branched off in various directions to Connecticut, Vermont, and elsewhere. One detachment of them went to Wilton, N.H., where the family still remains on the original homestead. The late Warren Burton, who was born in Wilton,—a graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1821, and well known for his invaluable services in the cause of education, philanthropy, and letters,—was a direct descendant of John Burton, and as true to the rights of conscience as the old tanner, who bearded the lion of persecution in the day of his utmost wrath, and in his very den.[i.153] Henry Herrick, who, as has been stated, purchased the Cherry-Hill farm of Alford, was the fifth son of Sir William Herrick, of Beau Manor Park, in the parish of Loughborough, in the county of Leicester, England. He came first to Virginia, and then to Salem. He was accompanied to America by another emigrant from Loughborough, named Cleaveland. Herrick became a member of the First Church at Salem in 1629, and his wife Edith about the same time. Their fifth son, Joseph, baptized Aug. 6, 1645, owned and occupied Cherry Hill in 1692. He married Sarah, daughter of Richard Leach, Feb. 7, 1667. He was a man of great firmness and dignity of character, and, in addition to the care and management of his large farm, was engaged in foreign commerce. As he bore the title of Governor, he had probably been at some time in command of a military post or district, or perhaps of a West-India colony. His descendants are numerous, and have occupied distinguished stations, often exhibiting a transmitted military stamp. Joseph Herrick was in the Narragansett fight. It illustrates the state of things at that time, that this eminent citizen, a large landholder, engaged in prosperous mercantile affairs, and who had been abroad, was, in 1692, when forty-seven years of age, a corporal in the village company. He was the acting constable of the place, and, as such, concerned in the early proceedings connected with the witchcraft prosecutions. For a while he was under the influence of the delusion; but his strong and enlightened mind soon led him out of it. He was one of[i.154] the petitioners in behalf of an accused person, when intercession, by any for any, was highly dangerous; and he was a leader in the party that rose against the fanaticism, and vindicated the characters of its victims. He inherited a repugnance to oppression, and sympathy for the persecuted. His father and mother appear, by a record of Court, to have been fined "for aiding and comforting an excommunicated person, contrary to order."