THE WEDDING IN YE DAYS LANG SYNE. THE story of courtship and marriage The course of true love did not run smooth in these early days any more than to-day. Parents were desirous of having sons and daughters intermarry with families of like social standing and respectability. But the youth and maid often desired to exercise their own freedom and choice. On May 7, 1651, the General Court ordered a fine and punishment against those who "seeke to draw away ye affections of yong maydens." In the time of Louis XV, of France, the following decree was made: "Whoever by means of red or white paint, perfumes, essences, artificial teeth, false hair, cotton, wool, iron corsets, hoops, shoes, with high heels, or false tips, shall seek to entice into the bonds of marriage any male subject of his majesty, shall be prosecuted for witchcraft, and declared incapable of matrimony." The fathers of New England may have made foolish laws, but this one in France at a later time goes beyond them. The seductive charms of the sexes they deemed could not be trusted. Wonderment often comes to us of the thoughts and manners of the sage law-makers when their youthful hearts were reaching out after another's love. The marriage day was celebrated with decorum. The entire community were conversant of the proposed marriage, for the same had been read in meeting and posted in "publique viewe." The earliest lawmakers of the Colony were pillars in the church, and though they did not regard marriage an ordinance over which the church had chief to say, yet they desired an attending solemnity. In 1651 it was ordered that "there shall be no dancinge vpon such occasions," meaning the festivities, which usually followed the marriage, at the "ordinary" or village inn. The marriage of widows made special laws needful. Property was held in the name of the husband. The wife owned nothing, though it came from the meagre dowry of her own father. When the husband died the widow had certain rights as long as she "remained his widow." These rights were small at best, though the estate may have been accumulated through years of their mutual toil and hardships. We have notes of a number of cases, but give only a few. We omit the names of the contracting parties. "TC of A and HB of S —, widow were married together, September ye 28th, 1748, before O— B― J. P. And at ye same time ye sd H-solemnly declared as in ye presence of Almighty God & before many witnesses, that she was in no way in possession of her former husband's estate of whatever kind soever neither possession or reversion." An excellent Deacon married an elderly matron, Dorothea and before the Justice of Peace "Ye sd Dorothea declared she was free from using any of her former husband's estate, and so ye sd Nathaniel [the Deacon] received her." The following declarations are not without interest. "Ye sd John Bdeclared before marriage that he took ye sd Hannah naked and had clothed her & that he took her then in his own clothes separate from any interest of her former husbands." Again a groom declares: "And he takes her as naked and destitute, not having nor in no ways holding any part of her former husband's estate whatever." We have also the declaration of a widower on marrying a widow in 1702, who had property in her own name, probably gained by will, "that he did renounce meddling with her estate." These declarations evidence that the widow relinquished, and that the groom received her without the least design upon the estate. It has been intimated that in a few instances these declarations became a "sign," but we can hardly credit it. The "rich" widow was taken out of the matrimonial problem. The following affidavit is spread on the town records of Amesbury: "Whereas Thomas Challis of Amesbury in ye County of Essex in ye Province of ye Massachsetts Bay in New England, and Sarah Weed, daughter of George Weed in ye same Town, County and Province, have declared their intention of taking each other in marriage before several public meetings of ye people called Quakers in Hampton and Amesbury, and according to yt good order used amongst them whose proceeding therein after a deliberate con sideration thereof with regard to ye righteous law of God and example of his people recorded in ye holy Scriptures of truth in that case, and by enrelating to marriage and having consent quiry they appeared clear of all others of parties and relations concerned were approved by said meeting. Now these certify whom it may contheir intention, this twenty-second day cern yt for ye full accomplishment of of September being ye year according to our account 1727, then they the sa Thoms Challis and Sarah Weed appeared in a public assembly of ye aforesd people and others met together for that purpose at their public meeting-house in Amesbury aforesd and then and there he ye sd Thoms Challis standing up in ye sd assembly taking ye sd Sarah Weed by ye hand did solemnly declare as followeth : Friends in ye fear of God and in ye clare to bear witness, that I take this my presence of this assembly whom I deFriend Sarah Weed to be my wife promising by ye Lord's assistance to be unto her a kind and loving husband till death, or to this effect; and then and there in ye sd assembly she ye said Sarah Weed did in like manner declare