Haverhill, Massachusetts

“ Nearly all the original settlers in the township of Maugerville were from Massachusetts, the majority from the single county of Essex. Thus the Burpees were from Rowley, the Perleys from Boxford, the Esteys from Newburyport, while other families were from Haverhill, Ipswich, Gloucester, Salem and other towns of this ancient county which antedates all others in Massachusetts but Plymouth. These settlers were almost exclusively of Puritan stock and members of the Congregationalist churches of New England. ”

“ Still instigated by the French, who excited in the hearts of their Indian allies the utmost hatred of the English, the remoter territory of Massachusetts was overrun by them, and early in 1697 they advanced as far as the towns of Andover and Haverhill, to within twenty-five miles of Boston, killing many of the inhabitants, and carrying others into captivity. ”

“ In 1694-95, the frontier line of Massachusetts was established by law as including the towns of Amesbury, Haverhill, Dunstable, Chelmsford, Groton, Lancaster, Marlborough, and Deerfield. Five years later this list was increased by Brookfield, Mendon, and Woodstock, with a kind of inner line, running through Salisbury, Andover, Billerica, Hatfield, Hadley, Westfield, and Northampton. ”

“ Haverhill is eighteen miles east of Lowell, thirty-two miles northwest of Boston, and six miles northeast of Lawrence. The manufacture of boots and shoes gives employment to 6,000 men. The population in 1870 was 13,092.
Down to the sea, some seventeen miles away, winds the beautiful Merrimack, with the deep-shaded old town of Newburyport seated at its mouth. ”

“ Charles Johnston, in point of character, it is written, was the most prominent of Haverhill’s first settlers. He also had a son Michael. Whether Irish or Scottish, Johnston is the English for McShane or McIan.
The name Carroll, borne by Maryland’s “first citizen,” was represented among the New Hampshire Michaels, in the person of Michael Carroll. A county also bears his name, and it is quite common in New Hampshire. The New Hampshire national bank examiner is the Hon. E. H. Carroll, and the labor commissioner is Col. L. H. Carroll. ”

“ Haverhill rejoices in a Town Hall, one of the handsomest of its kind in New England, and twenty-four church organisations divided among eleven different denominations. No city in the commonwealth has grown so fast within the last ten years. I learn from a local paper that its population is “energetic, prosperous, and cultivated.” One of the things which seem to have struck p. 60Mr. Alderman Gurteen, as indeed it would some of us, was a handsome and commodious building known as the Old Ladies’ Home, intended to provide for such women as need it, a home in their declining years. ”

“ The township of Haverhill, even as late as the close of the seventeenth century, was a frontier settlement, occupying an advanced position in the great wilderness, which, unbroken by the clearing of a white man, extended from the Merrimac River to the French villages on the St. Francois. A tract of twelve miles on the river and three or four northwardly was occupied by scattered settlers, while in the centre of the town a compact village had grown up. In the immediate vicinity there were but few Indians, and these generally peaceful and inoffensive. ”

“ It had made Massachusetts. The people were there—the men, the women and the children—who would hand on the tradition of faith and honor through the hundred years of darkness and tribulation till the evil spell was broken by the guns of Bunker Hill. Royal governors might come and go; but the people were growing day by day, and though governors and governments are things of an hour, the people are immortal, and the time of their emancipation will come. By means of the charter, the seed of liberty was sown in favorable soil ”

“ The town rose upon them. Judge Hoar hastily issued a habeas corpus returnable before the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and the baffled minions of the slave power went back to Boston.
The School assembled in the Orchard House, formerly the residence of Mr. Alcott, [Pg 64] on the Lexington road. Next door was the Wayside, Hawthorne's home for a number of years, a cottage overshadowed by the steep hillside that rose behind it, thick with hemlocks and larches. ”

