27. The Salter’s Song

In sixteen hundred and twenty-three,

A miller’s son from East Budleigh

Did wish his family ‘Au revoir!

I’m off to find America.’

In London town he’d learnt his trade:

As salter he had made the grade.

Now Roger Conant was his name;

We think he needs a bit more fame.

His wife called Sarah joined the ship

With baby Caleb on the trip.

They sailed across the ocean deep.

I don’t suppose they had much sleep.

And finally at Plymouth Bay,

Where previous Pilgrims showed the way,

The Conant family came ashore.

The year was sixteen twenty-four.  

Now Roger’s skill was salting fish

To make a palatable dish.

For just in case you have forgotten,

No fridges meant your food went rotten.

Just north of Plymouth is Cape Ann.

In Dorchester they had a plan

To make the place a fishing port

And maybe even build a fort.  

And Roger was named supervisor.

People said ‘There is none wiser!’

It was indeed a job promotion,

With splendid outlook on the ocean.

A major problem did occur,

For Plymouth’s Pilgrims furious were.

Their Captain Standish did arrive.

The year was sixteen twenty-five.

This man was noted for his ire.

‘Be gone!’ he said. ‘I’ll open fire!

That fishing stage is ours by right.

We will not hesitate to fight!’

The fishermen denied access.

It could have been a bloody mess.

But Roger Conant saved the day.

His wise words halted the affray.

Conciliation in his view

Was always better than a stew.

Diplomacy, a path to peace,

Will cause all stupid wars to cease.  

In Massachusetts he’s renowned,

For this Devonian did found

A city where his statue’s fame

Does almost match the city’s name.

This local hero, worthy chap,

Deserves, we feel, a special clap.

These verses surely do attest:

‘Peacemakers are most truly blest.’

 © Michael Downes 2020

With apologies to Gloucester historian Mary Ellen Lepionka for allowing artistic license to win over historical accuracy! 

The photo shows the commemorative plaque in Gloucester, Massachusetts, which records the historic event

You can access other posts on this blog by going to the Blog Archive (under the ‘About Me’ section), and clicking on the appropriate heading.

26. Conant 400’s link to ‘the birthplace of American independence’!

The Town Seal of Ipswich, Massachusetts

Plymouth, Gloucester, Beverly, Budleigh… what do they all have in common? Well, they’re all obviously names of English towns or villages which are shared with communities in America. Of course you knew that!

Hayes Barton Cafe and Dessertery, Raleigh NC

It was a surprise to me to discover that a district in the city of Raleigh in the state of North Carolina is named after the birthplace of Sir Walter Raleigh in Devon. There’s even another district in the same American city, known as the ‘City of Oaks’, which is named Hayes Barton. Both districts are of course exclusive and house prices are famously high!

Moving on from Sir Walter to his less famous Budleigh-born figure from the past, it’s obvious that all those places I mentioned have a link to Roger Conant.  Beverly is where he died in 1679.

Hart House Tavern, 51 Linebrook Road, Ipswich, built circa 1680 or earlier  Image credit: Swampyank

And now, thanks to one of his descendants, I know that we can add another historic Massachusetts town to our list of communities associated with the early New England settler famed for his attitude of ‘tolerance and conciliation’. Jonathan David Conant is descended from Roger’s grandson Lot, who moved in 1717 from Beverly to Ipswich, where Jonathan is currently a pastor.

The John Whipple House, built by Captain John Whipple (c.1617-85), and dating from 1677 

‘There are no less than five historic Conant houses at the end of Linebrook Road in Ipswich and historical archives full of charming anecdotes,’ he told me after discovering Conant 400 online. ‘A bucket list of mine is to visit East Budleigh, and I was so excited to find your group on Facebook!’

Cottages at Little Neck and Crane's Hill, Ipswich, MA; from a 1920 postcard

I was equally delighted to add Jonathan to our list of history enthusiasts who receive Conant 400 bulletins by email. He tells us that he loves all things New England and is an avid fan of the Patriots – the New England professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. He also enjoys hunting, fishing, playing racquetball, working on cars, discussing theology, spiritual formation and mental health issues, and singing Renaissance choral music.

Portrait of Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop (1588-1649).  It was held in the Winthrop family until the 19th century, when it was donated to the American Antiquarian Society.

The coastal town of Ipswich was founded in 1634 by John Winthrop the Younger, son of Governor John Winthrop who had sailed from England to America in 1630 with his flagship the Arbella - a ship whose name I will be writing about in due course. The town’s nickname – ‘the birthplace of American independence’ – arose from a protest by Ipswich residents, led by the Reverend John Wise against a tax imposed by the governor, Sir Edmund Andros, in 1687.

Our Conant 400 Group look forward to welcoming Jonathan and any other descendants of Roger Conant to our beautiful and historic East Devon in the years ahead, including of course 2023 when we will mark the 400^th anniversary of his arrival in America. 

You can access other posts on this blog by going to the Blog Archive (under the ‘About Me’ section), and clicking on the appropriate heading.

