[280] “Mr. John Winthrope, jun., is granted ye hill at Tantousq, about 60 miles westward, in which the black-leade is; and liberty to purchase some land there of the Indians” (13th November, 1644).—Mass. Col. Rec., vol. ii. p. 82; and Savage, in Winthrop, N. E., vol. ii. p. 213, note. The place mentioned is what is now Sturbridge; which is called “the most important locality” of black-lead in Massachusetts, by Dr. Hitchcock.—Geol., pp. 47, 395.
[281] “The mountains and rocky hills are richly furnished with mines of lead, silver, copper, tin, and divers sorts of minerals, branching out even to their summits; where, in small crannies, you may meet with threds of perfect silver: yet have the English no maw to open any of them;” and so forth.—Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 44.
[282] Asterias rubens, L.—Gould, Report on Invert., p. 345.
[283] See the chapter on Fishes, p. 23, for this and the others here spoken of.
[284] “Numerous about the Isle of Sables; i.e., the Sandy Isle.”—Voyages, p. 106. “Mr. Graves” (year 1635) “in the ‘James,’ and Mr. Hodges in the ‘Rebecka,’ set sail for the Isle of Sable for sea-horse, which are there in great number,” &c.—Winthrop’s N. E., by Savage, vol. i. p. 162. And I cite one other mention of this pursuit: “Eastward is the Isle of Sables; whither one John Webb, alias Evered (an active man), with his company, are gone, with commission from the Bay to get sea-horse teeth and oyle.”—Lechford’s Newes from New England (1642), Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. iii. 3d series, p. 100. The Magdalen Islands, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, are the most southern habitat of the animal spoken of by Godman.—Amer. Nat. Hist., vol. i. p. 249.
[285] Compare Cutler (Account of Indig. Veg., l. c., p. 456) and Wood and Bache (Dispens., p. 1369).
[286] The author has something to the same effect in his Voyages, p. 124; but Wood’s account of the Indian women (New-England’s Prospect, part ii. chap. xx.) is far better worth reading. Both appreciated, in one way or another, their savage neighbors. Wood has a pleasant touch at the last. “These women,” he says, “resort often to the English houses, where pares cum paribus congregatæ,—in sex, I mean,—they do somewhat ease their misery by complaining, and seldom part without a relief. If her husband come to seek for his squaw, and begin to bluster, the English woman betakes her to her arms, which are the war-like ladle and the scalding liquors, threatning blistering to the naked runaway, who is soon expelled by such liquid comminations. In a word, to conclude this woman’s history, their love to the English hath deserved no small esteem; ever presenting them something that is either rare or desired,—as strawberries, hurtleberries, rasberries, gooseberries, cherries, plumbs, fish, and other such gifts as their poor treasury yields them” (l. c.). And, if Lechford’s Newes from New England (l. supra c., p. 103) can be trusted, the savages became “much the kinder to their wives by the example of the English.”
[287] In the author’s Voyages, this chronological table is greatly extended; beginning with “Anno Mundi, 3720,” and ending with A.D. 1674.
[288] Set right by the author in Voyages, p. 248.
[289] The author, in the “chronological observations” appended to his Voyages, enlarges this, but confounds Conant’s Plantation at Cape Ann, and Endicott’s, as follows: “1628. Mr. John Endicot arrived in New England with some number of people, and set down first by Cape Ann, at a place called afterwards Gloster; but their abiding-place was at Salem, where they built the first town in the Massachusets Patent.... 1629. Three ships arrived at Salem, bringing a great number of passengers from England.... Mr. Endicot chosen Governour.” The next year, Josselyn continues as follows: “1630. The 10th of July, John Winthrop, Esq., and the Assistants, arrived in New England with the patent for the Massachusetts.... John Winthrop, Esq., chosen Governour for the remainder of the year; Mr. Thomas Dudley, Deputy-Governour; Mr. Simon Broadstreet, Secretary.”—Voyages, p. 252. The title of Governor was used anciently, as it still is elsewhere, in a looser sense than has been usual in New England; and derived all the dignity that it had from the character and considerableness of the government. Conant and Endicott were directors or governors of settlements in the Massachusetts Bay before Winthrop’s arrival; but when the Massachusetts Company in London proceeded, on the 20th October, 1629, to carry into effect their resolution to transfer their government to this country,—and chose accordingly Winthrop to be their Governor; Humphrey, their Deputy-Governor; and Endicot and others, Assistants (Young, Chron. of Mass., p. 102),—the record appears sufficient evidence that they had in view something quite different from the fishing plantation which Conant had had charge of at Cape Ann, or the little society (“in all, not much above fifty or sixty persons,” says White’s Relation in Young, Chron., p. 13; which the editor, from Higginson’s narrative, raises to “about a hundred”) “of which Master Endecott was sent out Governour” (White, l. c.) at Naumkeak.