Anne Bradstreet and Her Time Part 11

If he repented afterward of his bargain, as most of them did, there is no record, but for the time being he was satisfied with "ye sume of L6 & a coate," which the Rev. John Woodbridge duly paid over, the town being incorporated under the name of Andover in 1646, as may still be seen in the Ma.s.sachusetts Colony Records, which read: "At a general Court at Boston 6th of 3d month, 1646, Cutshamache, Sagamore of Ma.s.sachusetts, came into the court and acknowledged that, for the sum of L6 and a coat which he had already received, he had sold to Mr. John Woodbridge, in behalf of the inhabitants of Cochichewick, now called Andover, all the right, interest and privilege in the land six miles southward from the town, two miles eastward to Rowley bounds, be the same more or less; northward to Merrimack river, provided that the Indian called Roger, and his company, may have liberty to take alewives in Cochichewick river for their own eating; but if they either spoil or steal any corn or other fruit to any considerable value of the inhabitants, the liberty of taking fish shall forever cease, and the said Roger is still to enjoy four acres of ground where now he plants."

Punctuation and other minor matters are defied here, as in many other records of the time, but it is plain that Cutshamache considered that he had made a good bargain, and that the Rev. John Woodbridge, on his side was equally satisfied.

The first settlements were made about Cochichewick Brook, a "fair springe of sweet water." The delight in the cold, clear New England water comes up at every stage of exploration in the early records. In the first hours of landing, as Bradford afterward wrote, they "found springs of fresh water of which we were heartily glad, and sat us down and drunk our first New England water, with as much delight as ever we drunk drink in all our lives."

"The waters are most pure, proceeding from the entrails of rocky mountains," wrote John Smith in his enthusiastic description, and Francis Higginson was no less moved. "The country is full of dainty springs," he wrote, "and a sup of New England's air is better than a whole draught of old England's ale." The "New English Canaan" recorded: "And for the water it excelleth Canaan by much; for the land is so apt for fountains, a man cannot dig amiss. Therefore if the Abrahams and Lots of our time come thither, there needs be no contention for wells. In the delicacy of waters, and the conveniency of them, Canaan came not near this country." Boston owed its first settlement to its "sweet and pleasant springs," and Wood made it a large inducement to emigration, in his "New England's Prospect." "The country is as well watered as any land under the sun; every family or every two families, having a spring of sweet water betwixt them. It is thought there can be no better water in the world." New Englanders still hold to this belief, and the soldier recalls yet the vision of the old well, or the bubbling spring in the meadow that tantalized and mocked his longing in the long marches, or in the hospital wards of war time.

The settlement gathered naturally about the brook, and building began vigorously, the houses being less hastily constructed than in the first pressure of the early days, and the meeting-house taking precedence of all.

Even, however, with the reverence inwrought in the very name of minister we must doubt if Anne Bradstreet found the Rev. John Woodbridge equal to the demand born in her, by intercourse with such men as Nathaniel Ward or Nathaniel Rogers, or that he could ever have become full equivalent for what she had lost. With her intense family affection, she had, however, adopted him at once, and we have very positive proof of his deep interest in her, which showed itself at a later date. This change from simple "husbandman" to minister had pleased her pride, and like all ministers he had shared the hardships of his congregation and known often sharp privation. It is said that he was the second one ordained in New England, and like most others his salary for years was paid half in wheat and half in coin, and his life divided itself between the study and the farm, which formed the chief support of all the colonists. His old record mentions how he endeared himself to all by his quiet composure and patience and his forgiving temper. He seems to have yearned for England, and this desire was probably increased by his connection with the Dudley family. Anne Bradstreet's sympathies, in spite of all her theories and her determined acceptance of the Puritan creed, were still monarchical, and Mercy would naturally share them. Dudley himself never looked back, but the "gentlewoman of fortune" whom he married, was less content, and her own hidden longing showed itself in her children. Friends urged the young preacher to return, which he did in 1647, leaving wife and children behind him, his pastorate having lasted but a year. There is a letter of Dudley's, written in 1648, addressed to him as "preacher of the word of G.o.d at Andover in Wiltshire," and advising him of what means should be followed to send his wife and children, but our chief interest in him lies in the fact, that he carried with him the ma.n.u.script of Anne Bradstreet's poems, which after great delay, were published at London in 1650. He left her a quiet, practically unknown woman, and returned in 1662, to find her as widely praised as she is now forgotton; the "Tenth Muse, Lately sprung up in America."