25. Salt, Salters and Budleigh Salterton

Prof Stan Roberts, Honorary Professor of Organic Chemistry at Manchester University, gives an insight into the stuff that makes Budleigh 'worth its salt'

Salt marshes on the River Otter estuary at Budleigh Salterton

The early history of Budleigh Salterton is surely indicated in the latter part of its name. Salt (sodium chloride or NaCl) was collected locally by monks from nearby Otterton Priory and the development of the salt industry helped to propel the emergence of Budleigh ‘salt town’ from what was an obscure fishing hamlet.

Winsford salt mine  Image credit: Compass Minerals  www.deepstore.com

So, in the 18th century, salt was being collected in large salt pans at the estuary of the River Otter. The evaporation of sea water in this way forms salt as a beautifully delicate crust (fleur de sel). Of course this relatively small scale operation eventually gave way to industrial salt mining in towns such as Winsford (Cheshire) where the tunnels in the mine, seen above, are now up to 20 m wide and 7 m high.

Going back to ancient times, salt was used for the preservation of fish and meat as well as a purgative or as an ointment for the healing of damaged skin (rubbing salt in the wound). Roman soldiers valued their salt rations (‘sal’ – the origin of salary) and woe betide a guard falling asleep on duty since he would then be considered ‘not worth his salt’.

Arms of The Worshipful Company of Salters

The motto translates as 'Salt Savours All'

The importance of salt gave rise to a distinguished profession...the Salter. The first licence to a fraternity following the trade of Salter was issued by Richard II in 1394, though an informal association had been in existence well before that time, based around Bread Street in London. The fraternity developed into the Salters’ Company, one of the twelve City of London Livery Companies.

This imposing statue created in 1911 by the Anglo-American sculptor  Sir Henry Kitson commemorates Roger Conant in the city that he founded   

Image credit: Destination Salem and John Andrews 

Of local interest, in about 1610 a miller’s son from East Budleigh, Roger Conant, moved to London to become a Salter. Shortly thereafter he set sail with his wife and son to the Colonies and in 1626 became the founding father of the town (now city) of Salem in Massachusetts.

Through the centuries the Salters’ Company retained its prestigious position and in 1918 formed a flagship charity called the Salters’ Institute with the purpose of assisting young chemists returning from the Great War to continue their studies. As the increasing importance of ‘salts’ was recognised, so the breadth of interest of the Salters’ Institute grew in parallel.

Indeed, salt itself (NaCl) has come under something of a cloud. While it is still used in baking and cooking in general, the current recommendation is that the daily intake of NaCl should not be excessive. When overdone, NaCl causes water retention in the body, resulting in higher blood pressure and the more likely occurrence of heart attack and stroke.

Moving into more positive territory, away from sodium chloride, the closest relatives are sodium fluoride (NaF) and sodium bromide (NaBr). Sodium fluoride (and other fluorides) is added to tap water since it protects teeth enamel. Sodium bromide is found in relatively large quantities off the coast of Anglesey; until recently it was extracted from the sea water there and converted into bromine for industrial use.

Fully unfolded spray boom used for tasks such as weedkilling and fertilising 

Image credit: Chafer Machinery 

Agriculture benefits from salts such as sodium glyphosate (a weedkiller) and potassium nitrate (a fertiliser). Potassium nitrate is also the main component of gunpower, an explosive mixture put together by Guy Fawkes and mischievous schoolchildren.

Many common medicines are, in fact, salts, with sodium penicillins and sodium valproate (epilim, an anti-epileptic) just two of many examples; the formation of a salt gives extra stability to the active ingredient, improves its solubility and allows the medicinal ‘warhead’ to cross cell membranes to get to the target. Indeed, finding the right salt to partner a biologically active molecule is an important phase of drug development, called drug formulation.

Students represent their school at the Salters’ Institute Festival of Chemistry 

Image credit: www.theoaksacademy.co.uk 

Reflecting all this modern activity around the manufacture and use of salts, one of the current major aims of the Salters’ Institute is to promote the appreciation of chemistry and related sciences at the critical student ages 11 – 14, when career choices begin to be made, encouraging career paths in the UK chemical and allied industries as well as the teaching of chemistry. To these ends, core activities of the Institute include science curriculum development for schools (with the University of York) and the Salters’ Festivals of Chemistry, which are held annually in about 45 Universities and involve practical challenges and fun lectures.

So salts, Salters and Budleigh Salterton are intertwined. The town flourished on an age old salt industry. Salters from this area joined the Worshipful Company of Salters and some, such as Roger Conant, spread their influence overseas. Already salts are important in many aspects of our lives and an even greater impact of salts in medicines, modern agriculture and climate control is being promoted by the venerable Salters’ Institute.

Prof Roberts chairs the Conant 400 Group. The Group is promoting awareness of the forthcoming 400th anniversary of the arrival of Roger Conant (1592-1679) in America. Conant sailed to the New World a few years after the 1620 Pilgrim Fathers. He is respected for what has been described as his "attitude of tolerance and conciliation".  

You can follow the Conant 400 Group's progress at www.conant400.blogspot.com  and/or join the Facebook Conant 400 Group  here.

You can access other posts on this blog by going to the Blog Archive (under the ‘About Me’ section), and clicking on the appropriate heading.

