Natick, Massachusetts

“ Iverson, still flourished the lash over you, taunting you because, "being a Senator from Massachusetts, you heard such treasonable sentiments avowed at a public meeting, in your own town, and did not at once rebuke them, instead of sitting and giving silent assent to them." ”

“ Among the Republican leaders who became especially alarmed at this state of things was Henry Wilson, one of the United States Senators from Massachusetts. As I learned to know him at a later period, he was what is commonly called “a man of the people.” Without the advantage of a higher education—his early connection with the shoe business in Natick, had earned him the nickname of “the Natick cobbler”—he had worked himself up to a position of influence in politics. He had won the confidence of the anti-slavery men by his sincere and very active devotion to that cause. ”

“ In 1651 he was speaker of the house, and in 1652 elected a magistrate. In 1656 he was appointed by legislative enactment superintendent of all the Indians who acknowledged the government of Massachusetts, an office which he retained until his death, although he became unpopular because of the protection which, as a magistrate, he extended to the Indians. He zealously co-operated with John Eliot in his efforts for their spiritual instruction. King Philip's war led to the passage of several measures against the Natick and other Indians, who had submitted to the English. ”

“ Natick is now a busy shoemaking town, with about ten thousand people, and in South Natick is the old Indian cemetery and Eliot's Oak. To the northward of Natick is Cochituate Lake, the chief source of Boston's water supply, over three miles long, and having with tributary ponds nearly a thousand acres area when full of water in the spring. To the eastward of Natick is Wellesley, where the famous Wellesley Female College, with seven hundred students, has its spacious buildings located in a beautiful park. ”

“ Natick, Mass., Nov. 21st, 1859.
Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia:
Sir,—Enclosed is a resolution adopted by the people of Natick, Mass., the residence of the Hon. Henry Wilson. At their request, I forward it to John Brown, with a letter to him. The resolution and letter may give peace and satisfaction to him in his last hours. However repulsive the sentiments may be to you, and to the people over whom you preside, they may sustain him on the scaffold. The appeal is to your magnanimity and justice to put them into his hands. ”

“ In 1905 the factory product was valued at $3,453,094; the boots and shoes manufactured in 1905 were valued at $2,896,110 or 83·9% of the town’s total, the output of brogans being especially important. Other distinctive manufactures are shirts and base-balls. Natick is the Indian name, signifying “our land,” or “hilly land,” of the site (originally part of Dedham) granted in 1650 to John Eliot, for the “praying” Indians. There was an Indian church in Natick, at what is now called South Natick or “Oldtown,” from 1660 to 1716 ”

“ THE town of Nantucket, in the State of Massachusetts, contains about eight thousand inhabitants; nearly a third part of the population are quakers, and they are, taken together, a very industrious and enterprising people. ”

“ If consistent with your feelings as a man, and your duties as a jailor, you would oblige me by presenting the enclosed to him for his perusal. It is a resolution adopted by the citizens of Natick, Mass., as expressive of their views on a subject now assuming paramount importance throughout the North. ”

“ Everything is clean and in good repair; everybody well dressed, healthy, and cheerful. Paupers there are none; and the new school-house would be an ornament to any town in Massachusetts. That there is no lack of spirit and vigor may be known from the fact that the island furnished five hundred men for the late war.
When we caught sight of Nantucket, the sun was shining his best, and the sea too smooth to raise a qualm in the bosom of the most delicately organized female. The island first makes its appearance, as a long, thin strip of yellow underlying a long, thinner strip of green. ”

“ An ordinance was passed on 27 July 1649 for the advancement of civilisation and Christianity among the Indians, and 'A Corporation for the Promoting and Propagating the Gospel among the Indians of New England' was instituted. The first township of 'praying Indians' was at Natick, where in 1651 a considerable number were established. A dozen more settlements were founded under the care of Eliot, who sought for the support of the general court in his proceedings. While fulfilling his duties at Roxbury he visited Natick once a fortnight, riding horseback across open country. ”

“ Nantucket is a great nursery of seamen, pilots, coasters, and bank-fishermen; as a country belonging to the province of Massachusetts, it has yearly the benefit of a court of Common Pleas, and their appeal lies to the supreme court at Boston. I observed before, that the Friends compose two-thirds of the magistracy of this island; thus they are the proprietors of its territory, and the principal rulers of its inhabitants; but with all this apparatus of law, its coercive powers are seldom wanted or required. Seldom is it that any individual is amerced or punished ”

“ Bond to myself. Nantucket, as you are probably aware, is a small, secluded island, lying off the extreme point of the coast of Massachusetts. Mr. Mitchell is a member of the executive council of Massachusetts and a most respectable person.
"As the claimant is a young lady of great diffidence, the place a retired island, remote from all the high-roads of communication; as the conditions have not been well understood in this country; and especially as there was a substantial compliance with them—I hope His Majesty may think Miss Maria Mitchell entitled to the medal. ”

“ Eliot was convinced that the Indians must give up their roving habits and become members of settled communities before they could make much progress in the Christian life. Natick, seventeen miles southwest of Boston, a place “somewhat remote from the English,” was selected as a very advantageous place for a town, and thither the Indians at Nonantum, and other “praying Indians,” as the converts were called, removed in 1651. ”

“ Natchez, in the state of Mississippi, is about 300 miles above Orleans, and is the largest and wealthiest town on the river, from that city up to St. Louis. It stands on bluffs, perhaps 300 feet above the water at ordinary periods. It contains nearly 4000 inhabitants, and is decidedly the prettiest town for its dimensions in the United States. Natchez, although upwards of 400 miles from the sea, is considered a port; and a grant of 1500 dollars was made by congress for the purpose of erecting a light-house; the building has been raised, and stands there, a monument of useless expenditure. ”

