FOOTNOTES:

[X] A town of great commercial importance in the Dutch trade, formerly belonging to the United Provinces of the Netherlands.

[Y] President Quincy.

[DR. WATTS'S LETTER OF CONDOLENCE TO MADAM SEWALL.]

[The following letter of Dr. Watts was written to Madam Sewall, the wife of Maj. Samuel Sewall, a highly accomplished merchant of Boston, upon the sudden and affecting death of her two sons. These were children by her first husband, Mr. Nathan Howell, and her only children, for she never had any by Maj. Sewall. For the letter and a number of the facts in relation to the sad event, we are indebted to Charles Ewer, Esq.; and through his instrumentality also the likenesses of the youth drowned were procured from Mrs. Loring, the wife of Henry Loring, Esq., of this city, and are now deposited in the Rooms of the New England Historic, Genealogical Society. The Rev. Samuel Sewall of Burlington informs us that the Rev. Dr. Sewall of the Old South Church, in his diary, notices the event as follows: "1727-8 January 8, (Monday,) George and Nathan Howell abt 15 & 14 yrs old, went a skating at the bottom of ye Common, and were both drowned. O Ld Sanctify this awful Providce to the near Relations; Support & Comfort ym: Be to yne Handmaid better yn 10 Sons: To ye Town! Awaken our young people to Remr yr Creator and fly to X yt yy may be safe under ye Shadow of his wings. Jany 14 (Sabbath) I endeavoured to improve ye late awful Providce fr. Eccl. 9. 12."

Nathan Howell and Katherine George were married by Rev. Dr. Colman, Aug. 11, 1708: George and Nathan, their sons, were born,—George, Nov. 1, 1712, and Nathan, March 21, 1713-14.

In Pemberton's Manuscript Chronology we find the following entry: "1728, January 8th, George and Nathan Howell of Boston, brothers about 14 and 15 years old, in skating at the bottom of the Common, fell through the ice and were both drowned.">[

November 7, 1728.

Madam,

Yesterday from Mr Sewall's hand I Received the favor of several Letters from my Friends in New-England, and a particular account of that sharp and surprising Stroak of Providence that has made a painful and lasting Wound on your Soul. He desir'd a Letter from my hand directed to you which might carry in it some Balm for an afflicted spirit. By his Information I find that I am not an utter stranger to your Family and Kindred. Mr Lee your Venerable Grandfather was Predecessor to Mr Thomas Rowe my Honour'd Tutor and once my Pastor in my younger years. Mr Peacock who married your eldest Aunt was my intimate Friend. Mrs Bishop and Mrs Wirly were both my Acquaintance tho' my long Illness and Absence from London has made me a stranger to their Posterity whom I knew when Children. But now I know not who of them are living or where. Docr Cotton Mather your late Father in Law was my yearly Correspondent, and I lament the loss of him. But the loss you have sustained is of a more tender and distressing kind; yet let us see whether there are not sufficient Springs of Consolation flowing round you to allay the smart of so great a sorrow. And may the Lord open your Eyes as he did the Eyes of Hagar in the Wilderness so to Espy the Spring of Water when she was dying with Thirst and her Child over against her ready to expire. Gen. 21, 19.

