His long continued term is especially noteworthy when we reflect that he was upheld as an ideal leader by a company of citizens who were ethically most exacting. They were peers of the best in all human society, and to satisfy such was indeed a compliment. At the same time, men and women of their excellent type, speaking at least for those of the church considered in their civic order, were too noble to need the ordinary repressions incident to the task of governing. Except for the necessary form and precedent, their moral grandeur required no governor. Though he wrote against the sectaries with their sinister politico-religious designs or wishes, he did not drive them out unless actual treason developed. The Pilgrims realized they were themselves exiles from intolerance. Yet there was a degree of intolerance after Bradford passed out from Plymouth, and what bigotry was discoverable in Boston then was felt somewhat at the older settlement. The successor of Carver, like most of his associates, was also free from superstition, placing no credence in the supernatural omens of comets and celestial bodies. It was his understood duty to entertain strangers, especially visiting officials. The Jesuit Driulette spoke afterward of his kindness, noting also that as host on Friday, he served an excellent dinner of fish. At least seven orphans, but probably many more, at one time or another found refuge beneath his roof. Robert Cushman, the Pilgrim agent who died after valued services abroad, requested that his son Thomas might receive a father's care from Bradford, and the latter brought him up with such faithful training that eventually his charge became Elder Brewster's successor. To cite one further instance of his kindness, in 1644 Bradford wrote to his wife's sister, Mary Carpenter, inviting her to come to them though they had grown old, as he said. She accepted and lived with them in such tranquillity, as a devout maiden lady, that she survived till past ninety. The Plymouth town meetings were held at first in the Governor's house. But in at least two of the years when relieved by a successor in office and sometimes during his gubernatorial term as in 1643, the more strenuous first year of Federation, he occupied his house and farm of three hundred acres in present Kingston, which he owned as early as 1637, above the Jones River. He was among its explorers who took such a liking for the locality that they were tempted to establish the settlement there; but the stream ran shallow at ebb tide, and the surrounding woods rendered the situation more unsafe. In this quiet summer retreat he must have found more leisure to pen much of his careful History. When that had ended, by 1647, tenants occupied the farm, and he is thought to have returned to town.