"You have made in this volume a contribution to the local, the fundamental history of the Commonwealth, which few, if any volumes equal and none excel."

(From a Review by the New York Daily Tribune.)

The president of the Ipswich Historical Society has prepared in this volume a model of its kind. He tells in thoroughly entertaining fashion the history of this early Colonial town the Agawam of Indians and he adds in Part II such a detailed account of its houses and lands as must ever be of value to all connected by ties of blood or property with Ipswich. Photographs of the many ancient houses which survive, together with maps, diagrams and facsimiles illustrate and elucidate the text.

The story of the town holds so much of the struggle, the tragedy and the quaintness of seventeenth century life in the colony that it would have been difficult to make it other than interesting.

The services of Ipswich men in King Philip's War and their sturdy protest against the usurpation of the Andros government are chronicled here, and are not to be forgotten by Americans. In the resistance to what she considered an unjust tax, Ipswich may claim a high place among the earliest supporters of the right of self government.

(From George H. Martin, Secretary of the State Board of Education of

Massachusetts.)

I have examined with care the whole of your new book on Ipswich and I have read with increasing interest as much as time would allow. It is a great book and will prove of immense service to all students of early colonial history.

I do not think I have found anywhere so vivid a picture presented of Puritan town life in all its phases as you have given. The thorough way in which you have handled the matter of land grants is a model for all local historians.

I congratulate you heartily upon having made an addition to the local history of New England, which is unsurpassed in the choice of matter, and in the felicity of its presentation.

(From the Boston Transcript.)

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A most important addition to the literature of New England history is made by Mr. Thomas Franklin Waters in this volume. Ipswich the Agawam of 270 years ago is one of the most picturesque towns in the Commonwealth, and aside from its attractions of location and scenery, is particularly rich in historical associations. No town in its early conditions more accurately typifies early New England life, and in the narrative of its struggles and development may be read that of a score of other settlements of the same period. "I have tried," says Mr. Waters in his preface, "to tell accurately, but in readable fashion, the story of the builders of

our town, their homes and home life, their employments, their Sabbathkeeping, their love of learning, their administration of town affairs, their stern delusions, their heroism in war and in resistance to tyranny." To anyone familiar with the beautiful old town the book will have all the fascination of a romance.

(By Rev. Edward Everett Hale, in The Lend a Hand Record.)

Here is a model town history. It covers the history of the old town of Ipswich in Massachusetts from the year 1633, when it was what we may call almost the model settlement of Winthrop's party, and extending to the year 1700. That is to say, it is the history of the first two generations of the Bay colonists. The settlement was lead by John Winthrop, the son of the Governor, and from the first it had the cordial cooperation of the General Court of Massachusetts. Rev. Thomas Franklin Waters, the Minister of the South Church in Ipswich, has given the careful work of years to this history and has now presented it to us in a form worthy of such a history.

It has enough fac-similes of the very earliest papers, not only to give us a breeze of the atmosphere of the town, but to show us how carefully they have been worked over and digested, and indeed, to make it unnecessary for us to search for hours in the original documents. It is not everybody who has at hand the old map of New England, from Hubbard's History,-"The best which could be got," that is the pathetic inscription on the original,— with its gigantic enlargement of Lake Winnepesaukee, its convenient north and south straight line of the Connecticut, its frequent mountains and its infrequent trees, its spire crowned villages and its little army of red folks, with the ships in the Bay. These are all tokens of the simplicity of the geography of ancient time, such as make it real to us as no description can.

The volume is divided into part first, which is distinctly historical, and part second, "Houses and Lands," which meets the local necessity as to the original division of land and the changes which followed in the first century of the history. The chapters in the historical part are all interesting. The study of home and dress, of common laws, of commonage, of the boards of charity, of the perils of the charter, of the grammar school and the college, and of witchcraft, will demand the attention of all careful students of the foundation of New England.

The work of Nathaniel Ward as one of the real founders of our infant state is so important that it deserved the most careful study and this it has received here. Massachusetts has few such men in its history. Ward graduated at Emmanuel College as early as 1603. He is acquainted with Lord Bacon, with Archbishop Usher, and with David Pareus, the famous theologian of Heidelberg; he studied law afterwards, entered the ministry of the church when he was forty-six years of age; he is excommunicated in 1633; and in the sixty-fourth year of his age, landed in Massachusetts Bay. There is something pathetic in thinking of this accomplished old

man in the wilderness life of Ipswich, and something truly magnificent in the work assigned to him and by him so well performed. He was appointed by the General Court in 1638 to draw up its first code of laws. His legal training fittted him for this task. He spent three years in it and the result is "The Body of Liberties." Of this Francis Gray said that while it retains some strong traces of the time, it is in the main far in advance of the common law of England at this time. Ward is better known perhaps as the author of the "Simple Cobbler of Agawam." But the humour and wit of that book ought not eclipse in men's minds the fact that the corner stone of New England legislation was laid by him. He ranks first among our law givers of that great century.