Have you lost two lovely Children? Did you make them your Idols? if you did, God hath sav'd you from Idolatry; if you did not, you have your God still and a Creature cannot be miserable who has a God. The short words My God have infinitely more sweetness in them than My Sons or My Daughters. Were they desirable Blessings? Your God calls you then to the nobler Sacrifice. Can you give up these to him at his call? God delighteth in such a Sacrifice. Were they your All? So was Isaac when Abraham was required to part with him at God's Altar. Are not you a Daughter of Abraham? Then imitate you his Faith, his self-denial, his Obedience, and make your Evidences of such a Spiritual Relation to him shine Brighter on this solemn occasion. Has God taken them from your Arms? had you not given them to God before? had you not devoted them to him in Baptism? are you displeas'd that God calls for his own? was not your heart sincere in the Resignation of them to him? Show then, Madam, the sincerity of your Heart in leaving of them in the Hand of God—Do you say they are lost? not out of God's sight, and God's World, tho' they are out of our sight and our World. All live to God. You may hope the spreading Covenant of Grace has shelter'd them from the second Death. They live tho' not with you. Are you ready to say you have brought forth for the Grave? it may be so, but not in vain. Isaiah 65, 23. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; (that is for Sorrow and without hope) for they are the seed of the Blessed of the Lord and their offspring with them. This has been a sweet Text to many a Mother when their Children have been called away betimes. And the Prophet Jeremy Chap. 31, 15-17, has very comfortable words to allay the same sorrow. Did you please yourself in what comforts you might have derived from them in maturer years? But Madam, do you consider sufficiently that God hath taken them away from the evil to come, and hid them in the Grave from the prevailing and mischievous Temptations of a degenerate age. My Brother's Wife in London has buried seven or eight Children, and among them, all her Sons. This tho't has reconciled her to the Providence of God, that the Temptations of young men in this Age are so exceeding great, and she has seen so many young Gentlemen of her acquaintance so shamefully degenerate, that she wipes her Tears for the Sons she has buried, and composes herself to Patience and Thankfulness with one only Daughter remaining. Perhaps God has by this stroak prevented a thousand unknown Sorrows. Are your Sons dead? but are your Mercies dead too? A worthy Husband is a living Comfort and may God preserve and restore him to you in safety. Food, Raiment, Safety, Peace, Liberty of Religious access to the mercy seat, Hope of Heaven;—All these are daily matters of thankfullness. Good Madam, let not one sorrow bury them all. Shew that you are a Christian by making it appear that Religion has supports in it which the World doth not enjoy and which the World doth not know. What can a poor Worldling do but mourn over earthly Blessings departed, and go down comfortless with them to the Grave. But methinks that a Christian should lift up the Head as partaking of higher hopes. May the Blessed Spirit be your Comforter. Endeavour Madam to employ yourself in some Business or Amusement of life continually. Let not a solitary frame of Mind tempt you to set Brooding over your Sorrows and nurse them up to a dangerous Size; but turn your Thoughts often to the brighter Scenes of Heaven and the Resurrection. Forgive the freedom of a stranger, Madam, who desires to be the Humble and faithful Servant of Christ and Souls.

Isaac Watts.

Postscript.

Madam, You have so many excellent Comforters round about you that I even Blush to send what I have wrote; yet since the narrowness of my Paper has excluded two or three thoughts which may not be impertinent or useless on this mournful Occasion I will insert them here. You know Madam that the great and blessed God had but one Son, and he gave him up a Sacrifice and devoted him to a bloody Death out of Love to such Sinners as you and I. Can you shew your gratitude to God in a more evident & acceptable manner than by resigning willingly your two Sons to him at the call of his Providence? This Act of willing Resignation will turn a painful Affliction into a holy Sacrifice. Are the two dearest things torn from the heart of a Mother, then you may ever set looser by this World, and you have the fewer dangerous Attachments to this life. 'Tis a happiness for a Christian not to have the heart strings tyed too fast to any thing beneath God and Heaven. Happy the Soul that is ready to move at the Divine summons. The fewer Engagements we have on earth, the more we may live above, and have our thoughts more fixed on things Divine and heavenly. May this painful stroak thus Sanctified lead you nearer to God. Amen.

I. W.

"A boate going out of Hampton River was cast away and the psons all drowned who were in number eight: Em. Hilliar, Jon. Philbrick and An Philbrick his wife; Sarah Philbrick there daughter; Alice the wyfe of Moses Cox and John Cox his sonne, Robert Read; who all perished in ye sea ye 20th of the 8 mo. 1657."—Norfolk County Records.

From the same Records, we learn that "Capt. Benjamin Swett of Hampton was slain at Black Point by the barbarous Indians the 29th June, 1677."

[LIST OF ANCIENT NAMES IN BOSTON AND VICINITY.]

An Alphabetical List of the Ancient Names in the towns of Boston, Charlestown, Roxbury, Watertown, Dorchester, Cambridge, Dedham, Weymouth, Braintree, Concord, Sudbury, Hingham, and Woburn.

BY THE LATE JOHN FARMER, ESQ.

[This List embraces the names in the above towns from 1630 to 1644, and contains most of the names in each town.

Abbreviations.—Bo. Boston, Ch. Charlestown, Co. Concord, Ca. Cambridge, Br. Braintree, De. Dedham, Do. Dorchester, H. Hingham, M. Medfield, R. Roxbury, S. Sudbury, Wa. Watertown, We. Weymouth, and Wo. Woburn.]