24. Roger Conant on Cape Ann Part III: Conant at Naumkeag and Salem Village

Continued from 
https://conant400.blogspot.com/2020/02/roger-conant-on-cape-ann-part-ii-rescue.html

Roger Conant on Cape Ann

Part III: Conant at Naumkeag and Salem Village

By Mary Ellen Lepionka, February 2020

In 1626 Roger Conant led a small number of Dorchester Company survivors and their rescuers from Fisherman’s Field on Cape Ann to the Pawtucket village of Naumkeag (Nahumkeak), 12 miles southwest in present-day North Beverly, Massachusetts. There they established a settlement abutting the Native village, and they named it Salem Village, based on shalom, an Old Testament term for peace and harmony. In subsequent forays they disassembled their meetinghouse on Fisherman’s Field and carried the framing timbers and boards to Salem Village, where it was re-erected as Roger Conant’s dwelling place. Legend has it that in 1628 the structure was disassembled again and carried across the Danvers River to Salem as a temporary residence for John Endecott (Endicott), who was sent to relieve Conant as governor of Rev. John White’s New England Company. The Endicott house, purportedly built of the Dorchester Company meetinghouse oak timbers brought from England, was at the corner of present-day Washington and Church Streets in present-day Salem and was torn down in 1895.[1]

Endicott set about moving the village seat from Beverly to Salem, surveying Cape Ann for a new plantation, and acquiring land and resources from the Indians, including bog iron sites and native copper mines. As waves of new Puritans arrived in Salem, beginning with the Francis Higginson Fleet of 1629, Conant and the other first settlers who had bought or leased land directly from the Indians came to be known as the “Old Planters”. The Old Planters included Dorchester Company settlers from Cape Ann, Roger Conant’s rescue party, a few ex-Plymouth entrepreneurs, and refugees from other failed colonies, such as Ferdinando Gorges’ Wessagusset and Robert Gorges’ Weymouth, south of Boston, which had been attacked by the Wampanoag and abandoned.[2]

Recreation of “First House” at Pioneer Village in Salem, Mass.

A historical marker for the “First House”, referring to the Dorchester company’s meetinghouse,  apparently was removed from Fisherman’s Field at some time in the past and is now in a Department of Public Works shed in Gloucester, Mass. The specific original location of the meetinghouse is unknown. Transported to Salem Village, it probably looked like the historical photo of the First Church in Salem on Essex Street, dating to a slightly later period. In 1639 Roger Conant himself signed the contract to have that meetinghouse enlarged to become the First Church in Salem.[3]

First Church in Salem

In 1898 a descendant, Thomas Conant, had a watercolor made of Roger Conant’s home in Salem, based on a written description in the Conant Family Association archives in Beverly. The houses of Conant’s only surviving son, Exercise Conant, his daughters, and those of other first settlers still stand in Beverly and Salem, and early houses of several Conant descendants survive in other New England towns.

Note that the legend for the picture of Conant’s house is incorrect. Conant was never actually referred to as a governor and Mass. Bay Colony did not officially exist before 1630.

Exercise Conant’s House

Earliest Map of Salem Village in North Beverly

Planters Path

Balch Map of Salem Village (“Ancient Beverly”) in the 17^th Century

John Balch House, 448 Cabot St., Beverly, Mass.

Note that the historic marker is incorrect. Dendrochronological analysis dates this house to 1679.

Salem Village in 1692 after John Endicott relocated it to the Salem Side of the River. The “Old Planters” were in Beverly and Royal Side.

On March 19, 1627, Rev. John White’s New England Company obtained a patent from the New England Council for a grant “of some lands in Massachusetts Bay” to “gentlemen of blood”. “Some lands” ran from the Merrimack River to Boston Bay and from coast to coast:

“All the lands laying between parallels three miles north of "a greate river there commonlie call Monomack alias Merriemack," and three miles south of "a certen other river there, callled Charles river, being in the bottome of a certayne bay there, commonlie called Massachusetts, alias Mattachuestte, alias Massatusetts Bay... from the Atlantick and westerne sea and ocean on the east parte, to the south sea on the west parte."

The “gentlemen of blood” were:

Sir Henry Rosewell, Somerset, high sheriff of Devon

Sir John Yonge, Colyton, Devon

Thomas Southcote, Mohuns Ottery, Devon

John Humfry (Humphrey), treasurer of the old Dorchester Company Adventurers

Simon Whetcombe, Sherborne, a wealthy cloth-worker

John Endicott, Devon, a soldier, governor for White’s patent in New England

Of these, other than Endicott, only Humfry and Whetcombe came to New England. In 1629 the New England Company morphed into the Massachusetts Bay Company, and in 1630 the Company sent John Winthrop to replace Endicott as governor. Winthrop promptly moved the seat of government from Salem to Charlestown with ports at Dorchester and Roxbury, all part of present-day Boston. Both Endicott and Conant continued in the Salem branch of the government, swapping out or rotating roles according to the Company’s rules for terms of office. In the Company’s charter, Charles I had unaccountably granted it the ability to be self-governing, a dangerous precedent for a colonial power, and perhaps the earliest benchmark in the history of the American Revolution. The autonomous, self-governing body of stockholders met as an assembly called the General Court, which chose a governor, deputy governor, and 18 assistants to administer the colony. It’s not hard to see this legal precedent for autonomous self-rule as the real beginning of American independence.[4]

