At the end of June they reached Salem, where they found about eight or ten mud cabins, with a larger one for the governor, and a few cultivated fields. “There are in all,” says Higginson, “of old and new planters about three hundred; two hundred of whom are settled at Salem, and the rest have planted themselves at Charlestown. We at Salem make what haste we can to build houses, so that shortly we shall have a fair town.”
This church of God in the wilderness, which had come hither to practise reformation, soon found members within its bosom who clung to the old forms and ceremonies; and the return of the ships which had brought them out carried back the leaders of this faction—cast out by the church, which would not allow them to remain within her borders, and by Endicott, the governor, that there might not be “spies in the camp.”
The following winter brought with it many hardships. Before the next spring nearly half the emigrants, the enthusiastic Higginson among the rest, were removed by death. But not even these misfortunes, nor yet the evil report of intolerance and persecution, which the expelled friends of episcopacy carried back with them to England, could damp the ardour for colonisation which filled the hearts of the English Puritans; to them the Indian from the wilderness appealed, “Come over and help us;” and the report of Higginson, though now dead, testified to them of a land abundant as that of Canaan.
Emigration on a more comprehensive scale than had before been thought of was decided upon. Men of influence and fortune embarked in it, determining, however, to form “a peculiar government, and to colonise only with the best.” To carry out their views fully, it was necessary to obtain a transfer of the charter from the council in England to the freemen now emigrating, and others inhabiting the colony. Bold as this scheme was, it was accomplished. The patent and the government were legally transferred to the emigrants themselves, and the excellent John Winthrop was chosen governor before leaving England. The calm firmness of Winthrop sustained many timid spirits who were alarmed at the unexampled boldness of their undertaking; others again shrank back at the last moment; there was a winnowing out among them, and literally “the best” only went. Years afterwards it was said of this great and good governor, that he was as a mother to the infant colony, “parent-like, distributing his goods and gladly bearing the infirmities of the weak, yet ever maintaining the figure and honour of his place with the spirit of a true gentleman.” Of him Bancroft says, “his character marks the transition of the Reformation into avowed republicanism; when the sentiment of loyalty, still sacredly cherished, was gradually yielding to the irresistible spirit of civil freedom.”
Eight hundred persons, all Puritans, inclining to the Calvinistic doctrines, accompanied Winthrop. In the course of the year, seventeen vessels brought over 1,500 persons. It was, however, no garden of Eden, no land of Canaan to which they had come. “Arriving here in June and July,” says Dudley, in his letter to the Countess of Lincoln, who, with her family, was deeply concerned in this emigration, “we found the colony in a sad and unexpected condition, above eighty of them being dead the winter before, and many of those alive, sick and weak; all the bread and corn among them hardly sufficient to feed them a fortnight, insomuch that nearly 200 servants whom we had sent over at great cost, received their liberty, we being wholly unable to feed them.”
Salem, at which they had arrived, not wholly pleasing the new-comers, some time was spent in searching the coast for localities more to their mind, and finally some of them settled at Charlestown, others at a short distance where was an excellent spring, and to which they gave the name of Boston; some on the Mistic at Medford; others at Watertown and Rocksbury; “others again upon the Saugus at Lynn, between Salem and Charlestown, and the western men four miles south of Boston, at a place they called Dorchester; several of these settlements being now suburbs of Boston.”
This dispersion was a great grief to the company, but it was only as the beginning of sorrows. “They who had health,” says Dudley, “fell to building, wherein many were interrupted by sickness and death. Deaths were for some time of almost daily occurrence. Dissatisfaction prevailed in many minds, and when the ships returned to England, about a hundred returned with them; thus was the company again winnowed of the faithless and faint-hearted. The ships being gone,” continues Dudley, “victuals wasting, and mortality increasing, we held divers fasts in our several congregations. But the Lord would not be deprecated; and among many other deaths, on the 30th of September died Mr. Johnson, the Lady Arabella, his wife, being dead a month before. This gentleman was a prince amongst us, zealous for religion, and the greatest furtherer of this plantation.” The deaths of these two excellent people caused, say some of their fellow-sufferers, “not only weeping eyes but fainting hearts, fearing the fall of the present work.” Johnson was buried at the upper end of his lot of land, in the faith of his rising in it. This ground became the first burial-place in Boston, others desiring to be laid round his grave. The Lady Arabella was daughter of the third Earl of Lincoln; “she came,” says Hubbard, “from a paradise of plenty and pleasure into a wilderness of wants;” “and,” adds Cotton Mather, quaintly, “she took New England in her way to heaven.” One of the ships who conveyed over this company of emigrants was called, in honour of her, the Arabella. She was buried at Salem, the place of her interment being still respected; and a girls’ grammar-school in Boston now bears her name. Of those who came from England in April, 200, at least, had died by December. Governor Winthrop, whose son was drowned the very day of his landing, writing to his wife, says, “I have lost twelve of my family; the Lord’s hand hath been heavy upon me;” yet he assures her, “I would not have altered my course though I had foreseen all these afflictions; I never had more content of mind.” They who survived were not discouraged, but bearing God’s corrections with humility, and trusting in his mercies, they bore in mind “how after a lower ebb God had raised up their neighbours at Plymouth.” Through all their afflictions and sufferings, these steadfast men and women, who saw the hand of God in all things, never omitted the sacred duties of the Sabbath, though they had to assemble in the open fields or beneath the forest trees—God was ever present with them; and little children in the hour of death became transfigured, as it were, and testifying of their faith and their assurance of immortality, were a marvel to all.
In the midst of their sorrows and sufferings the purpose of their coming hither to establish a pure church in the wilderness was not forgotten. The first measure of the Court of Assistants was to provide for the administration of the gospel. Within two years of their landing, seven churches were firmly established and provided with devout ministers. Their second object was the settlement of a government which was to secure their beloved popular liberties. Their charter provided that laws were to be enacted in the assembly of all the freemen of the colony, but a fear soon crept in of this being susceptible of too wide an interpretation; already above a hundred old planters and members of no church “were freemen equally with themselves.” The stem, uncompromising spirit of the religionist awoke. “Late in May, after the corn was set,” a general court ordained that while the governor, deputy-governor, and assistants, should be chosen by the freemen, none should be admitted to the freedom of the body-politic but such as were members of some church within the limits of the colony.
Thus was the door opened to bigotry and intolerance! A species of theocratic government was established; God was the head of his people; his people were they who constituted the elect, and whose names were registered in the book of eternal life. “An aristocracy,” adds Bancroft, “was founded, but not of wealth. A servant, a bondman, might be a member of the church and therefore a freeman of the company. The Calvinists of Massachusetts, scrupulously refusing to the clergy the least shadow of political favour, established the reign of a visible church or commonwealth of the chosen people in covenant with God.”
Sincerely religious themselves, this was nevertheless a dangerous principle to introduce into their government, and one totally subversive of the spirit of true religion and democratic liberty.