What part of them were written in Andover there is no means of knowing, but probably only a few of the later ones, not included in the first edition. The loneliness and craving of her Ipswich life, had forced her to composition as a relief, and the major part of her poems were written before she was thirty years old, and while she was still hampered by the methods of the few she knew as masters. With the settling at Andover and the satisfying companionship of her husband, the need of expression gradually died out, and only occasional verses for special occasions, seem to have been written. The quiet, busy life, her own ill-health, and her absorption in her children, all silenced her, and thus, the work that her ripened thought and experience might have made of some value to the world, remained undone. The religious life became more and more the only one of any value to her, and she may have avoided indulgence in favorite pursuits, as a measure against the Adversary whose temptations she recorded. Our interest at present is in these first Andover years, and the course of life into which the little community settled, the routine holding its own interpretation of the silence that ensued. The first sharp bereavement had come, a year or so before the move was absolutely determined upon, Mrs. Dudley dying late in December of 1643, at Roxbury, to which they had moved in 1639, and her epitaph as written by her daughter Anne, shows what her simple virtues had meant for husband and children.

AN EPITAPH

ON MY DEAR AND EVER-HONORED MOTHER,

MRS. DOROTHY DUDLEY,

WHO DECEASED DECEMB 27 1643, AND OF HER AGE 61.

Here lyes A worthy Matron of unspotted life, A loving Mother and obedient wife, A friendly Neighbor pitiful to poor, Whom oft she fed and clothed with her store, To Servants wisely aweful but yet kind, And as they did so they reward did find; A true Instructer of her Family, The which she ordered with dexterity.

The publick meetings ever did frequent, And in her Closet constant hours she spent; Religious in all her words and wayes Preparing still for death till end of dayes; Of all her Children, Children lived to see, Then dying, left a blessed memory."

There is a singular apt.i.tude for marriage in these old Puritans.

They "married early, and if opportunity presented, married often."

Even Governor Winthrop, whose third marriage lasted for thirty years, and whose love was as deep and fervent at the end as in the beginning, made small tarrying, but as his biographer delicately puts it, "he could not live alone, and needed the support and comfort which another marriage could alone afford him." He did mourn the faithful Margaret a full year, but Governor Dudley had fewer scruples and tarried only until the following April, marrying then Catherine, widow of Samuel Hackburne, the first son of this marriage, Joseph Dudley, becoming even more distinguished than his father, being successively before his death, Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Wight, and first Chief Justice of New York, while thirteen children handed on the name. The first son, Samuel, who married a daughter of Governor Winthrop, and thus healed all the breaches that misunderstanding had made, was the father of eighteen children, and all through the old records are pictures of these exuberant Puritan families.

Benjamin Franklin was one of seventeen. Sir William Phipps, the son of a poor gunsmith at Pemaquid, and one of the first and most notable instances of our rather tiresome "self-made men," was one of twenty-six, twenty-one being sons, while Roger Clapp of Dorchester, handed down names that are in themselves the story of Puritanism, his nine, being Experience, Waitstill, Preserved, Hopestill, Wait, Thanks, Desire, Unite and Supply. The last name typifies the New England need, and Tyler, whose witty yet sympathetic estimate of the early Puritans is yet to be surpa.s.sed, writes: "It hardly needs to be mentioned after this, that the conditions of life there were not at all those for which Malthus subsequently invented his theory of inhospitality to infants.

Population was sparce; work was plentiful; food was plentiful; and the arrival in the household of a new child was not the arrival of a new appet.i.te among a brood of children already half-fed--it was rather the arrival of a new helper where help was scarcer than food; it was, in fact, a fresh installment from heaven of what they called, on Biblical authority, the very 'heritage of the Lord.' The typical household of New England was one of patriarchal populousness. Of all the sayings of the Hebrew Psalmist--except, perhaps, the d.a.m.natory ones--it is likely that they rejoiced most in those which expressed the Davidic appreciation of mult.i.tudinous children: 'As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.' The New Englanders had for many years quite a number of enemies in the gate, whom they wished to be able to speak with, in the unabashed manner intimated by the devout warrior of Israel."