“ Another celebrated preacher was the saintly Samuel Fairclough, who was born at Haverhill in 1594, and passed from Cambridge p. 62University to become successively Lecturer at Lynn and Clare, which latter post he vacated to become Rector of Kedington, until he was ejected thence in 1692 by the iniquitous Act of Uniformity.
Our Essex Haverhill may be quoted as a remarkable illustration of what a man can do for his native town. ”

“ The Plymouth colony had proved that a godly and self-denying community could flourish in the wilderness, in the enjoyment of spiritual blessings unattainable at home. The power of English prelacy did not extend beyond the borders of England: idolatrous ceremonies could be eschewed in Massachusetts without fear of persecution. Thousands of Puritans were prepared to give up their homes for the sake of liberty, and only waited assurance that it could be obtained. The condition of society and education in England was vicious and corrupt ”

“ On the removal of this clergyman, becoming dissatisfied with the ministry under which she lived, she was drawn in by the great tide of Puritan emigration, and visited Massachusetts within a few years after its first settlement. But she bore trouble in her own bosom, and could find no peace in this chosen land. She soon began to promulgate strange and dangerous opinions, tending, in the peculiar situation of the colony, and from the principles which were its basis, and indispensable for its temporary support, to eat into its very existence. ”

“ And here Grandfather took occasion to talk rather tediously about the nature and forms of government that established themselves, almost spontaneously, in Massachusetts and the other New England colonies. Democracies were the natural growth of the New World. As to Massachusetts, it was at first intended that the colony should be governed by a council in London. But in a little while the people had the whole power in their own hands, and chose annually the governor, the councillors, and the representatives. ”

“ Maine had been fingered by the French, and used as a base of operations by fishermen, long before its connection with Massachusetts; the persistency of Gorges complicated its position for more than forty years. After his death, and in the irresponsiveness of his heirs, the few inhabitants of the region were constrained to shift for themselves; in 1652 the jurisdiction was found to extend three miles north of the source of the Merrimack, and Massachusetts offering its protection in enabling a government to be formed, and acting upon the priority of its grant, annexed the whole specified region. ”

“ On Wednesday last, David Stillman, John Hawley and Thomas Gibbs were committed to jail in this city, for counterfeiting and passing publick securities; and on Thursday last, Jonathan Densmore, of East-Hartford, was committed for stealing a horse. Stillman and Hawley belong to the county of Hampshire, state of Massachusetts. They are now in a fair way to have their grievances (and backs) dress'd and re-dress'd.
From "Massachusetts Gazette," May 15, 1786.
NEW-YORK, May 6. ”

“ It was not until 1649, after a persistent struggle, that the deputies won a decisive victory over the assistants and secured for Massachusetts a definite code of laws. In the New Haven colony similar theocratic notions led the settlers to dispense with trial by jury because they could find no precedent for it in the laws of Moses. Here, as in Massachusetts, the inquisitorial administration of justice combined with partial disfranchisement to awaken discontent, and it was partly for this reason that New Haven fell so easily under the sway of Connecticut. ”

“ How poor and vain in comparison with this stern and sincere eloquence seem the supple time-service and euphemism of vulgar politicians of whose cunning and fruitless spiderwebs the latter years have been so prolific. It is worth while to do right from high motives, and to care for no gain that is not gained worthily. The men of Massachusetts who lived a hundred years before Jefferson were Americans of a type as lofty as any that have lived since; the work that was given them to do was so done that time can take away nothing from it, nor add anything. The soul of liberty is in it. ”

“ In order that the children might fully understand the all-important history of the chair, Grandfather now thought fit to speak of the progress that was made in settling several colonies. The settlement of Plymouth, in 1620, has already been mentioned. In 1635, Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone, two ministers, went on foot from Massachusetts to Connecticut, through the pathless woods, taking their whole congregation along with them. They founded the town of Hartford. In 1638, Mr. Davenport, a very celebrated minister, went, with other people, and began a plantation at New Haven. ”