The name of William Hubbard, the historian of New England, is another Ipswich name of the seventeenth century, very important in our New England history. These two names alone would make Ipswich one of the most distinguished towns in Massachusetts. But whoever will carefully study Mr. Waters's valuable book will see what were not only the beginnings but the successful prosecution of many of the enterprises and successes which look back to the seventeenth century. All persons interested in New England life and history owe a great author.

debt to the E. E. H.

(From Appleton Morgan, President of the New York Shakespeare Society.)

The Complete Book of the Town of Ipswich, Massachusetts, in that Essex County, where Rufus Choate said there was more History to the square inch than in any other spot under the skies, deserved to be written, and the Rev. Thomas Franklin Waters, President of the Ipswich Historical Society has written it in a splendid imperial octavo volume of 586 compact pages. It is illuminated with valuable pictures, and nothing has been omitted of the muniments of the quaint old precinct. Ipswich has its legends as well as its history, but Mr. Waters has been a very Draco here!

His unswerving and uncompromising fidelity to facts will admit no plea of ben trovato, and he tumbles into oblivion many a cherished romance and tradition, but he packs their places with invaluable records and rescued chronicles!

The history of New England cannot be written and henceforth nobody will attempt to write it-without Mr. Waters's volume. It is a work of enormous patience and ability, and is in all ways a model of what a Town History should be.

(By Bayard Tuckerman, Lecturer in English at Princeton University).

Ipswich is one of the oldest and in some respects one of the most interesting and typical of the English settlements in America. The difficulties to be encountered by the early colonists in subduing the wilderness, in wringing a livelihood from an unfruitful soil, in building up a civilization

in which comfort and education were sought together, were nowhere greater and nowhere surmounted with more courageous energy.

The institution of town government and the intelligent practice of the principles of political liberty are well exemplified in the history of Ipswich, while the bold resistance of her citizens to the tyranny of the English government in the time of Governor Andros has given her a claim to the title of the "Cradle of American Liberty." Mr. Waters has told this story with historical insight and literary skill, and has given us besides a mass of information regarding local customs, transfers of land and resident families, which make his work of personal interest to everyone whose ancestors have lived in the township.

As we turn the leaves of this scholarly work, the chapter headings indicate a variety of interesting subjects. Political history is studied under "The Development of our Town Government" "The Body Politic" "The Charter in Peril" "Ipswich and the Andros Government." Under the heads of "The Coming of the English" "Homes and Dress" "Some Notable Settlers" "Trades and Employments," we find a rich fund of information regarding the early inhabitants and the lives they led.

In the chapter dealing with "The Sabbath and the Meeting House" with the melancholy accompaniment of "Witchcraft," the austere religious life of the early times is depicted. The relations of the settlers to the Indians are described under "Primeval Agawam" "King Philip's War" and the "War of William and Mary.”

The determination of the colonists to provide education for their children is shown in the article on "The Grammar School and Harvard College." Other interesting chapters deal with the "Laws and Courts" and with the curious institution of the "Common Lands and Commonage.'

The second portion of the work contains an account of the ownership and transfer of lands and houses which is the fruit of research, of remarkable industry and accuracy. No one whose family has owned property within the bounds of Ipswich can fail to find facts of interest to him here.

The names of early settlers are given in full and there are a number of inventories illustrative of the character of personal property held and transmitted. The letters of Rev. Nathaniel Ward, of Dr. Giles Firmin, and of Samuel Symonds, the writings of Sarah Goodhue, and the narrative of the Rev. John Wise, all of great antiquarian interest, are given in the Appendix.

Thirty-five excellent illustrations, and an Index which forms & complete guide to all the names and subjects mentioned, add greatly to the value of the work.

This history of Ipswich is the result of such painstaking and intelligent research, and is written in so attractive a style, that it cannot fail to appeal to all persons who have any connection with the town. Whoever lives in Ipswich or whose ancestors lived here, should have a copy among his books. He will find pleasure in reading it, and profit in possessing it for reference.

BAYARD TUCKERMAN.