Hardly a town in New England holds stronger reminders of the past, or has a more intensely New England atmosphere than Andover, wherein the same decorous and long-winded discussions of fate, fore-knowledge and all things past and to come, still goes on, as steadily as if the Puritan debaters had merely transmigrated, not pa.s.sed over, to a land which even the most resigned and submissive soul would never have wished to think of as a "Silent Land." All that Cambridge has failed to preserve of the ancient spirit lives here in fullest force, and it stands to-day as one of the few representatives remaining of the original Puritan faith and purpose. Its foundation saw instant and vigorous protest, at a small encroachment, which shows strongly the spirit of the time. A temporary church at Rowley was suggested, while the future one was building, and Hubbard writes: "They had given notice thereof to the magistrates and ministers of the neighboring churches, as the manner is with them in New England. The meeting of the a.s.sembly was to be at that time at Rowley; the forementioned plantations being but newly erected, were not capable to entertain them that were likely to be gathered together on that occasion. But when they were a.s.sembled, most of those who were to join together in church fellowship, at that time, refused to make confession of their faith and repentance, because, as was said, they declared it openly before in other churches upon their admission into them.

Whereupon the messengers of the churches not being satisfied, the a.s.sembly broke up, before they had accomplished what they intended."

English reticence and English obstinacy were both at work, the one having no mind to make a private and purely personal experience too common; the other, resenting the least encroachment on the Christian liberty they had sought and proposed to hold. By October, the messengers had decided to compromise, some form of temporary church was decided upon, and the permanent one went up swiftly as hands could work. It had a bell, though n.o.body knows from whence obtained, and it owned two galleries, one above another, the whole standing till 1711, when a new and larger one became necessary, the town records describing, what must have been a building of some pretension, "50 feet long, 45 feet wide, and 24 feet between joints"; and undoubtedly a source of great pride to builders and congregation. No trace of it at present remains, save the old graveyard at the side, "an irregular lot, spa.r.s.ely covered with ancient moss-grown stones, in all positions, straggling, broken and neglected, and overrun with tall gra.s.s and weeds." But in May, as the writer stood within the crumbling wall, the ground was thick with violets and "innocents," the gra.s.s sprung green and soft and thick, and the blue sky bent over it, as full of hope and promise as it seemed to the eyes that two hundred years before, had looked through tears, upon its beauty. From her window Mistress Bradstreet could count every slab, for the home she came to is directly opposite, and when detained there by the many illnesses she suffered in later days, she could, with opened windows, hear the psalm lined out, and even, perhaps, follow the argument of the preacher. But before this ample and generous home rose among the elms, there was the usual period of discomfort and even hardship. Simon Bradstreet was the only member of the little settlement who possessed any considerable property, but it is evident that he shared the same discomforts in the beginning. In 1658 there is record of a house which he had owned, being sold to another proprieter, Richard Sutton, and this was probably the log- house built before their coming, and lived in until the larger one had slowly been made ready.

The town had been laid out on the principle followed in all the early settlements, and described in one of the early volumes of the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society Collections. Four, or at the utmost, eight acres, const.i.tuted a homestead, but wood-lots and common grazing lands, brought the amount at the disposal of each settler to a sufficient degree for all practical needs. It is often a matter of surprise in studying New England methods to find estates which may have been owned by the same family from the beginning, divided in the most unaccountable fashion, a meadow from three to five miles from the house, and wood-lots and pasture at equally eccentric distances. But this arose from the necessities of the situation. Homes must be as nearly side by side as possible, that Indians and wild beasts might thus be less dangerous and that business be more easily transacted. Thus the arrangement of a town was made always to follow this general plan:

"Suppose ye towne square 6 miles every waye. The houses orderly placed about ye midst especially ye meeting house, the which we will suppose to be ye center of ye wholl circ.u.mference. The greatest difficulty is for the employment of ye parts most remote, which (if better direction doe not arise) may be this: the whole being 6 miles, the extent from ye meeting-house in ye center, will be unto every side 3 miles; the one half whereof being 2500 paces round about & next unto ye said center, in what condition soever it lyeth, may well be distributed & employed unto ye house within ye compa.s.s of ye same orderly placed to enjoye comfortable conveniance. Then for that ground lying without, ye neerest circ.u.mference may be thought fittest to be imployed in farmes into which may be placed skillful bred husbandmen, many or fewe as they may be attayned unto to become farmers, unto such portions as each of them may well and in convenient time improve according to the portion of stocke each of them may be intrusted with."

