Comic History of the United States. Nye Bill
road-work on the streets of the New Jerusalem as a punishment for these acts done while on the woolsack.
Blackstone himself, one of the dullest authors ever read by the writer of these lines, yet a skilled jurist, with a marvellous memory regarding Justinian, said that, to deny witchcraft was to deny revelation.
"Be you a witch?" asked one of the judges of Massachusetts, according to the records now on file in the State-House at Boston.
"No, your honor," was the reply.
"Officer," said the court, taking a pinch of snuff, "take her out on the tennis-grounds and pull out her toe-nails with a pair of hot pincers, and then see what she says."
It was quite common to examine lady witches in the regular court and then adjourn to the tennis-court. A great many were ducked by order of the court and hanged up by the thumbs, in obedience to the customs of these people who came to America because they were persecuted.
Human nature is the same even to this day. The writer grew up with an Irishman who believed that when a man got wealthy enough to keep a carriage and coachman he ought to be assassinated and all his goods given to the poor. He now hires a coachman himself, having succeeded in New York city as a policeman; but the man who comes to assassinate him will find it almost impossible to obtain an audience with him.
If you wish to educate a man to be a successful oppressor, with a genius for introducing new horrors and novelties in pain, oppress him early in life and don't give him any reason for doing so. The idea that "God is love" was not popular in those days. The early settlers were so stern even with their own children that if the Indian had not given the forefather something to attract his attention, the boy crop would have been very light.
Even now the philosopher is led to ask, regarding the boasted freedom of America, why some measures are not taken to put large fly-screens over it.
CHAPTER VI.
THE EPISODE OF THE CHARTER OAK.
The Colonies of Maine and New Hampshire were so closely associated with that of Massachusetts that their history up to 1820 was practically the same.
Shortly after the landing of the Pilgrims, say two years or thereabouts, Gorges and Mason obtained from England the grant of a large tract lying between the Merrimac and Kennebec Rivers. This patent was afterwards dissolved, Mason taking what is now New Hampshire, and Gorges taking Maine. He afterwards sold the State to Massachusetts for six thousand dollars. The growth of the State may be noticed since that time, for one county cost more than that last November.
In 1820 Maine was separated from Massachusetts. Maine is noted for being the easternmost State in the Union, and has been utilized by a number of eminent men as a birthplace. White-birch spools for thread, Christmas-trees, and tamarack and spruce-gum are found in great abundance. It is the home of an industrious and peace-loving people. Bar Harbor is a cool place to go to in summer-time and violate the liquor law of the State.
The Dutch were first to claim Connecticut. They built a trading-post at Hartford, where they swapped bone collar-buttons with the Indians for beaver-and otter-skins. Traders from Plymouth who went up the river were threatened by the Dutch, but they pressed on and established a post at Windsor.
In 1635, John Steele led a company "out west" to Hartford, and Thomas Hooker, a clergyman, followed with his congregation, driving their stock before them. Hartford thus had quite a boom quite early in the seventeenth century. The Dutch were driven out of the Connecticut Valley, and began to look towards New York.
Soon after this the Pequod War broke out. These Indians had hoped to form an alliance with the Narragansetts, but Roger Williams prevented this by seeing the Narragansett chief personally. Thus the Puritans had coals of fire heaped on their heads by their gentle pastor, until the odor of burning hair could be detected as far away as New Haven.
The Pequods were thus compelled to fight alone, and Captain Mason by a coup d'état surrounded their camp before daylight and entered the palisades with the Indian picket, who cried out "Owanux! Owanux!" meaning "Englishmen. Englishmen." Mason and his men killed these Pequods and burned their lodges to the ground. There has never been a prosperous Pequod lodge since. Those who escaped to the forest were shot down like jack-rabbits as they fled, and there has been no Pequoding done since that time.
The New Haven Colony was founded in 1638 by wealthy church members from abroad. They took the Bible as their standard and statute. They had no other law. Only church members could vote, which was different from the arrangements in New York City in after-years.
The Connecticut Colony had a regular constitution, said to have been the first written constitution ever adopted by the people, framed for the people by the people. It was at once prosperous, and soon bought out the Saybrook Colony.
In 1662 a royal charter was obtained which united the two above colonies and guaranteed to the people the rights agreed upon by them. It amounted to a duly-authenticated independence. A quarter of a century afterwards Governor Andros, in his other clothes and a reigning coat of red and gold trimmings, marched into the Assembly and demanded this precious charter.
A long debate ensued, and, according to tradition, while the members of the Assembly stood around the table taking a farewell look at the charter, one of the largest members of the house fell on the governor's breast and wept so copiously on his shirt-frill that harsh words were used by his Excellency; a general quarrel ensued, the lights went out, and when they were relighted the charter was gone.
Captain Wadsworth had taken it and concealed it in a hollow tree, since called the Charter Oak. After Andros was ejected from the Boston office, the charter was brought out again, and business under it was resumed.
Important documents, however, should not be, as a general thing, secreted in trees. The author once tried this while young, and when engaged to, or hoping to become engaged to, a dear one whose pa was a singularly coarse man and who hated a young man who came as a lover at his daughter's feet with nothing but a good education and his great big manly heart. He wanted a son-in-law with a brewery; and so he bribed the boys of the neighborhood to break up a secret correspondence between the two young people and bring the mail to him. This was the cause of many a heart-ache, and finally the marriage of the sweet young lady to a brewer who was mortgaged so deeply that he wandered off somewhere and never returned. Years afterwards the brewery needed repairs, and one of the large vats was found to contain all of the missing man that would not assimilate with the beer—viz., his watch. Quite a number of people at that time quit the use of beer, and the author gave his hand in marriage to a wealthy young lady who was attracted by his gallantry and fresh young beauty.