name. Her homely virtues are thus simply recorded by her daughter: "An EPITAPH On my dear and ever honoured Mother Mrs. Dorothy Dudley, who deceafed Decemb. 27. 1643. and of her age, 61: Here lyes, A Worthy Matron of unspotted life, A loving Mother and obedient wife, A friendly Neighbor, pitiful to poor, To Servants wifely aweful, but yet kind, The which he ordered with dexterity. After the death of this lady, Governor Dudley married, on the 14th of the following April, Catherine, widow of Samuel Hackburne.† He died on the 31st of July, 1653, * See page 369. † Governor Dudley had the following children by his first wife: 1. Samuel; born in England, in 1610. Married three times, first in 1632 or '33, Mary, daughter of Governor Winthrop. Settled minister at Exeter, N.H., in 1650, where he died in January, 1682, O.S. Had eighteen children. 2. Anne; married Governor Bradstreet. 3. Patience; married Major-General Daniel Denison. 1690, O.S. Had two children. Died Feb. 8, G * in the seventy-seventh year of his age. He moved from Ipswich to Roxbury about the year 1639,† and resided there during the rest of his life. From the time of his arrival in America he had been a magistrate; he had held the offices of Governor, Deputy-Governor, Assistant, and Justice of the Peace; he was in May, 1636, together with Winthrop, chosen Councillor for life; in 1644 he was elected the first Major-General; he had been appointed to hold court in various places, and had received many other tokens of the regard and confidence of the people. He has been charged with bigotry and intolerance, faults which certainly did not distinguish him from most of his contemporaries, 4. Sarah; baptized July 23, 1620, at Sempringham; married Major Benjamin Keayne, of Boston, and was divorced from him in 1647. She afterwards married Pacye, and died Nov. 3, 1659. 5. Mercy; born Sept. 27, 1639; and died in July, 1691. 6. Dorothy; died Feb. 27, 1621; married the Rev. John Woodbridge in Had twelve children. By his second wife he had, 1643. 1. Deborah; born Feb. 27, 1644-5; died unmarried Nov. 1, 1683. 2. Joseph; born Sept. 23, 1647; married in 1668 Rebecca, daughter of Edward Tyng, and died April 2, 1720. He was Governor of Massachusetts, Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Wight, and first Chief-Justice of New York. He had thirteen children, one of whom, Paul, was also a distinguished man; being Attorney-General, and afterwards Chief-Justice of Massachusetts, Fellow of the Royal Society, and founder of the Dudleian Lectures at Harvard College. 3. Paul; born Sept. 8, 1650, married Mary, daughter of Governor John Leverett, and died 1681-82. * See page 365. + Felt's Ipswich, p. 72. Had three children." Massachusetts Colony Records, Vols. I.-III. a "Sutton-Dudleys," p. 97 Dudley Genealogies, p. 18. N. E. Hist. Gen. Register, Vol. i. pp. 71-2; Vol. x. pp. 130-6. Mass Hist. Soc. Proceedings (1860-52), pp. 93, 95. either here or in England. If he was stern, blunt, and overbearing, he was at the same time placable, generous, and hospitable. He was a faithful and an able magistrate, and conscientiously discharged all his duties. He had some knowledge of law, and was a shrewd business man, but honest in all his dealings. In short, he presented that varied phase of character that one might expect to find in a man who had had such a rough experience in life. He left fifty or sixty books, principally on history and divinity, some of them in Latin, and forming what was then a large library.* Mather has preserved a Latin epitaph in his "Magnalia," signed "E. R." [Ezekiel Rogers], in which Dudley is described as a "Helluo Librorum, Lectorum Bibliotheca Communis, Sacrae Syllabus Historiae." † Mrs. Bradstreet, too, calls him "a magazine of history," and acknowledges that he was her "guide" and "instructor,” ‡ and that it was to him that she owed her love of books. In some verses to her father, she says: : "Moft truly honoured, and as truly dear, If worth in me, or ought I do appear, Who can of right better demand the fame? Then may your worthy felf from whom it came." § If we may judge from a reference in her "Dedication," it is probable that he had written a poem "On the Four Parts of the World," || which might even have been printed. But, if it was similar to the oft-quoted verses said to have * Suffolk Probate Records, Lib. ii. Fol. 133. N. E. Hist. Gen. Register, Vol. xii. pp. 355-6. † Magnalia, Bk. ii. p. 17. § See page 398. See pages 365 and 368. See page 97. * been found in his pocket after his death, we ought not to complain that the poem is among the lost books of the world. Having had £500 left to him when he was very young,† he had always been prosperous, being the wealthiest man in Roxbury, where the people were generally wellto-do. He was the owner of a large quantity of land, and at the time of his death his property was appraised at £1560. 10s. Id., which was a considerable sum in this country at that early date. He interested himself in town affairs, and headed the list of those who entered into an *These verses are thus given by Mather (MAGNALIA, Bk. ii. p. 17.) In the old manuscript life in "The Sutton Dudleys," p. 37, there is a somewhat different version: "Dim Eyes, Deaf Ears, Cold Stomach, shew My Diffolution is in View. Eleven times Seven near liv'd have I, And now God calls, I willing Die. My Shuttle's fhot, my Race is run, Bear Poverty, live with good Men ; So fhall we live with Joy agen. Let Men of God in Courts and Churches watch O're fuch as do a Toleration hatch, Left that Ill Egg bring forth a Cockatrice, To poifon all with Herefie and Vice. + " Sutton-Dudleys," p. 24. Suffolk Probate Records, Lib. ii. Fol. 134. agreement in August, 1645, to support a free school in Roxbury.* Mrs. Bradstreet had eight children, four sons and four daughters; a fact which she has recorded in some fanciful verses, beginning, "I had eight birds hatcht in one nest, Four Cocks there were, and Hens the rest, I nurft them up with pain and care, Nor coft, nor labour did I spare, Till at the laft they felt their wing. Mounted the Trees, and learn'd to fing; "† She goes on at some length, carrying out the simile, and describes their past life, their condition at that time, and her solicitude for their future health and happiness. Prompted by her love for her children, she wrote out her religious experiences, in a little book in which she also kept a record, partly in prose and partly in verse, of her sicknesses, her religious feelings, and the most important incidents in her life. The earliest date in it is July 8, 1656, § but it was undoubtedly begun before that. Having had from her birth a very delicate constitution, prostrated when only sixteen years old by the small-pox, troubled at one time with lameness, subject to frequent attacks of sickness, to fevers, and to fits of fainting, she bore these numerous inflictions with meekness and resignation. Recognizing the inestimable blessing of health, she regarded it as the reward of virtue, and looked upon *History of Roxbury Town, by Charles M. Ellis. Boston: 1847, P. 37. Mr. Ellis has given the best sketch of Dudley's life which I have seen (pp. 97-104). + See page 400. See pages 2-39. § See page 17. |