The Massachusetts Bay Company charter abrogated all prior claims, including Ferdinando Gorges’ and John Mason’s King’s Grant, and Plymouth’s Sheffield Patent. The King’s Grant boundaries were later reduced to all the northern land between the Merrimack and the Kennebec rivers, which Gorges and Mason later divided between them, essentially founding the states of New Hampshire and Maine. Meanwhile, however, Plymouth Colony and Maine both got folded into the new Massachusetts Bay colony. Also abrogated were all prior claims to land! Immediately, the rights of the Old Planters came into dispute, for in 1632 the General Court declared that all land previously purchased directly from the Indians now belonged to the General Court and would be redistributed to new settlers at its pleasure. Any claim to land without the Court’s approval was null and void. Governor Winthrop even sent his son, John Winthrop Jr., with a “posse” to begin evicting “squatters” in Ipswich.[5]

A panic ensued among first comers, who flooded the General Court with petitions to be allowed to keep at least the land they were living on. Some, such as William Jeffreys (Jeffries) from the failed colony at Weymouth, lost all their original land holdings. Jeffreys lost land in Ipswich and Manchester-by-the-Sea (Jeffreys Creek, Jeffreys Neck, and Jeffreys Ledge—a fishing bank) that he had purchased from the Pawtucket sagamore at Agawam, Masconomet (Masquenominet). The General Court compensated Jeffreys and other men of rank with grants of other lands on the frontiers. Other petitioners were granted permission to keep only the lands they lived on and “manured”, often on the condition that they establish a township or proprietorship or incorporate as a town.[6]

In a long and impassioned letter called “Planters Plea”, Rev. John White beseeched the General Court to allow the Old Planters in Salem Village to keep the property they had bought from the Indians at Naumkeag, and in 1635 they were granted 1,000 acres. The General Court insisted that the Indians be paid for their lands, “so as to avoid the least scruple of intrusion.” Ultimately, in 1700 and 1701 all the towns in Essex County repurchased quitclaim deeds to their lands from the surviving grandchildren of the sachems and sagamores who had signed the original deeds.[7]

The Old Planters Grant of 1,000 acres in 1635

In 1630 Roger Conant was made a freeman and a voting stockholder of the Massachusetts Bay Company. The next year he left Salem to form a trading company with Peter Palfrey and others (Anthony Dike, Francis Johnson), who went into business together to operate a fur trading post “for traffic in furs, with a truck house at the eastward” (Blue Point, Maine, part of Massachusetts at the time). That enterprise established, Conant returned to become a key figure in the new government, representing Salem in the General Court. He was several times elected Selectman, served on the juries of quarterly courts and courts of assistants, and oversaw surveys establishing the boundaries of land grants and towns.[8]

The newcomers to Salem and Cape Ann were not fishermen and traders from the West Country, but farmers and merchants from other parts of England, principally Bristol in Gloucestershire, Gravesend in Kent, East Anglia, and Yorkshire. (In 1668 the Old Planters Grant was set off from Salem as Beverley (Beverly), named after the Yorkshire town from which the newcomers there had come.) Predictably, conflicts arose between original settlers and newcomers, who were more concerned with acquiring land than with maintaining harmony with the resident Native people. The General Court began a program of assimilation, beginning by mandating that fences be built around Indians’ cornfields and clam flats to protect them from colonists’ free-ranging cattle and hogs. Then came Christianization and the establishment of “Praying Indian” towns. Native population loss in the first smallpox epidemic of 1633 and the first armed conflict in 1636 (the Pequot War in southern New England) aided the more aggressive displacement of Native people that followed.[9]

On March 8, 1644, in exchange for the right to bear arms, the ability to keep enough land for their own sustenance, and English protection against their Native enemies, the Pawtucket, Massachuset, Nipmuc, and Pennacook signed an oath of allegiance to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The oath was witnessed in the Circuit Court at Salem by governor John Winthrop and the Puritan cleric Richard Mather, who had landed at Cape Ann during the hurricane of 1635. The signers included Masconomet (Masquenomenit)—hereditary sagamore of Kwaskwaikikwen (Newbury), Agawam (Ipswich), Wanaskwiwam (Cape Ann), and Nahumkeak (Beverly-Salem); Cutchamakin of Neponset and Andover, brother of the late grand sachem Chickatawbut, lost in the smallpox epidemic of 1633; the grand sachem’s nephew Josias Chickatawbut of Nonantum (Newton, Brookline); Nashacowam of Nashua, New Hampshire, a Pennacook; Wassamagin of Wachuset, a Nipmuc; and Squaw Sachem, tributary to Passaconaway (Pappiseconewa) of the Pennacook and widow of Nanepashemet—late grand sachem of the Pawtucket Confederation of Abenakis. Squaw Sachem—her name was never recorded—had lost two of her three Christianized sons in the smallpox epidemic of 1633 and in 1639 had sold Cambridge, Watertown, Newton, Arlington, Somerville, and Charlestown to the English. She and her surviving son, Wenepoykin (disfigured by smallpox and known to the English as George No-Nose and later as George Rumney-Marsh) soon also sold the land that became Lynn, Saugus, Revere, Medford, Wakefield, Woburn, Stoneham, and Winchester. They all threw in their lot with Passaconaway, who himself appeared in the Circuit Court at Salem the following year to add his signatory mark to the Oath of 1644.