as follweth : Friends in ye fear of God and presence of this assembly whom I declare to bear witness that I take this my Friend Thoms Challis to be my husband promising to be unto him a faithful and loving wife till death separate us, or words of ye same effect. And ye sd Thoms Challis and Sarah Weed, as a further confirmation thereof did then and there to these presents set their hands, she assuming ye name of her husband. And we whose names are hereto subscribed being present amongst others at their solemnizing Subscription in manner aforesd have hereto set our names as witness." Then follow the names of groom and bride, relatives on either side, and then the names of members in the assembly, first the "menfolks," then the "womenfolks." The names all told are fortyone. Among them is that of Joseph Whittier, which name with those of Challis and Weed have long been honored names in Amesbury. 'The marriage gift to the husband on the part of his parents was usually a farm, a part of the homestead; the dowry to the young bride from her bride from her parents was a cow, a year's supply of wool, or something needful in setting up house-keeping. If the homestead farm was not large the young couple were brave enough to encounter the labors and toils of frontier life, and be gin for themselves on virgin soil and amid new scenes. It required bravery on the part of the young bride. But there were noble maidens in those days. The cares and duties of motherhood soon followed, but the house-cares and the maternal obligations were performed to the admiration of later generations. The fathers and mothers of New England were strong and hardy. Their praises come down to us. Witnesses new and ancient testify of their worth and royalty of character. A REMINISCENCE OF COL. FLETCHER WEBSTER. IN a private conversation with the writer not long since General Marston, of New Hampshire, related the following story: "On the morning of the thirtieth of August, 1862, before sunrise, I was lying under a fence rolled up in a blanket on the Bull Run battle-field. It was the second day of the Bull Run battle. My own regiment, the Second New Hampshire Volunteers, had been in the fight the day before and had lost one-third of the entire regiment in killed and wounded. "While so lying by the fence some one shook me and said, 'Get up here.' In answer I said, without throwing the blanket from over my head, 'Who in thunder are you?' The answer was made, 'Get up here and see the Colonel of the Massachusetts Twelfth.' "The speaker then partly pulled the blanket off my head and I saw that it was Colonel Fletcher Webster; whereupon I arose, and we sat down to gether and I sent my orderly for coffee. "We sat there drinking the coffee and talking about his father, Daniel Webster, and he told me about his father going up to Franklin every year and always using the same expression about going. He would say 'Fletcher, my son, let us go up to Franklin to-morrow; let us have a good time and leave the old lady at home. Let us have a good old New Hampshire dinner-fried apples and onions and pork.' At about that time the Adjutant of Colonel Webster's regiment came along and told him that the General commanding his brigade wanted to see him. Colonel Webster replied that he would be there shortly. "As he sat there on the blanket with me he took hold of his left leg just below the knee with both hands and said: There, I will agree to have my leg taken off right there for my share of the casualties of this day.' I replied: "I would as soon be killed as lose a leg; and the chances are a hundred to one that you won't be hit at all.' 'Well,' said he as he gave me his hand, 'I hope to see you again; good bye.' I never saw him again. He was killed that day. His extreme sadness, his depression, was perhaps indicative of a conviction or presentiment of some impending misfortune." OLD DORCHESTER. BY CHARLES M. BARROWS. THE quaint old Puritan annalist, James Blake, wrote as a preface to his book of records : "When many most Godly and Religious People that Dissented from ye way of worship then Established by Law in ye Realm of England, in ye Reign of King Charles ye first, being denied ye free exercise of Religion after ye manner they professed according to ye light of God's Word and their own consciences, did under ye Incouragment of a Charter Granted by ye Sd King, Charles, in ye Fourth Year of his Reign, A. D. 1628, Remoue themselues & their Families into ye Colony of ye Massachusetts Bay in New England, that they might Worship God according to ye light of their own Consciences, without any burthensome Impositions, which was ye very motive & cause of their coming; Then it was, that the First Inhabitants of Dorchester came ouer, and were ye first Company or Church Society that arrived here, next ye Town of Salem who was one year before them.” Nonconformity, then, was the "very motive and cause" which settled Dorchester, the oldest town but one in Puritan New England, and planted there a sturdy yeomanry to whom freedom of conscience was more than home and dearer than life. Nor was this "vast extent of wilderness" to which they succeeded by right of purchase from the heirs of Chickatabat any such narrow area as that of the same name, recently annexed to the city of