bearing of the cavalry lieutenant, John Putnam, and of his elder brother and predecessor in commission. Marshal Skerry, with his badges of office, is reluctant to execute its functions upon a persecuted and penniless minister; but, in accordance with the stern demands of the inexorable prosecutors, is faithful still to his painful duty. The minister is the central object in the picture,--a small, dark-complexioned man, the amazed but calm and patient victim of an animosity in which he had no part, and for which he was in no wise responsible. The unresisting dignity of his bearing is quite observable. "We are now reckoning; we know not yet who is in debt. I have no pay; but here is my body."

Perhaps, in that unconspicuous frame, and through that humble garb, the sinewy nerves and muscles of steel, the compact and concentrated forces, that were the marvel of his times, and finally cost him his life, were apparent in his movements and att.i.tudes. It may be, that the sufferings and exposures of his previous life had left upon his swarthy features a stamp of care and melancholy, foreshadowing the greater wrongs and trials in store for him. But the chief figure in the group is the just man who rose and rebuked the harsh and reprehensible procedure of the powerful landholder, neighbor and friend though he was. The manner in which the arbitrary trooper bowed to the rebuke, if it does not mitigate our resentment of his conduct, ill.u.s.trates the extraordinary influence of Nathaniel Ingersoll's character, and demonstrates the deference in which all men held him.

There are in this affair other points worthy of notice, as showing the effects of their bitter feuds in rendering them insensible to every appeal of charity or humanity. Their minds had become so soured, and their sense of what was right so impaired, that they neglected and refused to fulfil their most ordinary obligations to each other, and to themselves as a society. Rates were not collected, and contracts were not complied with. The minister and his family were left without the necessaries of life. They were compelled to borrow even their clothing, articles of which const.i.tuted a part of the debt for which he was arrested in such a public and unfeeling manner. A young woman testifies that she lived with Mr. Burroughs about two years, and says: "My mistress did tell me that she had some serge of John Putnam's wife, to make Mary a coat; and also some fustian of his wife, to make my mistress a pair of sleeves." The princ.i.p.al items in the account were for articles required at the death of his wife, by the usages of that day on funeral occasions. Surely it was an outrage upon human nature to spring a suit at law and have a writ served on him, and take him as a prisoner, on such an occasion, under such circ.u.mstances, on an alleged debt incurred by such a bereavement, when poverty and necessity had left him no alternative. The whole procedure receives the stamp, not only of cruelty, but of infamy, from the fact, which Nathaniel Ingersoll compelled Putnam to acknowledge before the whole congregation, that the account had been settled and the debt paid long before.

John Putnam, although a hard and stern man, had many traits of dignity and respectability in his character. That he could have done this thing, in this way, proves the extent to which prejudice and pa.s.sion may carry one, particularly where party spirit consumes individual reason and conscience. At this point it is well to consider a piece of testimony brought against Burroughs nine years afterwards. There was no propriety or sense in giving it when it was adduced. It was, in truth, an outrage to have introduced such testimony in a case where Burroughs was on trial for witchcraft; and it was allowed, only to prejudice and mislead the minds of a jury and of the public. But it is proper to be taken into view, in forming a just estimate, with an impartial aim, of his general character. The doc.u.ment is found in a promiscuous bundle of witchcraft papers.

"THE DEPOSITION OF JOHN PUTNAM AND REBECCA HIS WIFE.--Testifieth and saith, that, in the year 1680, Mr.

Burroughs lived in our house nine months. There being a great difference betwixt said Burroughs and his wife, the difference was so great that they did desire us, the deponents, to come into their room to hear their difference.

The controversy that was betwixt them was, that the aforesaid Burroughs did require his wife to give him a written covenant, under her hand and seal, that she would never reveal his secrets. Our answer was, that they had once made a covenant we did conceive did bind each other to keep their lawful secrets. And further saith, that, all the time that said Burroughs did live at our house, he was a very harsh and sharp man to his wife; notwithstanding, to our observation, she was a very good and dutiful wife to him."