House-lots would thus be first a.s.signed, and then in proportion to each of them, the farm lands, called variously, ox-ground, meadow- land, ploughing ground, or mowing land, double the amount being given to the owner of an eight-acre house-lot, and such lands being held an essential part of the property. A portion of each township was reserved as "common or undivided land," not in the sense in which "common" is used in the New England village of to- day, but simply for general pasturage. With Andover, as with many other of the first settlements, these lands were granted or sold from time to time up to the year 1800, when a final sale was made, and the money appropriated for the use of free schools.

As the settlement became more secure, many built houses on the farm lands, and removed from the town, but this was at first peremptorily forbidden, and for many years after could not be done without express permission. Mr. Bradstreet, as magistrate, naturally remained in the town, and the new house, the admiration of all and the envy of a few discontented spirits, was watched as it grew, by its mistress, who must have rejoiced that at last some prospect of permanence lay before her. The log house in which she waited, probably had not more than four rooms, at most, and forced them to a crowding which her ample English life had made doubly distasteful. She had a terror of fire and with reason, for while still at Cambridge her father's family had had in 1632 the narrowest of escapes, recorded by Winthrop in his Journal: "About this time Mr. Dudley, his house, at Newtown, was preserved from burning down, and all his family from being destroyed by gunpowder, by a marvellous deliverance--the hearth of the hall chimney burning all night upon a princ.i.p.al beam, and store of powder being near, and not discovered till they arose in the morning, and then it began to flame out."

The thatch of the early house, which were of logs rilled in with clay, was always liable to take fire, the chimneys being of logs and often not clayed at the top. Dudley had warned against this carelessness in the first year of their coming, writing: "In our new town, intended this summer to be builded, we have ordered, that no man there shall build his chimney with wood, nor cover his house with thatch, which was readily a.s.sented unto; for that divers houses since our arrival (the fire always beginning in the wooden chimneys), and some English wigwams, which have taken fire in the roofs covered with thatch or boughs." With every precaution, there was still constant dread of fire, and Anne must have rejoiced in the enormous chimney of the new house, heavily b.u.t.tressed, running up through the centre and showing in the garret like a fortification. This may have been an enlargement on the plan of the first, for the house now standing, took the place of the one burned to the ground in July, 1666, but duplicated as exactly as possible, at a very short time thereafter. Doubts have been expressed as to whether she ever lived in it, but they have small ground for existence. It is certain that Dudley Bradstreet occupied it, and it has been known from the beginning as the "Governor's house." Its size fitted it for the large hospitality to which she had been brought up and which was one of the necessities of their position, and its location is a conspicuous and important one.

Whatever temptation there may have been to set houses in the midst of grounds, and make their surroundings hold some reminder of the fair English homes they had left, was never yielded to. To be near the street, and within hailing distance of one another, was a necessity born of their circ.u.mstances. Dread of Indians, and need of mutual help, ma.s.sed them closely together, and the town ordinances forbade scattering. So the great house, as it must have been for long, stood but a few feet from the old Haverhill and Boston road, surrounded by mighty elms, one of which measured, twenty-five years ago, "sixteen and a half feet in circ.u.mference, at one foot above the ground, well deserving of mention in the 'Autocrat's' list of famous trees." The house faces the south, and has a peculiar effect, from being two full stories high in front, and sloping to one, and that a very low one, at the back. The distance between caves and ground is here so slight, that one may fancy a venturous boy in some winter when the snow had drifted high, sliding from ridge pole to ground, and even tempting a small and ambitious sister to the same feat. Ma.s.sive old timbers form the frame of the house, and the enormous chimney heavily b.u.t.tressed on the four sides is exactly in the center, the fireplaces being rooms in themselves. The rooms at present are high studded, the floor having been sunk some time ago, but the doors are small and low, indicating the former proportions and making a tall man's progress a series of bows. Some of the walls are wainscotted and some papered, modern taste, the taste of twenty-five years ago, having probably chosen to remove wainscotting, as despised then as it is now desired. At the east is a deep hollow through which flows a little brook, skirted by alders, "green in summer, white in winter," where the Bradstreet children waded, and fished for shiners with a crooked pin, and made dams, and conducted themselves in all points like the children of to-day. Beyond the brook rises the hill, on the slope of which the meeting-house once stood, and where wild strawberries grew as they grow to-day.