“ The city has four public parks, three on the river front, and one, Memorial Park, in honour of Confederate dead, in the heart of the city. On a neighbouring bluff is a national cemetery. Just outside the city limits, at Gloster, the former estate of Winthrop Sargent, first governor of the Territory of Mississippi, are the graves of Sargent and S. S. Prentiss, who lived in Natchez for some years. In and near the city are many handsome old residences typical of ante-bellum Natchez, among them being: Monmouth, General Quitman's estate ”

“ As an American, loving the good name of my native land, jealous of its honor and its fame, I have felt the deepest mortification, that in the city of Boston, in old Faneuil Hall, the man who has stood up fearlessly in England and supported American principles, and defended the American name, should be received by men, calling themselves American Democrats, with ridicule and denunciations. ”

“ The society of Natchez, now, is not surpassed by any in America. Originally, and therein differing from most western cities, composed of intelligent and well-educated young men, assembled from every Atlantic state, but principally from New-England and Virginia, it has advanced in a degree proportionate to its native powers. ”

“ Nathaniel’s brother, Robert, was mayor of Derry in 1689, and Nathaniel was also a man of affairs, holding many town offices. He was the first naval officer of the port of Boston and a merchant of prominence.
The papers now preserved in the Massachusetts State Archives show that he was a man of good education. His wife was Elizabeth, and their children were Nathaniel J., Robert, who is supposed to have died unmarried, and Samuel, who married Ann Miller. Nathaniel the second married Abigail Vaughan, whose father was one of the royal councillors and also chief justice of New Hampshire. ”

“ About one hundred years ago, when the French began their settlement in this town, this nation had six hundred men. They became attached to French people, and have ever been their steady and faithful friends. After the massacre of the French inhabitants of Natchez, by the Natchez Indians, in 1728, those Indians fled from the French, after the French were reinforced, and came up Red river, and camped about six miles below the town of Natchitoches, near the river, by the side of a small lake of clear water, and erected a mound of earth, of considerable size, where it now remains. ”

“ The progress of Christianity among them never recovered from the blow. In the autumn of 1675 the Natick Indians were removed to Deer Island, 'patiently, humbly, and piously, without complaining against ye English,' says Eliot. In May 1678, when the exiles returned to Natick, one-fourth of all the natives in New England were considered to have been civilised, but their extinction was rapid after Eliot's death. One of his latest acts was to give by deed in 1689 seventy-five acres of land for the teaching of Indians and negroes in Roxbury. ”

“ Upon the 26th of October, new clamors and reports were raised and fomented against the Christian Indians of Natick, upon pretence that some of them had fired a house or old barn at Dedham, (a poor old house not worth ten shillings, that stood alone far distant from the dwelling-houses.) This house, in all probability, was set on fire a purpose by some that were back friends to those poor Indians ; thereby to take an occasion to procure the removal of all those Indians from Natick ”

“ The little city of Natchez is built upon a bluff some three hundred feet in elevation above the Mississippi River, and immediately upon its brink. It receives its name from a tribe of Indians once resident in the country; and who were much further advanced in civilization than their more warlike neighbors, the Choctaws and the Chickasaws. The country around is hilly and beautiful, fertile and salubrious. The population was intelligent and refined, and was remarkable for having more wealth than any community outside of a large city, in the United States, of the same amount of population. ”

“ If there was no squalor obtruding itself upon the stranger, neither was there any display of ostentatious wealth. There were a few large square mansions of brick or wood, and even an aristocratic quarter, once known as India Row; but, on the whole, a remarkable equality existed in the houses of Nantucket. The old New England Greek temple greets you familiarly here and there. I read on the sign-boards the well-remembered names of Coffin, Folger, Bunker, Macy, Starbuck, etc., that could belong nowhere else than here. ”

“ Natchez, a city of Mississippi, and much the largest town of the state, stands on a bluff, upwards of one hundred and fifty feet above the surface of the river. The houses have an air of neatness, though few are distinguished for elegance or size. To enable the inhabitants to enjoy the evening air, almost every house has a piazza and balcony. The soil of the adjoining country is rich, and vegetation of most kinds attains to uncommon luxuriance ”

“ The following extracts from one of his letters addressed to the authorities at Plymouth, give a very clear idea of the state of the question at that time. The letter is dated Matianuck (Windsor) , July 6, 1835.
“The Massachusetts men are coming almost daily, some by water and some by land, who are not yet determined where to settle, though some have a great mind to the place we are upon, and which was last bought. Many of them look for that which this river will not afford, except it be at this place, to be a great town and have commodious dwellings for many together. ”

“ Natchez-under-the-Hill, lying on a low alluvial bank, contains the steamboat landing and a few business houses. The main city, Natchez-on-the-Hill, occupies the summit of a bluff which rises nearly 200 feet above the river, and affords a wide view over the cotton plantations of Louisiana. Among the more conspicuous buildings are the city-hall, the court-house, the market-house, the Roman Catholic cathedral, the Jewish synagogue, and a number of handsome churches. There are two large cotton factories and other manufacturing establishments. Cotton dealing is the staple trade. ”

“ Thirty years ago two brothers came from Massachusetts and put up their little spinning-mill near Paris. The mill has grown larger as they have grown older, and they are now among the wealthy men of the place. Situated as they are—from the North—from hated Massachusetts;—for years employing free labor, and owning slaves only through their Southern wives; they have had to be most circumspect in every word and act, giving no sign of loyalty, but, I doubt not, secretly exulting at each success of the national arms. ”