The first observation that occurs in examining this piece of testimony is, that the answer made by Putnam and his wife was excellent, and, like every thing from him, shows that he was a man of strong common sense, and had a forcible and effectual way of expressing himself. The next thing to be considered is, that Mr. Burroughs probably discovered, soon after coming to the village, into what a hornets'

nest he had got,--every one tattling about and backbiting each other.

His innocent and unsuspicious wife may have indulged a little in what is considered the amiable proclivity of her s.e.x, and have let fall, in tea-table talk, what cavillers and mischief-makers were on hand to take up; and he may have found it both necessary and difficult to teach her caution and reserve. He saw, more perhaps than she did, the danger of getting involved in the personal acrimonies with which the whole community was poisoned. Her unguarded carelessness might get herself and him into trouble, and vitally impair their happiness and his usefulness. The only other point to be remarked upon is the general charge against Mr. Burroughs's temper and disposition. It may be that he became so disgusted with the state of things as to have shown some acerbity in his manners, but such a supposition is not in harmony with what little is known of him from other sources; and John Putnam's conduct at the meeting described proves that his mind was fully perverted, and bereft as it were of all moral rect.i.tude of judgment, in reference to Mr. Burroughs. We must part with Mr.

Burroughs for the present. We shall meet him again, where the powers of malignity will be more shamelessly let loose upon him, and prevail to his destruction.

He was succeeded in the ministry at Salem Village by a character of a totally different cla.s.s. Deodat Lawson is first heard of in this country, according to Mr. Savage, at Martha's Vineyard in 1671. He took the freeman's oath at Boston in 1680, and continued to have his residence there. It was not until after much negotiation and considerable importunity, that he was prevailed upon to enter into an engagement to preach at the Village. He began his ministry early in 1684, as appears by the parish record of a meeting Feb. 22, 1684: "Voted that Joseph Herrick, Jonathan Putnam, and Goodman Cloyse are desired to take care for to get a boat for the removing of Mr.

Lawson's goods." Votes, about this time, were pa.s.sed to repair the parsonage, and the fences around the ministry land; thus putting things in readiness to receive him. It does not appear that he became particularly entangled in the conflicts which had so long disturbed the Village, although, while the mother-church signified its readiness to approve of his ordination, and some movement was made in the Village to that end, it was found impossible to bring the hostile parties sufficiently into co-operation to allow of any thing being definitely accomplished. Fortunately for Mr. Lawson, the spirit of strife found other objects upon which to expend its energies for the time being. Some persons brought forward complaints, that the records of the parish had not been correctly kept (this was before Sergeant Thomas Putnam had been charged with that trust); that votes which had pa.s.sed in "Mr. Bayley's days" and in "Mr. Burroughs's days" had not been truly recorded, or recorded at all; and that what had never been pa.s.sed had been entered as votes. A great agitation arose on this subject, and many meetings were held. Some demanded that the spurious votes should be expunged; others, that the omitted votes should be inserted. Then there was an excited disputation about the ministry lands, and the validity or sufficiency of their t.i.tle to them. Joseph Houlton had given them; but he had nothing to do with raising the question, and did all he could to suppress it. Some person had discovered that William Haynes, to whom Houlton had succeeded by the right of his wife, had omitted to get his deed of purchase recorded, and the original could not be found. Disputes also arose about the use of the grounds around the meeting-house. These, added to the conflicts with the "Topsfield men," and matters not fully adjusted with the town of Salem, created and kept up a violent fermentation, in which all were miscellaneously involved. In the midst of this confusion, the matter of ordaining Mr. Lawson was put into the warrant for a meeting to be held on the 10th of December, 1686. But it was found impossible to recall the people from their divisions, and no favorable action could be had.

