Not unnaturally, therefore, with continual migrations of its people taking place, and with the advent of new population sternly discouraged, the growth of Weymouth was slow. Nevertheless, grow it did, and it prospered. I have spoken of the long interval of one hundred and twenty-five years between 1640 and 1765, an interval which includes one-half of the entire history of the town, as a single period. As such it can best be treated, for with Weymouth, as with most other New England towns, it was the time of slow growth, the long period of infancy. It was marked by few events of importance. In 1676 the terror of King Philip’s war swept over Weymouth, as it did over all the other outlying settlements of the colony. That was by far the most cruel ordeal through which Massachusetts has ever passed,--one, of the deep agony of which it is not easy for us, removed from it by two hundred years of time, to form even a dim conception. I shall not pause to dilate upon it here, though, in a far less degree it is true than many of her sister settlements, Weymouth then tasted the horrors of savage warfare. Women were slaughtered and houses were burned within her limits, and the losses she sustained were sufficiently severe to induce the General Court to allow the abatement of a portion of her tax. Again she was called upon to furnish her contingent of soldiers, who doubtless played their part manfully enough at the storming of Narragansett Fort.[61] Indeed, in every warlike ordeal through which Massachusetts has been called to pass,--from the first struggle of Miles Standish, in 1624, to the great rebellion, two hundred and forty years later,--the ancient town may fairly claim that she has contributed of her blood with no stinting hand. But the war of King Philip was ended, and again Weymouth lapsed into the old, quiet, steady, uneventful life. During the next ninety years I doubt if anything more momentous occurred within her limits than the burning of the town meeting-house, in 1751. That, however, was a very remarkable year,--one still borne in painful recollection,--the saddest in the whole history of Weymouth. It has indeed left its mark on the records, where, under date of May 21st, 1752, in the town meeting that day held, it was-- “Voted to send no representative this present year on account of the great charge of building a Meeting-house, and the extraordinary Sickness that has prevailed in the town in the year past.” * * * * *