CHAPTER VI.

SIMON BRADSTREET.

IMON BRADSTREET, son of a non-conforming minister, was born March, 1603, at Horblin, Lincolnshire. His father died when he was fourteen years old, and he was committed to the care of Thomas Dudley for eight years following. He spent one year at Emanuel College, Cambridge, pursuing his studies amidst various interruptions. Leaving Cambridge, he resided in the family of the Earl of Lincoln, as his steward, and afterward lived in the same capacity with the Countess of Warwick.

He, with Mr. Winthrop, Mr. Dudley, and others, agreed to emigrate and form a settlement in Massachusetts; and being appointed an assistant, he with his family and others went on board the Arabella, March 29, 1630, and anchored June 12, near Salem, going on shore soon after.

In the spring of 1631 commenced at Cambridge. He moved to Ipswich in 1634, one of the first settlers of that town, where he resided for ten years. Mr. Bradstreet then moved to Andover, where he held large landed interests. He was the first secretary of the Colony, a magistrate, and held public office for nearly sixty years. He was deputy-governor from 1672 to 1679, when he was elected governor, and continued in office till the charter was abrogated by Sir Edmund Andros, 1686. He steadily opposed Andros and his rule.

The wife of Simon Bradstreet, Anne, died September 16, 1672, a sore affliction to him; he had been married for forty-four

years, having born to them eight children, all living at the time of her death except one, Dorothy, who had been the wife of Rev. Seaborn Cotton, a son of Rev. John Cotton, the great Boston preacher. The new large house erected at North Andover was burned to the ground, a total ruin, with all of its contents, including manuscript work of Anne Bradstreet, which was never rewritten. Another house was soon built in which Mrs. Bradstreet resided for a few years; this is the house shown in this book.

After Mrs. Bradstreet's death, her husband married June 6, 1676, the widow of Captain Joseph Gardner, of Salem, who was killed in the Narragansett War. The picture of their house is printed as the "Bradstreet house," in this book. She is said to have been "a Gentlewoman, of very good birth and education, and of great piety and prudence." She inherited a fine estate, and a notice of her Salem home is given in another chapter, where the Governor lived after his second marriage and where he died.

Simon Bradstreet, during the time of the persecutions of the Quakers, was in public office, and it is said he meant to be moderate and tolerant, yet he was charged by the Quakers as being active against them. In an address to the king, the Quakers make the following summary of their wrongs: "Twenty-two have been banished upon pain of death. Three have been martyred, and three have had their right ears cut. One hath been burned in the hand with the letter H. Thirty-one persons have received six hundred and fifty stripes. One was beat while his body was like a jelly. Several were beat with pitched ropes. Five appeals made to England were denied by the rulers of Boston. thousand, forty-four pounds' worth of goods hath been taken from them (being poor men) for meeting together in the fear of the Lord, and for keeping the commands of Christ. One now lieth in iron fetters condemned to die."

One

The latter years of Simon Bradstreet's life were the most

glorious of all. The part he took in opposing Sir Edmund Andros and his horde of retainers, even though his brother-in-law was one of the most active and conspicuous of them, entitles him to the remembrance of every Massachusetts patriot. He was indeed "the Nestor of New England," and "the Grand Old Man,” of the closing years of the seventeenth century. We prize the few words in which the Labadist missionaries describe Simon Bradstreet, "An old man, quiet and grave, dressed in black silk, but not sumptuously."

The crimes committed by Andros in the name of King James the Second, against the American Colonies, were many and atro-· cious, taxing their homes without justice or law, and if not paid, their homes and lands sold from under them to the highest bidder. The farms and lands had been duly entered under the first charter, duly granted by the Home government. Under such registry the settlers had cleared the lands and built their homes, and in many cases they descended through the probate office to the children of the earliest settlers. Andros demanded a new registry, at a large expense, to be paid to the government, on the plea that the first was irregular, and claimed that the crown owned all the land. If not paid, the lands and houses were sold and title transferred, and the owners at once dispossessed and ejected from their hardearned possessions.

The press was muzzled, magistrates appointed by the Governor were alone permitted to solemnize marriages, and no marriages allowed until bonds with sureties were given, to be forfeited if any lawful impediment should afterward appear. No one could remove from the country without the consent of the Governor. Probate taxes were excessive. General taxes were imposed by the governor-general and the council, and the people taxed had no voice in making the levy; if they complained, they were liable to fine and imprisonment for traducing the Governor, and treason to the king.