At length, all attempts to settle their difficulties among themselves were abandoned; and they called for help from outside. At a legally warned meeting on the 17th of January, 1687, the inhabitants made choice of "Captain John Putnam" (he had been promoted in the military line since the affair in the meeting-house with Mr. Burroughs), "Lieutenant Jonathan Walcot, Ensign Thomas Flint, and Corporal Joseph Herrick, for to transact with Joseph Hutchinson, Job Swinnerton, Joseph Porter, and Daniel Andrew about their grievances relating to the public affairs of this place; and, if they cannot agree among themselves, that then they shall refer their differences to the Honored Major Gedney and John Hathorne, Esqs., and to the reverend elders of the Salem Church, for a full determination of those differences." Of course, it was impossible to settle the matter among themselves, and the referees were called in. William Brown, Jr., Esq., was added to them. They were all of the old town, and men of the highest consideration. Their judgment in the case is a well-drawn and interesting doc.u.ment, and shows the view which near neighbors took of the distractions in the village. The following pa.s.sage will exhibit the purport and spirit of it:--

"_Loving Brethren, Friends and Neighbors_,--Upon serious consideration of, and mature deliberation upon, what hath been offered to us about your calling and transacting in order to the settling and ordaining the Rev. Mr. Deodat Lawson, and the grievances offered by some to obstruct and impede that proceeding, our sense of the matter is this,--first, that the affair of calling and transacting in order to the settling and ordaining the Reverend Mr. Lawson hath not been so inoffensively managed as might have been,--at least, not in all the parts and pa.s.sages of it; second, that the grievances offered by some amongst you are not in themselves of sufficient weight to obstruct so great a work, and that they have not been improved so peaceably and orderly as Christian prudence and self-denial doth direct; third, to our grief, we observe such uncharitable expressions and uncomely reflections tossed to and fro as look like the effects of settled prejudice and resolved animosity, though we are much rather willing to account them the product of weakness than wilfulness: however, we must needs say, that, come whence they will, they have a tendency to make such a gap as we fear, if not timely prevented, will let out peace and order, and let in confusion and every evil work."

They then proceed to give some good advice to "prevent contention and trouble for the future, that it may not devour for ever, and that, if the Lord please, you may be happier henceforth than to make one another miserable; and not make your place uncomfortable to your present, and undesirable to any other, minister, and the ministry itself in a great measure unprofitable: and that you may not bring impositions on yourselves by convincing all about you that you cannot, or will not, use your liberty as becomes the gospel." Their advice is, "that you desist, at present, from urging the ordination of the Rev.

Mr. Lawson, till your spirits are better quieted and composed." They give some judicious suggestions about various matters that had been the occasion of difficulty among them, especially to help them get their records put into good shape, and kept so for the future; and wind up in the following excellent, and in some of the clauses rather emphatic and pithy, expressions:--

"Finally, we think peace cheap, if it may be procured by complying with the aforementioned particulars, which are few, fair, and easy; and that they will hardly pa.s.s for lovers of peace, truth, ministry, and order, in the day of the Lord, that shall so lean to their own understanding and will that they shall refuse such easy methods for the obtaining of them. And, if peace and agreement amongst you be once comfortably obtained, we advise you with all convenient speed to go on with your intended ordination; and so we shall follow our advice with our prayers. But, if our advice be rejected, we wish you better, and hearts to follow it; and only add, if you will unreasonably trouble yourselves, we pray you not any further to trouble us. We leave all to the blessing of G.o.d, the wonderful Counsellor, and your own serious consideration: praying you to read and consider the whole, and then act as G.o.d shall direct you.

Farewell."

[Salem, Feb. 14, 1687. Signed by the five referees,--John Higginson and Nicholas Noyes (the elders of the old church), and the three gentlemen before named.]

At a meeting of the inhabitants of the Village on the 18th of February, it was voted that "we do accept of and embrace the advice of the honored and reverend gentlemen of Salem, sent to us under their hands, and order that it shall be entered on our book of records." But they took care further to vote, that they accepted it "in general, and not in parts." In accordance with the advice of the referees, they brought up, considered anew, and put to question, every entry in their past records about the genuineness and validity of which any division of opinion existed. Some entries that had been complained of and given offence as incorrect were voted out, and others were confirmed by being adopted on a new vote. A new book of records was prepared, to conform to these decisions, which, having been submitted for examination to leading persons, appointed for the purpose at a legal meeting representing both parties, and approved by them, was adopted and sanctioned at a subsequent meeting also called for the purpose.

In accordance with the same advice "that the old book of records be kept in being," it was ordered by the meeting to leave the votes that had, by the foregoing proceedings, been rendered null and void, to "lie in the old book of records as they are." From the new book of records we learn that "some votes are left out that pa.s.sed in Mr.