Towns in Essex and Middlesex counties created from lands purchased from Native leaders prior to 1644.

The Native leaders had to swear that they "voluntarily & without any constraint or persuasion, but of our own free motion, put ourselves, our subjects, Lands, and estates under the Government and [will be] protected by them according to their just laws." They also had to swear to accept certain conditions, expressed in the following nine questions. Richard Mather recorded their answers.

1. Will you worship the only true God, who made heaven and earth, and not blaspheme?
Ans: "We do desire to reverence the God of the English and to speak well of Him, because we see He doth better to the English, than other gods do to others."

2. Will you cease from swearing falsely?
Ans: "We know not what swearing is.

3. Will you refrain from working on the Sabbath, especially within the bounds of Christian towns?
Ans: "It is easy to us, — we have not much to do any day, and we can well rest on that day."

4. Will you honor your parents and all your superiors?
Ans: "It is our custom to do so, — for inferiors to honor superiors."

5. Will you refrain from killing any man without just cause and just authority?

Ans: "This is good, and we desire so to do."

6. Will you deny yourselves fornication, adultery, incest, rape, sodomy, buggery, or bestiality?
Ans [after some explanation]: "Though some of our people do these things occasionally, yet we count them naught and do not allow them."

7. Will you deny yourselves stealing?
Ans: "We say the same to this as to the 6th question."

8. Will you allow your children to learn to read the word of God, so that they may know God aright and worship him in his own way?
Ans: "We will allow this as opportunity will permit, and, as the English live among us, we desire so to do."

9. Will you refrain from idleness? 

Ans: "We will."

To seal the deal, the six sagamores and sachems paid 26 fathoms of wampum (that amounts to a minimum of 6,240 shell beads, roughly 624 colonial dollars in value), essentially buying protection by paying tribute. Wampum was legal tender in Mass. Bay Colony at that time (until 1661) for both colonists and Indians. In turn, each “chief” was given two yards of red woolen cloth and a pot of wine. The Puritan ministers wrote home to England that a new age of spreading the gospel among the Indians had begun. And the Indians went home with the news that a new age of coexistence had begun under the justice of English laws.[10]

But after 1650 that justice was not to be had, culminating in the Wampanoag uprising of 1675, known as King Philip’s War, after which the Massachusetts Bay Colony periodically sanctioned efforts to exterminate the Native people. Several hundred colonists had arrived on the eleven ships of the Winthrop Fleet, inaugurating what became known as the Great Migration (which included two of my ancestors, Ralph Hemenway, who landed at Roxbury in 1633, and John Perham, who landed at Charlestown in 1634). By 1640 the estimated population of New England had risen spectacularly from fewer than 500 colonists to more than 26,000. Native people were overwhelmed, as were some Old Planters. First comers who wanted more elbow room, or who did not want to live under close scrutiny of the strict new Puritan regime, eloped to fishing settlements and trading camps on the frontiers, along with Native escapees, runaway African slaves (introduced in Massachusetts in 1638), and various nonconformists, miscreants, and religious and ethnic minorities being “warned out” of Plymouth, Salem, and Charlestown. Before the seventeenth century’s end, even before the witchcraft hysteria of the 1690s, the regional cultures of North America were already in the making.[11]

NOTES AND REFERENCES

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[1] Adams, Herbert B. The Fisher Plantation of Cape Anne, 1882. Part I of The Village Communities of Cape Ann and Salem, Historical Collections of the Essex Institute: 19. (Salem, MA); Gannon, Fred A., n. d., Roger Conant and the Fishing Station of 1626  In Some Starts of Industry and Commerce in Old Salem. Salem, MA: J. N Simard; O’Leary, Tom (GIS Director, Southern Essex Registry of Deeds, Salem, MA). 2002. Ancient Indian Trails and Canoe Routes of Essex County; Phippen, George D. Of Salem before 1628, Essex Institute Historical Collections 1: 97, 185; Young, Alexander. 1846, Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1623-1636, Volumes 41 and 49. Boston, MA: C. C. Little and J. Brown; Phippen, George D. Biographical sketch of Roger Conant. Essex Institute Historical Collections: 1: 145. See Frederick Conant’s 1877 History and Genealogy of the Conant Family in England and America (http://www.archive.org/details/historygenealogy00cona). See also Hubbard, William. 1815. A General history of New England: from the discovery to 1680. Volume 5 of Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Boston, MA: Hilliard & Metcalf (Hubbard interviewed Roger Conant); Webber, Carl and Winfield S. Nevins. 1877. Old Naumkeag: An Historical Sketch of the City of Salem, and the Towns of Marblehead, Peabody, Danvers, Wenham, Manchester, Topsfield, and Middleton. Salem, MA: A. A. Smith; New York Times. The. July 8, 1890. Boston, July 7. The Old Endicott House: An Ancient Landmark of Salem, Mass., Demolished.

