[649] Shurtleff, Top. and Hist. Description of Boston, 51.
[650] Goodwin, loc. cit.
[651] Winthrop, Hist. of New England, II, 51, 52. One might cheerfully forgive Governor Winthrop, had his sense of historical propriety suffered him to go farther into the details of the marriage customs. He apologizes parenthetically: "I would not mention such ordinary matters in our history, but by occasion of some remarkable accidents."
[652] Morse, in Mem. Hist. Bost., IV, 572. The MSS. Records of the County Court of Middlesex (Apr. 1, 1656), I, 80, contain the following case: "Mr. Joseph Hills being presented by the grand jury for marrying of himself contrary to the law of the Colony (page 38 of the old book); freely acknowledged his offence and his misunderstanding the grounds whereon he went, which he now confessed to be unwarrantable. Admonished by the court."
[653] Goodwin, loc. cit. See further on Bellingham's marriage Hildreth, Hist. of U. S., I, 279; Mem. Hist. Bost., I, 575.
[654] Complaints of clandestine marriages may be found in the New Hampshire records: see Provincial Papers, IV, 832; New Hamp. Hist. Coll., VIII, 117, 118. There is an unsettled case of alleged clandestine marriage in the MSS. Early Court Files of Suffolk (March, 1699-1700), Nos. 4590, 4663.
[655] See Conn. Col. Rec., I, 47, 48, 540; New Haven Col. Rec., II, 599; and the Massachusetts laws relating to the districts of ministers and justices, mentioned above.
[656] R. I. Col. Rec., I, 187; and Staples, Proceedings of the First Assembly, 47, 48.
[657] R. I. Col. Rec., II, 104.
[658] Ibid., III, 361, 362; also in Rider's reprint of the Laws and Acts (1705), 44.