Bayley's days, and some that pa.s.sed in Mr. Burroughs's days,"

particularly all the votes but one that pa.s.sed at a meeting held on the fifth day of June, 1683, the very time that Mr. Burroughs was under bonds in the action of debt brought by John Putnam. The new record specifies some few, but not all, of the votes that were rescinded because it was adjudged that they had not rightfully pa.s.sed, or been correctly stated. Unfortunately, the old book, after all, has not been "kept in being;" and much that would have exhibited more fully and clearly the unhappy early history of the parish is for ever lost. If the records that have been suffered to remain present the picture I have endeavored faithfully to draw, how much darker might have been its shades had we been permitted to behold what the parties concerned concurred in thinking too bad to be left to view!

The attempt to expunge records is always indefensible, besides being in itself irrational and absurd. It may cover up the details of wrong and folly; but it leaves an unlimited range to the most unfriendly conjecture. We are compelled to imagine what we ought to be allowed to know; and, in many particulars, our fancies may be worse than the facts. But later times, and public bodies of greater pretensions than "the inhabitants of Salem Village," have attempted, and succeeded in perpetrating, this outrage upon history. In trying to conceal their errors, men have sometimes destroyed the means of their vindication.

This may be the case with the story that is to be told of "Salem Witchcraft." It has been the case in reference to wider fields of history. The Parliamentary journals and other public records of the period of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate were suppressed by the infatuated stupidity of the Government of the Restoration. They foolishly imagined that they were hiding the shame, while they were obscuring the glory, of their country. Every Englishman, every intelligent man, now knows, that, during that very period, all that has made England great was done. The seeds of her naval and maritime prosperity were planted: and she was pushed at once by wise measures of policy, internal and external; by legislation developing her resources and invigorating the power of her people; by a decisive and comprehensive diplomacy that commanded the respect of foreign courts, and secured to her a controlling influence upon the traffic of the world; by developments of her military genius under the greatest of all the great generals of modern times; and by naval achievements that s.n.a.t.c.hed into her hands the balancing trident of the seas,--to the place she still holds (how much longer she may hold it remains to be seen) as the leading power of the world. If she has to relinquish that position, it will only be to a power that is true to the spirit, and is not ashamed of the name, of a republic. The nation that fully develops the policy which pervaded the records of the English Commonwealth will be the leader of the world. The suppression of those records has not suppressed the spirit of popular liberty, or the progress of mankind in the path of reform, freedom, equal rights, and a true civilization. It has only cast a shadow, which can never wholly be dispelled, over what otherwise would have been the brightest page in the annals of a great people. We depend for our knowledge of the steps by which England then made a most wonderful stride to prosperity and power, not upon official and authoritative records, but upon the desultory and sometimes merely gossiping memoirs of particular persons, and such other miscellaneous materials as can be picked up.

The only consequence of an attempt to extinguish the memory of republicans, radicals, reformers, and regicides has been, that the history of England's true glory can never be adequately written.

The referees used the following language touching the point of the ordination of Mr. Lawson: "If more than a mere major part should not consent to it, we should be loath to advise our brethren to proceed."

This, in connection with the other sentence I have quoted from their communication recommending them "to desist at present" from urging it, was fatal to the immediate movement in his favor; and, not seeing any prospect of their "spirits becoming better quieted and composed," and weary of the attempt to bring them to any comfortable degree of unanimity, Mr. Lawson threw up his connection with them, and removed back to Boston. We shall meet him again; but it is well to despatch at this point what is to be said of his character and history.

It is evident that Deodat Lawson had received the best education of his day. It is not easy to account for his not having left a more distinguished mark in Old or New England. He had much learning and great talents. Of his power in getting up pulpit performances in the highest style of eloquence, of which that period afforded remarkable specimens, I shall have occasion to speak. Among his other attainments, he was, what cannot be said of learned and professional men generally now any more than then, an admirable penman. The village parish adopted the practice at the beginning, when paying the salaries of its ministers from time to time, instead of taking receipts on detached and loose pieces of paper, of having them write them out in their own hand on the pages of the record-book, with their signatures.