[2] Winthrop, John. 1790. Journal of the transactions and occurrences in the settlement of Massachusetts and the other New-England colonies, from the year 1630 to 1644, written by John Winthrop ... and now first published from a correct copy of the original manuscript. Hartford, CT: Elisha Babcock; Endicott, Charles M. 1867. Memoir of John Endecott. Salem, MA.; “John Endecott, Puritan.” The New York Times, September 1, 1895; Phillips, James Duncan. 1933. The Landing of Endecott. Chapter IV in Salem in the Seventeenth Century. Boston: Houghton. Stewart, Marcia, ed. 1662; White, Rev. John. October 12, 1634. The Adventure for 1623-1628 in New England. Proceedings of the Court of Requests of Charles I, London; John White’s Planter’s Plea, 1630, printed in facsimile with an introduction by Marshall H. Saville, The Sandy Bay Historical Society Publications Volume I (Rockport, MA, 1930), p. 73-74; Higginson, Rev. Francis. 1629. New England’s Plantation: A Short and True Description of the Commodities and Discommodities of that Country. London (1630) The Winthrop Society: http://www.winthropsociety.com/doc_higgin.php; Phineas Pratt’s Account of Wessagusset Plantation. Boston, MA: The Winthrop Society: http://www.winthropsociety.com/doc_pratt.php Babson, John, History of the Town of Gloucester, Cape Ann: Including the Town of Rockport (1860), also his Notes and additions to the history of Gloucester…(1891): https://archive.org/details/notesadditionsto00babs. Sources for Ferdinando Gorges’ and John Mason’s claims and their suits in court include Gorges’ Sir Ferdinando Gorges and His Province of Maine: A Briefe Narration... (1658); America Painted to the Life…. (1659); and Letter relating to Maine, Essex Institute Historical Collections 7: 271 (1661). See also John Wingate Thornton, Colonial Schemes of Popham and Gorges. Speech given at the Fort Popham Celebration, August 29, 1862 (Maine Historical Society1863).

[3] Maverick, Samuel. 1660 (Reprinted 1885). A Briefe Description of New England and the Severall Townes Therein, Together with the Present Government Thereof. In New England Historical and Genealogical Register 39: 33-47; Raymond, Robert S. (Sidney Perley documents): Samuel Balch’s Map of ancient Beverly, 17^th Century; Latham Map showing the location of the earliest houses in Beverly; also Peter Woodbury house, Balch house, Conant houses, Humphreys house, Prince house, and other historic photos: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~raymondfamily/Beverly1700; Massachusetts Bay Colony Tercentenary Commission. 2009. Historical Markers Erected by the Massachusetts Bay Colony Tercentenary Commission (with texts revised by Samuel Eliot Morison: http://archive.org/details/historicalmarker00mass; Winthrop Society. The Residents of Salem, First Town of the Massachusetts Bay Commonwealth: From Original Records up to the Year 1651: http://www.winthropsociety.com/doc_salem.php; Pierce, Richard, ed. 1974. The Records of the First Church in Salem, Massachusetts, 1629-1736. Salem: Essex Institute. See also the Salem Covenants of 1629 and 1635: https://www.apuritansmind.com/creeds-and-confessions/covenants-of-new-england/.

[4] Noble, John and John F. Cronin, eds. 1901 and 1904. Records of the Court of assistants of the colony of the Massachusetts Bay 1630-1692, Volumes I and II. Suffolk County, Boston, MA. Especially see Nathaniel Shurtleff’s 1853 Records of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay and General Court, Vol. I and Vol. II 1630-1649 (Massachusetts Archives); Frothingham, Richard. 1845. History of Charlestown, Massachusetts: https://archive.org/details/historyofcharles00froth; Winthrop, John. 1649 History of New England 1630-1649. James K. Hosmer, ed. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; Clapp, Roger. 1630 (1844). Memoirs of Roger Clap (1609-1691). Boston, (Also by D. Clapp Jr. in Issue 1 of Collections of the Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society). Stone, Edward M. 1843. History of Beverly, Civil and Ecclesiastical, from its Settlement in 1630 to 1842. (Includes the 1680 depositions of William Dixy, Humphrey Woodbury, and Richard Brackenbury). Boston: James Munroe & Company; Tapley, Harriet Silvester. 1923. Chronicles of Danvers (Old Salem Village) 1632-1923. Danvers, MA: The Danvers Historical Society.

