[487] Mass. Hist. Coll., xxviii. 298.
[488] [The main parts of it were also reprinted in the Congregational Board’s edition of Morton, in 1855. There is a memoir of Hunter in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xvii. 300.—Ed.]
[489] Priest, Tinker and Soule, are names found in the records of parishes near Scrooby (Palfrey’s History of New England, i. 160), and it is not unlikely that Degory Priest, Thomas Tinker, and George Sowle, of the “Mayflower,” may have come from this region. It is also said by Mr. W. T. Davis (Harper’s Magazine, lxiv. 254, January, 1882, “Who were the Pilgrims?”), that a William Butten’s baptism is found in Austerfield, under date of Sept. 12, 1589. But it would be hazardous to identify this man of thirty-one years with the “William Butten, a youth, servant to Samuel Fuller,” who died on the “Mayflower’s” voyage to America. It is also believed that Miles Standish was a scion of the Standish family of Duxbury Hall, Lancashire. [This view is encouraged, if not established, by the expressions of Standish’s own will, which is printed in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., v. 335. The story of Standish’s career has been more than once reviewed of late years, on account of the efforts, not yet completed, to erect a tower to his memory on Captain’s Hill, in Duxbury. Its proposed height is not yet reached; and when completed, it will bear his effigy on its top. There were Proceedings printed to commemorate the consecration of the ground, Aug. 17, 1871, and on laying the corner-stone, in 1872. It is known that Standish was never of the Pilgrim communion; and “Was Miles Standish a Romanist?” is discussed in Mag. of Amer. Hist., i. 390. The inventory of his books is given in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., i. 54. Bartlett, Pilgrim Fathers, and the illustrated edition of Longfellow’s Poems, 1880, give some views connected with the English family. On the descendants of the Captain, see N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1873, p. 145; Winsor’s Duxbury; Savage’s Dictionary, etc.
Of the origin of Carver, their first governor, nothing is known. Cf. N. B. Shurtleff, in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1850, p. 105; 1863, p. 62; and 1872, p. 333. The Howlands were long supposed to be his descendants through the marriage of his daughter to the Pilgrim John Howland, and the modern inscription on the latter’s monument on the Burial Hill, at Plymouth, repeats a story seemingly disproved by the recovery of Bradford’s manuscript history, which states that Howland married a daughter of another Pilgrim, Edward Tilley. A recent revision of the story, by W. T. Davis, in the Boston Daily Advertiser, Nov. 25, 1881, rather urging the traditional belief, was met by Charles Deane, in Ibid., Dec. 7, 1881, who showed that John Howland, Jr., was born in Plymouth, in 1626, and could not have sprung from an earlier marriage of John, Sr., with Carver’s daughter. The decision turns upon the identity of “Lieutenant Howland,” as mentioned by Sewall, being met near Barnstable. It is barely possible that Joseph Howland, and not John, Jr., was meant; but Joseph did not live at Barnstable, as John, Jr. did. Cf. Historical Magazine, iv. 122, 251; and New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1860, p. 13, 1880, p. 193.—Ed.]
[490] [Cf. Mr. Deane’s memorandum, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., October, 1870, p. 403.—Ed.]
[491] [This book contains a full exposition of the influence which the Plymouth Pilgrims exerted upon the New England Congregational system. Cf. further Dr. Jas. S. Clark’s Congregational Churches in Massachusetts, 1858; the Appendix to the Congregational Board’s edition of Morton’s Memorial; and Dexter’s Congregationalism, p. 415.—Ed.]
[492] [Winslow’s tract was reissued unchanged in 1649, as The Danger of tolerating Levellers in a Civill State. There are copies in the Lenox, Charles Deane, and Carter-Brown libraries. A copy is worth, perhaps, $100. Winslow’s report of Robinson’s sermon seems to have been a reminiscence of his own, twenty-five years after the event. It is not decided when it was delivered. It has usually been held to represent advanced and liberal views; but Dr. Dexter dissents, and says that “polity, and not dogma, is the keynote of the still noble farewell.” See Congregationalism, etc., pp. 403, 409; and Palfrey’s History of New England, i. 157. The whole subject of Robinson’s relation to the Leyden congregation is treated by Dr. Dexter, p. 359; and of his union with Johnson’s church at Amsterdam, on p. 318, note. The only copies of the original edition of 1646 known to the Editor are in Dr. Dexter’s and the Carter-Brown libraries.—Ed.]
[493] [Dr. O. W. Holmes has thrown a little light on contemporary life in Leyden from Scaligerana, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. (June, 1874), xiii. 315.—Ed.]
[494] See a memoir of Mr. Sumner, by R. C. Waterston, in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xviii. 189. also, a report of his speech at Plymouth, in 1859, in the Hist. Mag., iii. 332; and in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1859, p. 341.
[495] With the specific title: John Robinson, Prediker der Leidsche Brownistengemeente en grondlegster der Kolonie Plymouth. Leiden, 1846. [What is known of Robinson’s family and descendants can be learned from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1860, p. 17; 1866, pp. 151, 292. The question of the Rev. John Robinson, of Duxbury, being a descendant, was set at rest negatively by Dr. Edward Robinson, in his Memoir of the Rev. William Robinson, New York. 1859.—Ed.]