It is a luxury, in looking over the old volume, to come upon the receipts of Deodat Lawson, in his plain, round hand. A specimen is given among the autographs. His chirography is easy, free, graceful, clear, and clean. It unites with wonderful taste the highest degrees of simplicity and ornament. Each style is used, and both are blended, as occasion required. During his ministry, the trouble about the old record-book occurred. The first four pages of the new book are in his handwriting. The ink has somewhat faded; the paper has become discolored, and, around the margins and at the bottom of the leaves, lamentably worn and broken. The first page exhibits Lawson's penmans.h.i.+p in its various styles. It is artistically executed in several sizes of letters, appropriate to the position of the clauses and the import and weight of the matter. In each there is an elegant combination of ornament and simplicity. His chirography was often had in requisition; and papers, evidently from his pen, are on file in various cases, occurring in court at the time, in which his friends were interested.

The first four ministers of the village parish were excellent penmen.

Bayley's hand is more like the modern style than the rest. Burroughs's is as legible as print, uniform in its character, open and upright.

The specimen among the autographs is from the record referred to at the top of page 262. As it was written at the bottom of a page in the record-book, where there was hardly sufficient room, it had to be in a slanting line. I give it just as it there appears. Parris wrote three different hands, all perfectly easy to read. The larger kind was used when signing his name to important papers, or in brief entries of record. The specimen I give is from a receipt in the parish-book, which Thomas Putnam, as clerk, made oath in court, that Parris wrote and signed in his presence. His notes of examinations of persons charged with witchcraft by the committing magistrate, many of which are preserved, are in his smallest hand, very minute, but always legible. In his church-records he uses sometimes a medium hand, and sometimes the smallest. The autographs of Townsend Bishop and Thomas Putnam show the handwriting that seems to have prevailed among well-educated people in England at the time of the first settlement of this country. There was often a profusion of flourishes that obscured the letters. The initial capitals were quite complicated and very curious. The signature of Thomas Putnam, Jr., exhibits his excellent handwriting.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I have adduced these facts and given these ill.u.s.trations to show, that, in this branch of education,--the value and desirableness of which cannot be overrated,--it is at least an open question, whether we have much ground to boast of being in advance of the first generations of our ancestors in America. The early ministers of the Salem Village parish certainly compare, in this particular, favorably with ministers and professional men, and recording officers generally in public bodies of all kinds, in later times.

Sergeant Thomas Putnam did not act as clerk of the parish from April, 1687, to April, 1694. A few entries are made by his hand; but the record, very meagre and fragmentary, is for the most part made by others. This is much to be regretted, as the interval covers the very period of our history. His time, probably, was taken up, and his mind wholly engrossed, by an unhappy family difficulty, in which, during that period, he was involved. Thomas Putnam Sr. died, as has been stated, in 1686. It was thought, by the children of his first wife, that the influence of the second wife had been unduly exercised over him, in his last years, so as to induce him to make a will giving to her, and her only child by him, Joseph, a very unfair proportion of his estate. It was felt by them to be so unjust that they attempted to break the will. The management of the case was confided to Sergeant Thomas Putnam, as the eldest son of the family; and the affair, it may be supposed, absorbed his thoughts to such a degree as to render it necessary for him to abandon his services as clerk of the parish. The attempt to set aside the will failed. The circ.u.mstances connected with the subject disturbed very seriously--perhaps permanently--the happiness of the whole family, and may have contributed to create the morbid excitement which afterwards was so fearfully displayed by the wife of the younger Thomas.

While Mr. Lawson was at the village, he lost his wife and daughter. In 1690, he was again married, to Deborah Allen. He was settled afterwards over the Second Society in Scituate,--it is singular that our local histories do not tell us when, but that we get all we know on the point from a sentence written by the pen on a leaf of one of the two folio volumes of John Quick's "Synodicon in Gallia Reformata,"