[5] Levett, Christopher. 1628. A Voyage into New England Begun in 1623 and Ended in 1624, Performed by Christopher Levett, his Majesties Woodward of Somersetshire, and one of the Councell of New-England. London: William Jones, for the Council of New England. See also Charles Pope’s 1908 Pioneers of Maine and New Hampshire 1623 to 1660. Joseph Felt, History of Ipswich, Essex, and Manchester (1966); D. F. Lamson, History of the Town of Manchester, Essex County, Massachusetts 1645-1895; and Gordon Abbott Jr., Jeffrey’s Creek: A Story of People, Places and Events in the Town That Came to Be Known as Manchester-By-The-Sea (2003); Stone, Edward M. 1843. History of Beverly, Civil and Ecclesiastical, from its Settlement in 1630 to 1842. (Includes the 1680 depositions of William Dixy, Humphrey Woodbury, and Richard Brackenbury). Boston: James Munroe & Company; Tapley, Harriet Silvester. 1923. Chronicles of Danvers (Old Salem Village) 1632-1923. Danvers, MA: The Danvers Historical Society.

[6] Sources for the story of William Jeffreys include Proceedings of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, 1629-1686 (CT0-1700x); Early Records of the Kettle family of Salem (1690) in the Essex Institute Historical Collections 2: 256 and 4: 282; Early Records of the Allen family of Manchester in the Essex Institute Historical Collections 24: 223, 302; 25:44, 27: 31; and “William Jeffrey(s)” in the RootsWeb World Connect Project: Rehobeth:

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jbbullock&id=I31456. Sources for land disputes and their resolution following the sweeping reforms of 1630 include, in addition to the General Laws and cases in the records of the Court of Assistants, cited previously, Roy Agaki, The Town Proprietors of the New England Colonies: 27-124 (1963). See also "Records of land grants, division bounds, thatch lots, herbage lots and wood lots, and highway”, and “Minutes of meetings of Proprietors of Common Lands” in the Massachusetts Archives, Boston.

[7]John White’s Planter’s Plea, 1630, printed in facsimile with an introduction by Marshall H. Saville, The Sandy Bay Historical Society Publications Volume I (Rockport, MA, 1930), pp. 70-76.

The General Court’s appropriations and redistributions of lands are reported in Records of the Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England From 1628 to 1641 (Massachusetts Archives): http://archive.org/details/recordsofcompany00mass. For the Court’s grant to the Old Planters of Salem Village in response to White’s Planter’s Plea, and the 1635 map showing the grant boundaries, see Robert S. Raymond’s web site (2002): http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~raymondfamily/Beverly1700.

The principal source for Native American deeds and redeeds is the Southern Essex County Registry of Deeds in Salem, MA, with data based largely on Sidney Perley, The Indian Land Titles of Essex County, Massachusetts (1912). See the Registry’s comprehensive web site on Native American Deeds at http://www.nativeamericandeeds.com/. The Hawthorne in Salem “Main Street” web site also displays original deed-related documents and historical maps for Salem and environs at http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/Literature/NativeAmericans&Blacks/MainStreet/OriginalDocuments.html. See also the Book of Indian Records for Their Lands (Massachusetts Historical Commission Archives, 1861). Useful articles include Peter Leavenworth, “The Best Title That Indians Can Claime”: National Agency and Consent in the Transferal of Penacook-Pawtucket Land in the 17^th Century, in the New England Quarterly 72 (2, June 1999): 275-300; and Katherine Hermes, Justice Will Be Done Us: Algonquian Demands for Reciprocity in the Courts of European Settlers, in Christopher Tomlins, The Many Legalities of Early America (2001): 123-149. Another useful article, by James Springer, is American Indians and the Law of Real Property in Colonial New England, in The American Journal of Legal History 30 (1) (January 1986): 25-58.

[8] See Conant references in Note 1 and Joseph Felt’s Biographical sketch of John Endicott (Essex Institute Historical Collections 5:73, 8: 96, and 15: 298). For a roster of leaders, see Officers of the Massachusetts Bay Commonwealth 1630-1686: www.winthropsociety.com/doc_officers.php. The classic primary source is John Winthrop’s 1649 History of New England 1630-1649. See Felt, Joseph B., Annals of Salem, from Its First Settlement, Volume I (1827): https://archive.org/details/annalsofsalemfro00jose and Morison, Samuel Eliot. 1930 (Reprinted 2004). Builders of the Bay Colony. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing.

Insight into Massachusetts Bay Colony governance may also be seen in General Laws of the Massachusetts Colony Revised and Published by Order of the General Court in October 1632 – Revised edition, November 1675: http://www.usingessexhistory.org/primarydocuments/institute07/princelaws.pdf, and Bibliographic sketch of the laws of the mass colony from 1630 (William Whitmore, 1890, P-665 Microfilm reel #37, Massachusetts Archives).

[9] Good relations between the Pawtucket and colonists at Naumkeag is attested by Hubbard; Edward Johnson in Wonder-Working Providence of Sions Saviour in New England (1654) and Good News from New England (1658); and William Wood in New England’s Prospect: A True, Lively, and Experimental Description of That Part of America, commonly called New England (1634): http://www.comity.org/Wood_NE_Prospect.htm. See also Herbert Adams, Origin of Salem Plantation and Old Depositions relating to Old Planters, Essex Institute Historical Collections 13: 136; 19: 153. John White’s discussion of newcomers versus Old Planters is in Planter’s Plea, 1630, reproduced by Marshall H. Saville, The Sandy Bay Historical Society Publications Volume I (Rockport, MA, 1930), pp. 79-84. For Native Americans in the Contact Period see Gookin, Daniel. Report of 1674 in Historical collections of the Indians of New England and their several nations, numbers, customs, manners, religion, and government before the English planted there (Massachusetts Historical Society Collections Paper 13): http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/sc_pubs/13/). For the Pequot War, see Lion Gardiner, Relation of the Pequot Warres (1660); and John Mason and Paul Royster, ed., Major Mason’s Brief History of the Pequot War (1736): http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/etas/42.

