ANNE BRADSTREET
MERCY BRADSTREET
DUDLEY BRADSTREET
JOHN BRADSTREET
EDWARD WHITTINGTON
ALEXANDER
SESSIONS
[his marke]
ROBTE. RB BUSELY."
Law was resorted to in even small disagreements with a haste and frequency excellent for the profession employed, but going far to intensify the litigious spirit of the day, and tolerant as Simon Bradstreet was in all large matters, his name occurs with unpleasant frequency in these petty village suits. This suit with goodman Sutton was but one of many, almost all of which arose from the trespasses of animals. Fences were few, and though they were viewed at intervals by the "perambulators," and decided to be "very sufficient against all orderly cattle," the swine declined to come under this head, and rooted their way into desirable garden patches to the wrath and confusion of their owners, all persons at last, save innholders, being forbidden to keep more than ten of the obnoxious animals. Horses, also, broke loose at times, and Mr. Bradstreet was not the only one who suffered loss, one of the first tragedies in the little town, being a hand to hand fight, ending in a stabbing of one of the parties, both of whom belonged to good families and were but lightly judged in the trial which followed. They were by no means a peaceful community, and if the full truth be told, a week of colonial life would prove to hold almost as large a proportion of squabbles as any town record of to-day.
The second one gives some difficulties connected with the marriage of Governor Bradstreet's daughter Mercy, which took place Oct. 31, 1672, but not till various high words had passed, and sufficient hard feeling been engendered to compel the preparing of the affidavit, which probably, whatever its effect may have been on the parents, did not touch the happiness of the young pair for whose respective rights they had debated.
"When Mr. Johnathan Wade of Ipswich came first to my house att Andover in the yeare 72, to make a motion of marriage betwixt his son Nathaniel and my daughter Mercy hee freely of himself told mee what he would give to his son vz. one halfe of his Farme att Mistick and one third p't of his land in England when hee dyed, and that hee should have liberty to make use of p't of the imp'ved and broken upp ground upon the sd Farme, till hee could gett some broken upp for himselfe upon his owne p't and likewis | that hee should live in and have the use of halfe the house, and untill he had one | of his owne built upon his p't of the farme. I was willing to accept of his | offer, or at least sd. nothing against it; but p'p'ounded that hee would make | his sd soil a deede of guift of that third p't of his land in England to enjoy to | him and his heires after his death. This hee was not free to doe, but sd. it was | as sure, for he had soe putt it into his will, that his 3 sons should have | that in England equally devyded betwixt them, vz. each a 3 p't. I objected | he marry | againe and have other children, wich hee thought a vaine obieccon. Much | othr discourse there was about the stocke on the Farme, &c., but remayneing unwilling | to give a deede for that in England, saying he might live to spend it, and often | repeating hee had soe ordered it in his will, as aforesd., wch hee should never altr without | great necessity, or words to that purpose. Soe wee p'ted for that tyme leaveing | that mattr to further consideracon. After hee came home hee told sev'all of my | Friends and others as they informed me, that hee had p'ffered to give his son Nathaniel bettr then 1000 lb | and I would not accept of it. The next tyme hee came to my house, after some | discourse about the premises and p'esining his resolucon as form'ly ingaged, and left it to him to add wt he pleased | towards the building of him a house &c., and soe agreed that the young p'sons might | p'ceede in marriage with both or Consents, wch accordingly they did. S. BRADSTREET."
"The Honble Simon Bradstreet Esqr | made Oath to the truth of the above written Sept. 21th, 1683, before Samuell Nowell, Assistant.
"The interlines [as aforesaid], line 19th, and [as they informed me] line 22th, were before the Oath was made."
The brackets are in the original and were used as quotations marks. Governor Bradstreet's name and all above it are in his handwriting; all below it is in Mr. Nowell's.
Another Mercy Bradstreet, niece of the Mercy whose name figures in the foregoing statement, and the daughter of the oldest son, married Dr. James Oliver, from whom are descended Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Wendell Phillips, while Lucy, the daughter of Simon, the second son, became the ancestress of Dr. Channing and of Richard N. Dana, the poet and his distinguished son. Many of the grandchildren died in infancy, and the pages of the second edition of their grandmother's poems are sprinkled with elegies long and short, upon the babies almost as well loved as her own, though none of them have any poetical merit. But her thoughts dwelt chiefly in the world for which she longed, and there are constant reminders of what careless hold she kept upon the life which had come to be simply a burden to be borne with such patience as might be given her.