A dense and unbroken circle of woods must have surrounded the settlement, and cut off many glimpses of river and hill that to- day make the drives about Andover full of surprise and charm.

Slight changes came in the first hundred years. The great mills at Lawrence were undreamed of and the Merrimack flowed silently to the sea, untroubled by any of mans' uses.

Today the hillsides are green and smooth. Scattered farms are seen, and houses outside the town proper are few, and the quiet country gives small hint of the active, eager life so near it. In 1810, Dr. Timothy Dwight, whose travels in America were read with the same interest that we bestow now upon the "Merv Oasis," or the "Land of the White Elephant," wrote of North Andover, which then held many of its original features:

"North Andover is a very beautiful piece of ground. Its surface is elegantly undulating, and its soil in an eminent degree, fertile.

The meadows are numerous, large and of the first quality. The groves, charmingly interspersed, are tall and thrifty. The landscape, everywhere varied, neat and cheerful, is also everywhere rich.

"The Parish is a mere collection of plantations, without anything like a village. The houses are generally good, some are large and elegant The barns are large and well-built and indicate a fertile and well-cultivated soil.

"Upon the whole, Andover is one of the best farming towns in Eastern Ma.s.sachusetts."

Andover roads were of incredible crookedness, though the Rev.

Timothy makes no mention of this fact: "They were at first designed to accommodate individuals, and laid out from house to house," and thus the traveller found himself quite as often landed in a farm-yard, as at the point aimed for. All about are traces of disused and forgotten path-ways--

"Old roads winding, as old roads will, Some to a river and some to a mill,"

and even now, though the inhabitant is sure of his ground, the stranger will swear that there is not a street, called, or deserving to be called, straight, in all its borders. But this was of even less consequence then than now. The New England woman has never walked when she could ride, and so long as the church stood within easy distance, demanded nothing more. One walk of Anne Bradstreets' is recorded in a poem, and it is perhaps because it was her first, that it made so profound an impression, calling out, as we shall presently see, some of the most natural and melodious verse which her serious and didactic Muse ever allowed her, and being still a faithful picture of the landscape it describes. But up to the beginning of the Andover life, Nature had had small chance of being either seen or heard, for an increasing family, the engrossing cares of a new settlement, and the Puritan belief that "women folk were best indoors," shut her off from influences that would have made her work mean something to the present day. She had her recreations as well as her cares, and we need now to discover just what sort of life she and the Puritan sisterhood in general led in the first years, whose "new manners and customs," so disturbed her conservative spirit.

CHAPTER X.

VILLAGE LIFE IN 1650.

Of the eight children that came to Simon and Anne Bradstreet, but one was born in the "great house" at Andover, making his appearance in 1652, when life had settled into the routine that thereafter knew little change, save in the one disastrous experience of 1666. This son, John, who like all the rest, lived to marry and leave behind him a plenteous family of children, was a baby of one year old, when the first son, Samuel, "stayed for many years," was graduated at Harvard College, taking high honor in his cla.s.s, and presently settling as a physician in Boston, sufficiently near to be called upon in any emergency in the Andover home, and visited often by the younger brothers, each of whom became a Harvard graduate. Samuel probably had no share in the removal, but Dorothy and Sarah, Simon and Hannah, were all old enough to rejoice in the upheaval, and regard the whole episode as a prolonged picnic made for their especial benefit. Simon was then six years old, quite ready for Latin grammar and other responsibilities of life, and according to the Puritan standard, an accountable being from whom too much trifling could by no means be allowed, and who undoubtedly had a careful eye to the small Hannah, aged four, also old enough to knit a stocking and sew a seam, and read her chapter in the Bible with the best. Dorothy and Sarah could take even more active part, yet even the mature ages of eight and ten did not hinder surrept.i.tious tumbles into heaped up feather beds, and a scurry through many a once forbidden corner of the Ipswich home. For them there was small hardship in the log house that received them, and unending delight in watching the progress of the new. And one or another must often have ridden before the father, who loved them with more demonstration than the Puritan habit allowed, and who in his frequent rides to the new mill built on the Cochichewick in 1644, found a pet.i.tioner always urging to be taken, too. The building of the mill probably preceded that of the house, as Bradstreet thought always of public interests before his own, though in this case the two were nearly identical, a saw and grist-mill being one of the first necessities of any new settlement, and of equal profit to owner and users.