[10] The Oath of 1644 is referenced in several places: Nathaniel Shurtleff’s 1853 Records of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay and General Court, Vol. II 1642-1649 and Vol. III 1644-1657 (Massachusetts Archives); see also Indian, 1603-1705: Records detailing the interactions between the Massachusetts Bay government and native peoples in New England and New York. Boston, MA: Massachusetts Archive Collection Volume 30. Also Dow, George Francis, ed. 1911-1921. Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts (8 vols.), Volume 1 (Salem, Mass., Essex Institute). The original source is Mather, Richard. 1653. Tears of repentence: or, A further narrative of the progress of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New-England:….(London, Peter Cole). Richard Mather’s account of his voyage to Cape Ann in 1635 was reprinted in 1869 in Journal and Life of Richard Mather, 1596-1669, Collections of the Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society 3, Boston: David Clapp. Richard Mather was the father of Increase Mather and grandfather of Cotton Mather, also prominent Puritan clerics.

[11] Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Vol. 1. For a perspective on the immigrants, see William Richard Cutter, ed. 1874 compendium, New England families, genealogical and memorial, 1915; The original lists of persons of quality; emigrants; religious exiles; political rebels; serving men sold for a term of years; apprentices; children stolen; maidens pressed; and others who went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700 with their ages and the names of the ships in which they embarked, and other interesting particulars, including John Hotten’s “Original Lists”: http://www.archive.org/stream/originallistsofp00hottuoft#page/n5/mode/2up. Also James Savage’s classic Genealogical Dictionary of the First Planters, in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (1873) 27 (2); and Henry Waters’ The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (1882) 36: 45; 51; Frank Holmes’ Directory of Ancestral Heads of New England Families, 1620-1700 (1964); H. F. Andrews’ List of Freemen, Massachusetts Bay Colony 1630-1691, with the Freeman’s Oath (1906): https://archive.org/details/listoffreemenmas00andr. Woolworkers and weavers of the Great Migration tended to settle more heavily in Ipswich, Rowley, Georgetown, Newbury, and the interior of Essex County. See Thomas Gage, History of Rowley, Anciently including Bradford, Boxford and Georgetown for the Year 1639 to the Present Time (1840); Thomas Waters, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Part I: Records and Dispositions of the Usurpation Period (1905); and John Currier, History of Newbury, Mass. 1635-1902 (1902). For insight on the Pilgrim and Puritan religious regimes, see William Bradford and Edward Winslow, Mourt’s Relation, or Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth (1622); Francis Bremer, The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to Edwards (1996); and Bremer and Webster, eds., Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia (2006). For information on the Native American experience, see especially Gookin, Daniel, 1677 (Published 1836, reprinted 2003). Historical Account of the Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England in the years 1670-1677 (Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing); Lepore, Jill, 1998, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity (New York: Vintage); Cogley, Richard W., 1999, Eliot’s Mission to the Indians Before King Philip’s War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press); Eames, Wilberforce, ed., 1915, John Eliot and the Indians 1652-1657: Letters Addressed to Rev. Jonathan Hanmer of Barnstaple, England (New York: Museum of the American Indian): https://archive.org/stream/cu31924104076884#page/n1/mode/2up; Eliot, John, 1671, Brief Narrative of the Progress of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England, in the Year 1670 (London: John Allen): http://www.bartleby.com/43/12.html; Fisher, Linford D., 2017, Why Shall Wee Have Peace to Bee Made Slaves: Indian Surrenderers During and After King Philip’s War, Ethnohistory 64 (1): 91-114; and Calloway, Colin, 1997, After King Philip’s War: Presence and Persistence in Indian New England. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.

General Sources for the History of Essex County, Massachusetts:

See Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society and their Primary Sources Archive for Essex County History at http://www.usingessexhistory.org/primaryresources.shtml.

Secondary sources for the history of Essex County, Massachusetts: Fuess, Claude E., 1935, The Story of Essex County, Vol. I. (Phillips Academy, Andover, MA. New York: American Historical Society); Hough, Walter, 1888, History of Essex County, Massachusetts, Volume 2, Part 1; Tracy, Cyrus Mason, 1878, Standard History of Essex County, Massachusetts, embracing a history of the county for its first settlement to the present time…. (Boston: C. F. Jewett and Co.): https://archive.org/details/standardhistoryo00trac; and Hurd, Duane Hamilton. 1888. History of Essex County, Massachusetts: With Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men (Philadelphia, PA: J. W. Lewis & Co.).

© Mary Ellen Lepionka, 2020