“ Randolph issued new grants for properties, and extorted grievous fees, declaring all deeds under the charter void, and those from Indians, or "from Adam," worthless. West, the secretary, increased probate duties twenty-fold. When Danforth complained that the condition of the colonists was little short of slavery, and Increase Mather added that no man could call anything his own, they got for answer that "it is not for his majesty's interest that you should thrive." In the history of Massachusetts, there is no darker day than this. ”

“ From the Indian war they gained less than a wise peace would have given them, and they lost women and children as well as men. Such conflicts, once begun, must be pushed to the extremity; but it cannot but be wished that the people of Massachusetts might have found a means of living with the red men, as their brethren in Pennsylvania did, in peace and amity. ”

“ Poets arise where there is poetic nourishment, internal and external, for them to feed on; and it is not surprising that a Whittier and a Hawthorne should have been evolved from the environment in which they grew to manhood.
It is a common saying with old Boston families that their ancestors came to America in the “Arbella” with Governor Winthrop, but as a matter of fact there were at least fifteen vessels that brought colonists to Massachusetts in 1630, and I cannot discover that any lists of their passengers have been preserved. ”

“ Hungry for the picturesque as he always was, and not finding any very copious provision of it around him, he turned back into the two preceding centuries, with the earnest determination that the primitive annals of Massachusetts should at least appear picturesque. His fancy, which was always alive, played a little with the somewhat meagre and angular facts of the colonial period and forthwith converted a great many of them into impressive legends and pictures. ”

“ His proclivities were certainly not democratic; but the greater the tenacity with which a man holds his opinions, the less inclined he feels to discuss them with others. The Boston aristocracy now vote the Democratic ticket out of opposition to the dominant party in Massachusetts, and Hawthorne may have done so for a similar reason. ”

“ The King called his American subjects "rebels," and proceeded to punish the people of Boston. All the colonists stood by them. British troops were sent to make the Americans obedient vassals instead of loving subjects. The representatives of the colonists all over the land met in a General Congress at Philadelphia. That was in 1774. In that Congress Patrick Henry, of Virginia, said, "We must fight." At the same time Joseph Hawley, of Massachusetts, said in the Provincial Congress, "We must fight." The patriotic people everywhere, with compressed lips and valorous hearts, said, "We must fight." ”

“ The most ancient town in Massachusetts appears quite like an affair of yesterday, compared with Rochester. Its attributes of youth are the activity and eager life with which it is redundant. The whole street, sidewalks and centre, was crowded with pedestrians, horsemen, stage-coaches, gigs, light wagons, and heavy ox-teams, all hurrying, trotting, rattling, and rumbling, in a throng that passed continually, but never passed away. ”

“ Everybody knows him and everybody likes him, especially at the hotel, where he spends his money so freely. I usually go there every night and look over the register to see the new arrivals, and when I saw ‘Carlyle Haverleigh, Boston, Mass.,’ I soon had him by the hand, telling him who I was and asking what I could do for him. Do for him! Bless your soul, he does not need anyone to do for him; he is equal to anything; takes care of and patronizes me; owns the whole south generally, and Richmond and the Spotswood in particular. ”

“ It is not necessary to describe in detail that elaborate dinner of ten courses, which was served from solid silver, with two or three servants in attendance. Haverleigh was very rich and very purse-proud, and it suited him to live like a prince wherever he was; besides, he wished to impress the simple New England girl with a sense of his greatness and wealth, and he enjoyed her evident embarrassment, or rather bewilderment, at so much glitter and display for just themselves and no one else. ”

“ The settlers of New Hampshire were mostly Puritans, and thoroughly in sympathy with the political-religious system of Massachusetts. Massachusetts obtained jurisdiction over Maine through purchase from Gorges, and that territory remained attached to Massachusetts until 1820. Vermont had no separate existence until the Revolution.
The colonies of Connecticut and New Haven were in full sympathy with the religious and political system of Massachusetts. ”