Boston. It extended from what is now the northern limit of South Boston to within a hundred and sixty rods of the Rhode Island line, thus giving the township a length of about thirty-five miles "as ye road goethe." The late Ellis Ames, of Canton, a competent authority, says the town "was formerly bounded by Boston, Roxbury, Dedham, Wrentham, Taunton, Bridgewater and Braintree," so that its history is the history of a large part of the towns in Norfolk county and a portion of Bristol. The manner in which the original territory has been gradually reduced is thus told by Mr. Ames: "Milton was set off in 1662; part of Wrentham, in 1724; Stoughton, in 1726; Sharon, in 1765; Foxborough, in 1778; Canton, in 1797; strips were also set off to Dedham, probably, in 1739; and before the whole was annexed, portions of the northern part of the town were set off to Boston, at two several times: in 1804 and in 1855." Since that date another portion has been severed to make the northern quarter of Hyde Park. Honorable John Daggett, the historian of Attleborough, which was then a part of the Rehoboth North Purchase, says there was a dispute concerning the boundary between Dorchester and that town, which was finally settled by a conference of delegates, held at the house of one of his ancestors. Why those "most Godly and Religious People" chose to settle where they did rather than on the Charles river, as at first intended, Mr. Blake proceeds to tell us in his annals. He says they made the voyage from England to New England in a vessel of four hundred tons, commanded by Captain Squeb, and that they had "preaching or expounding of the Scriptures every day of their passage, performed by Ministers." Contrary to their desires, the ship discharged them and their goods at Nantas ! ket, but they procured a boat in which part of the company rowed into Boston harbor and up the Charles river, "until it became narrow and shallow," when they went ashore at a point in the present village of Watertown. But after exploring the open lands about Boston, they finally made choice of a neck of land "joyning to a place called by ye Indians Mattapan," because it formed a natural inclosure for the cattle they had brought with them, and which, if turned into the open land, would be liable to stray and be lost. This little circumstance fixed the original settlement on the marsh now known as Dorchester Neck. The honor of the name Dorchester appears to belong to Rev. John White, minister of a town of the same name in the mother country, who planned and encouraged the exodus to America. But the hardy little band of exiles who received the title from old Cutshumaquin, the successor of Chickatabat, little knew what their wild territory was destined to become in the course of a hundred years. They were loyal subjects of the English throne, building their log cabins and rude meeting-house on Allen's Plain under protection of a charter from King Charles; there they hoped to found a permanent town, where the worship of God should be maintained in accordance with the dictates of the Puritan conscience, without interference of churchman, Roman Catholic, Baptist, or Quaker. There was room in the unexplored forests to the south for pasturage and for the overflow, whenever, as Cotton Mather said when the whole state contained less than six thousand white inhabitants, "Massachusetts should be like a hive overstocked with bees." The first meeting-house in Dorchester, a very unpretentious structure of logs and thatch, was completed in 1631, and no free-holder was allowed to plant his domicile farther than the distance of half a mile from it, without special permission of the fathers of the town. It stood near the intersection of the present Pleasant and Cottage streets, and that portion of the former highway between Cottage and Stoughton streets is supposed to have been the first road laid out in the early settlement. Shortly after, this road was extended to Five Corners in one direction, and to the marsh, then called the Calf Pasture, in the other. The present names of these extensions are Pond street and Crescent avenue. From Five Corners a road was subsequently laid out, running north-east to a point north-east to a point a little below the Captain William Clapp place, where there was a gate which closed the entrance to Dorchester Neck, where the cattle were pastured. It was on this street that Rev. Richard Mather, the first minister of the town, Roger Williams, of Rhode Island fame, and other distinguished citizens resided. The next undertaking in the way of public improvements was the building of two important roads, one leading to Penny Ferry, thus opening a highway of communication with the sister Colony at Plymouth; the other leading to Roxbury, Brookline and Cambridge. In Josselyn's description of the town soon after its settlement may be read: "Six myles from Braintree lyeth Dorchester, a frontire Town, pleasantly situated and of large extent into the maine land, well watered with two small rivers, her body and wings filled somewhat thick with houses, . . accounted the greatest town heretofore in New England, but now giving way to Boston." Through what hardships and privations this infant freehold was maintained can be understood by those only, who |