Papers of the Winthrop Family, Volume 2
1630-11-10
Firmin
1 of Waterton had his wigwam burnt: diverse had their haye stackes burnt, by burninge the grasse.
John Firmin, Ferman, or Firman, admitted as freeman, May 18, 1631 (Records of Massachusetts, I. 366). That this entry refers to John, and not to Gyles Ferman, admitted as freeman, March 4, 1633 (Records of Massachusetts, I. 368), is proved by the letters of Henry Jacie, (page 87,
note 2) to John Winthrop, Jr., 3
Collections
, I. 236, 245. Winthrop Papers; see letters for January 9, 1631/2 and June 12, 1633
1630-11-27
Three of the Governors servantes were from this daye to the 1: of Decr abroad in his skiffe amonge the Ilandes in bitter froste and snowe, (beinge kept from home by the n: w: winde, and without victualls, at lengthe they got to mount Woollaston,1 and lefte their boat there and came home by lande. laus Deo.
The site of Morton's Merry-Mount, in Quincy, Mt. Wollaston was named, according to Bradford, after a “Captaine Wolastone,” who started a plantation at that place about 1625 and subsequently removed to Virginia. Bradford, History of Plymouth (1912), II. 45–47.
1630-12-06
The Governor and most of the AssistRocksburrie and there agreed to build a towne fortified vpon the necke betweene that and Boston, and a Comittee was appointed to consider of all things requisite etc.
1630-12-14
The Comittee mett, at Rocksb: and vpon further Consideration for reasons it was concluded that we could not have a towne in the place aforesaid 1: because men would be forced to keepe 2: families 2: there was no runninge water, and if there were any springes they would not suffice the towne. 3. the most parte of the people had built allreadye and would not be able to build againe: so we agreed to meet at waterton that daye sennight and in the meane tyme other places should be viewed.1
Neale and 3: other gentWarwicke this summer to Pascataway sent as Gouernor there for Sir Ferdinand Gorge and others.
2
The name Roxbury first appears in the Records of Massachusetts under date of September 28, 1630, in connection with an order for raising money in the Colony. The name is spelled “Rocsbury.”
Captain Walter Neale, a veteran of the wars in the Low Countries, who was sent out by Gorges and Mason in the Warwick to take possession of their Laconia Grant from the Council for New England. They established a “factory” or trading-post at Little Harbor, Portsmouth, N. H., in the stone house built there seven years before by David Thompson, intending to locate their Laconia Grant and trade with the Indians in the interior. Neale was given the shadowy appointment of Governor of New England by the Council for New England in 1631, and returned to England in 1633, after founding what became the nucleus of the Colony of New Hampshire. Tuttle, Captain John Mason, passim. For the Warwick, see Journal, April 10,ߔsupra, page 244.
1630-12-21
we mett againe at Waterton, and there vpon vieu of a place a mile beneathe the towne, all agreed it a fitt place for a fortified towne, and we tooke tyme to Consider further about it.1
The “fitt place” is now Cambridge, which, under the name of “the newe towne,” first appears in the Records of Massachusetts, July 26, 1631. Dudley writes (“Letter to the Countess of Lincoln”): . . . “we beganne againe in December to consult about a fitt place to build a Towne vppon leavinge all thoughts of a fort, because vppon any invasion wee were necessarily to loose our howses when we should retire thereinto; soe ...wee grew to this resolucon to bind all the Assistants (Mr. Endicott and Mr. Sharpe excepted, which last purposeth to returne by the next shippes into England) to build howses at a place, a mile east from Waterton neere Charles river, the next Springe, and to winter there the next yeare ...Chronicles, 320, which modernizes the spelling. See Journal for August 3, 1632
D.J.W.