in the possession of a gentleman in this country, Henry M. Dexter, who says it is evidently Quick's autograph. It is in these words: "For my reverend and dear brother, Mr. Lawson, minister of the gospel, and pastor of the church of Scituate, in the province of Ma.s.sachusetts in New England; from the publisher, John Quick, _honoris et amoris ergo_, Aug. 6, 1693." In 1696, Mr. Lawson went over to England, merely for a short visit, as his people supposed. They heard from him no more. He never asked a dismission, or communicated with them in any way. In 1698, an ecclesiastical council declared them free to settle another minister, which they did in due time. He was, no doubt, alive and in London when, in 1704, his famous Salem Village sermon was reprinted there. But this is the last glimpse we have of him. An inscrutable mystery covers the rest of his history. His manner of leaving the Scituate parish shows him to have been an eccentric person, leaves an unfavorable impression of his character, and is as inexplicable as the only other reference to him that has thus far been found. Calamy, in his "Continuation of the Account of Ejected Ministers," published in 1727, has a notice of Thomas Lawson, whom he describes as minister of Denton in the county of Norfolk, educated at Katherine Hall in Cambridge, and afterwards chosen "to a fellows.h.i.+p in St. John's. He was a man of parts, but had no good utterance. He was the father of the unhappy Mr. Deodat Lawson, who came hither from New England." With all his abilities, learning, and eloquence, he disappears, after the re-publication of his Salem Village sermon in London, in the dark, impenetrable cloud of this expression, "the unhappy Mr. Deodat Lawson." Of the melancholy fate implied in the language of Calamy, I have not been able to obtain the slightest information.

The troubles that covered the whole period, since the beginning of Mr.

Bayley's ministry, had led to the neglect and derangement of the entire organization of the Village, and resulted in the loss of what little opportunities for education might otherwise have been provided.

So great was this evil regarded, that the old town felt it necessary to interpose; and we find it voted Jan. 24, 1682, that "Lieutenant John Putnam is desired, and is hereby empowered, to take care that the law relating to the catechising of children and youth be duly attended at the Village." He is also "desired to have a diligent care that all the families do carefully and constantly attend the due education of their children and youth according to law." We cannot but feel that the man who was ready to fight the "Topsfield men" in the woods--who, when they asked him, "What, by violence?" answered, with axe in hand, "Ay, by violence," and who figured in the manner described in the scene with Mr. Burroughs--was a singular person to intrust with the charge of "catechising the children and youth." But those were queer times, and he was a queer character. He had always been a church-member; and, to the day of his death, church and prayer meetings were more frequently held at his house than in any other. He was a rough man, but he was no hypocrite. He was in the front of every encounter; but he was tolerant, too, of difference of opinion. When, at one time, the contests of the Village were at their height, and two committees were raised representing the two conflicting parties, he was at the head of one, and his eldest son (Jonathan) of the other.

Their opposition does not seem to have alienated them. While I have found it necessary to hold him up, in some of his actions, for condemnation, there were many good points about him; although he was not the sort of man that would be likely, in our times, to be selected to execute the functions of a Sunday-school teacher.

During all this period, there was a variety of minor controversies among themselves, causing greater or less disturbance. Joseph Hutchinson, who had given a site out of his homestead-grounds for the meeting-house, had no patience with their perpetual wranglings. He fenced up his lands around the meeting-house lot, leaving them an entrance on the end towards the road. They went to court about it, and he was called to account by the usual process of law. The plain, gruff old farmer, who seems all along to have been a man of strong sense and decided character, filed an answer, which is unsurpa.s.sed for bluntness of expression. It has no language of ceremony, but goes to the point at once. It has a general interest as showing, to how late a period the inhabitants of this neighborhood were exposed to Indian attacks, and what means of defence were resorted to by the Village wors.h.i.+ppers.

The doc.u.ment manifests the contempt in which he held the complainants, and it was all the satisfaction they got.

"Joseph Hutchinson his answer is as followeth:--

"First, as to the covenant they spoke of, I conceive it is neither known of by me nor them, as will appear by records from the farmer's book.

"Second, I conceive they have no cause to complain of me for fencing in my own land; for I am sure I fenced in none of theirs. I wish they would not pull down my fences. I am loath to complain, though I have just cause.

"Third, for blocking up the meeting-house, it was they did it, and not I, in the time of the Indian wars; and they made Salem pay for it. I wish they would bring me my rocks they took to do it with; for I want them to make fence with.