A Brief History of the United StatesMcMaster, John Bach
History
A Brief History of the United States
McMaster, John Bach
United States -- History
[8] The fate of John Endicott shows to what a result Williams's teaching
was supposed to lead. The flag of the Salem militia bore the red cross of
St. George. Endicott regarded it as a symbol of popery, and one day
publicly cut out the cross from the flag. This was thought a defiance of
royal authority, and Endicott was declared incapable of holding office for
a year.
[9] Anne Hutchinson held certain religious views on which she lectured to
the women of Boston, and made so many converts that she split the church.
Governor Vane favored her, but John Winthrop opposed her teachings, and
when he became governor again she and her followers were ordered to quit
the colony.
[10] The first written constitution made in our country, and the first in
the history of the world that was made by the people, for the people.
Other towns were added later, among them Saybrook, which had grown up
about an English fort built in 1635 at the mouth of the Connecticut.
[11] Besides New Hampshire, which in 1643 was practically part of
Massachusetts; and Maine, which became so a few years later.
[12] The Dutch, as we shall see in the next chapter, had planted a colony
in the Hudson valley, and disputed English possession of the Connecticut.
[13] Students at Harvard College for many years paid their term bills with
produce, meat, and live stock. In 1649 a student paid his bill with "an
old cow," and the steward of the college made separate credits for her
hide, her "suet and inwards." On another occasion a goat was taken and
valued at 30 shillings. Taxes also were paid in corn and cattle.
[14] The coins were the shilling, sixpence, threepence, and twopence. On
one side of each coin was stamped a rude representation of a pine tree.
[15] On which the yarn was wound after it was spun. For a picture of the
loom used in weaving, see p. 52.
[16] On the board were a saltcellar, wooden plates or trenchers, wooden or
pewter spoons, and knives, but no china, no glass. Forks, it is said, were
not known even in England till 1608, and the first ever seen in New
England were at Governor Winthrop's table in 1632. Those who wished a
drink of water drank from a single wooden tankard passed around the table;
or they went to the bucket and used a gourd.
[17] This was a large sum in those days, and about as much as was raised
by taxation in a year. The General Court which voted the money, it has
been said, was "the first body in which the people, by their
representatives, ever gave their own money to found a place of education."
[18] The Friends, or Quakers, lived pure, upright, simple lives. They
protested against all forms and ceremonies, and against all church
government. They refused to take any oaths, to use any titles, or to serve
in war, because they thought these things wrong. They were much persecuted
in England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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