Anne Bradstreet was now a little over thirty, five children absorbing much of her thought and time, three more being added during the first six years at Andover. When five had pa.s.sed out into the world and homes of their own, she wrote, in 1656, half regretfully, yet triumphantly, too, a poem which is really a family biography, though the reference to her fifth child as a son, Mr. Ellis regards as a slip of the pen:

"I had eight birds hatcht in one nest, Four c.o.c.ks there were, and Hens the rest; I nurst them up with pain and care, Nor cost, nor labour did I spare, Till at the last they felt their wing, Mounted the Trees, and learn'd to sing; Chief of the Brood then took his flight To Regions far, and left me quite; My mournful chirps I after send, Till he return, or I do end; Leave not thy nest, thy Dam and Sire, Fly back and sing amidst this Quire.

My second bird did take her flight, And with her mate flew out of sight; Southward they both their course did bend, And Seasons twain they there did spend; Till after blown by Southern gales, They Norward steer'd with filled Sayles.

A prettier bird was no where seen, Along the beach among the treen.

I have a third of colour white On whom I plac'd no small delight; Coupled with mate loving and true, Hath also bid her Dam adieu; And where Aurora first appears, She now hath percht, to spend her years; One to the Academy flew To chat among that learned crew; Ambition moves still in his breast That he might chant above the rest, Striving for more than to do well, That nightingales he might excell.

My fifth, whose down is yet scarce gone Is 'mongst the shrubs and bushes flown, And as his wings increase in strength, On higher boughs he'l pearch at length.

My other three, still with me nest, Untill they'r grown, then as the rest, Or here or there, they'l take their flight, As is ordain'd, so shall they light.

If birds could weep, then would my tears Let others know what are my fears Lest this my brood some harm should catch, And be surpriz'd for want of watch, Whilst pecking corn, and void of care They fish un'wares in Fowler's snare; Or whilst on trees they sit and sing, Some untoward boy at them do fling; Or whilst allur'd with bell and gla.s.s, The net be spread, and caught, alas.

Or least by Lime-twigs they be foyl'd, Or by some greedy hawks be spoyl'd.

O, would my young, ye saw my breast, And knew what thoughts there sadly rest, Great was my pain when I you bred, Great was my care when I you fed, Long did I keep you soft and warm, And with my wings kept off all harm; My cares are more, and fears then ever, My throbs such now, as 'fore were never; Alas, my birds, you wisdome want, Of perils you are ignorant; Oft times in gra.s.s, on trees, in flight, Sore accidents on you may light.

O, to your safety have an eye, So happy may you live and die; Mean while my dayes in tunes I'll spend, Till my weak layes with me shall end.

In shady woods I'll sit and sing, And things that past, to mind I'll bring.

Once young and pleasant, as are you, But former boyes (no joyes) adieu.

My age I will not once lament, But sing, my time so near is spent.

And from the top bough take my flight, Into a country beyond sight, Where old ones, instantly grow young, And there with Seraphims set song; No seasons cold, nor storms they see, But spring lasts to eternity; When each of you shall in your nest Among your young ones take your rest, In chirping language, oft them tell, You had a Dam that lov'd you well, That did what could be done for young, And nurst you up till you were strong, And 'fore she once would let you fly, She shew'd you joy and misery; Taught what was good, and what was ill, What would save life, and what would kill?

Thus gone, amongst you I may live, And dead, yet speak, and counsel give; Farewel, my birds, farewel, adieu, I happy am, if well with you.

A. B."

The Bradstreets and Woodbridges carried with them to Andover, more valuable worldly possessions than all the rest put together, yet even for them the list was a very short one. An inventory of the estate of Joseph Osgood, the most influential citizen after Mr.

Bradstreet, shows that only bare necessities had gone with him.