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THE FOUNDERS OF NEW PLYMOUTH.*

I have reason to know that the subject on which we are about to enter possesses a strong American interest; but it cannot be said to be without a claim on the attention of Englishmen also. The settlement of New Plymouth, says Governor Hutchinson, writing in 1767, "occasioned the settlement of Massachusetts Bay, which was the source of all the other colonies in New England;" and he speaks of the persons by whom it was founded as "the founders of a flourishing town and colony, if not of the whole British Empire in America." And to cite another English authority, when Sir Charles Lyell had viewed the relics of these founders, which are preserved in the Museum at New Plymouth, he remarks, "when we consider the grandeur of the results which have been realized in the interval of two hundred and twenty-five years since the Mayflower sailed into Plymouth harbor, how in that period, a nation of twenty millions had sprung into existence and peopled a vast continent, and covered it with cities and churches, schools, colleges, and railroads, and filled its rivers and ports with steamboats and shipping, we regard the Pilgrim relics with veneration."

I therefore proceed, without further apology or preface, to introduce to the reader the persons who were chief actors in this movement, and to speak of the influences which operated to produce the strong devotional sentiment by which they were actuated, and at last determined them to leave their homes and commit themselves to the uncertainties and many dangers attending a removal to a distant and uncultivated shore.

The body of persons who laid the foundation of New Plymouth, was one of these churches or communities of Puritan Separatists; persons so impatient under the yoke of the ceremonies which had

* The following pages are from "The Founders of New Plymouth," by Rev. Joseph Hunter, a book just published in England, containing something new, and identifying more satisfactorily than has been done before, the place of the first ecclesiastical organization of the Separatists, and of the residence of Bradford and Brewster, and a number of the leading Puritans and Pilgrims, which will interest all who are curious to trace the Pilgrim movement to its origin.

been continued in the Reformed Church of England, that they had begun to regard it as unlawful to remain in the church, and who had formed themselves in church order, based upon their own principles, and consisting of a people with the offices of pastor, teacher, elders, and deacons. It was not one of the London communities of this kind; but, what gives this subject the greater interest, it was a church that had been formed in quite a rural district, in a county far remote from London.

It remained, till the publication of my "Collections" on this subject, an undetermined question, to what point we are to look for the place of meeting of this church or community, for discipline and worship, and consequently, from what English population the members of it were gathered. Dr. Cotton Mather, whose "Magnalia," a folio volume, printed in 1702, contains much valuable information concerning New England and its early settlers, is content with saying, after Morton in his "New England's Memorial," 1669, that the founders of New Plymouth came from "the north of England." Hubbard, another early writer on the affairs of New England, uses the same expression.

"These people," that is, the persons who were Puritan Separatists, says Bradford, "became two distinct bodies or churches, in regard of distance of place, and did congregate severally, for they were of several towns and villages, some in Nottinghamshire, some in Lincolnshire, and some in Yorkshire, where they bordered nearest together."

One of these two churches was at Gainsborough, a well-known place, the other, which is that about which we are now concerned, was elsewhere.

Bradford's writings are exceedingly valuable, though we have reason to regret that he shuts up so many things in general expressions. Yet it is to a passage in another of his writings, that we are indebted for the information which enables me now to dispel all uncertainty on this point, and to fix the locality of this church or community to a particular place. "They ordinarily met," says he, in his Life of William Brewster, "at his (Brewster's) house on the Lord's day, which was a manor of the bishop's, and with great love he entertained them when they came, making provision for them to his great charge, and continued so to do whilst they could stay in England." This, when it is combined with the preceding note of place, " near the joining borders of Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire," guides us at once to the village of Scrooby, in the hundred of Basset-Lawe, a part of North Nottinghamshire, well known in Parliamentary history; that

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being the only place comprising an Episcopal manor that was near the borders of the three counties.

Scrooby manor was near to the borders both of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, though itself in the county of Nottingham. It was also an ancient possession and occasional residence of the Archbishop of York.

No reasonable doubt can therefore ever arise that the seat and centre of that religious community which afterwards planted itself on the shores of New England was at this Nottinghamshire village of Scrooby, a place little known to fame, but acquiring from this accident a certain amount of historical interest. The claims of this village, though hitherto unnoticed, do not rest entirely on what I have now said; for to make their establishment complete, recourse was had to the Rolls, which contain assessments of the subsidies granted by Parliament, and there was found that in the thirteenth year of Elizabeth, 1571, there was a William Brewster assessed in the township of Scrooby-cum-Ranskill, on goods of the annual value of three pounds; and in other accounts, that in 1608, William Brewster and two other persons, all described as "of Scrooby, Brownists or Separatists," were certified into the exchequer for fines imposed upon them by the Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes, for non-appearance to a citation. Further evidence of Brewster's residence at Scrooby will appear as we proceed.

Scrooby will be found in the maps, about a mile and a half south of Bawtry, a market and post-town situated on the boundary line between Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. It was itself, in the time when Brewster resided there, one of the post-towns on the great road from London to Berwick.

Leland, who visited the place in 1541, gives this account of it: "In the meane townlet of Scrooby, I marked two things -- the parish church not big but very well builded; the second was a great manor place, standing within a moat, and belonging to the Archbishop of York; builded in two courts, whereof the first is very ample, and all builded of timber, saving the front of the house that is of brick, to the which ascenditur per gradus lapideos. The inner court building, as far as I marked, was of timber building, and was not in compass past the fourth-part of the outer court." It had belonged to the see of York, in the time of the Domesday book.

But though Scrooby was the residence of William Brewster, the chief agent in this movement, and his house was opened for worship and discipline to the persons who thought and acted with him, it is

not to Scrooby only that we are to look for the persons composing the church, who were drawn from various places in the surrounding country. The vicinity of Scrooby was in those times, and is now, an agricultural district; having a few villages scattered about, each with its church, and perhaps an esquire's seat.

It is certainly a very remarkable circumstance (apart from the consideration of the very important consequences which ensued upon it), that there should have arisen among such a population as that of Basset-Lawe, a spirit so strong and so determined, or that it could have been induced to enter such a field of controversy at all. And it becomes the more remarkable, when we observe how few persons in those times had, in any part of the country, separated themselves from the church, and formed themselves into single self-directed communities. Not but that in most other parts of the kingdom the Puritan objections to the ceremonies were felt by many minds, and many were the persons who would gladly have seen the yoke of ceremonies removed but there is a great difference between this uneasiness in a forced acquiscence and the actual withdrawing from all communion, throwing off the authority of the church, and the authority of the State too, as far as respected affairs of religion. The Separatist was a Puritan, but the Puritan was not necessarily a Separatist; and the extraordinary feature in this case is, that the Puritanism of BassetLawe was so deep a sentiment, that it urged so many to the act of separation, and afterwards to the desperate measure of emigration, while in other parts of the country, with few exceptions, though there were Puritan emigrants who sought relief from the ceremonies and subscriptions, there were few or none who had while at home entered into church union, as the Scrooby people did, and then took their departure a compact and united body. There is no doubt a great overruling power in all human affairs; but our concern is with second causes, and it is to be believed that we often deceive ourselves when we attempt to recover general principles from which things remarkable in the acts of men have arisen.*

This is the spirit in which Bradford, a native of Austerfield, a village a few miles from Scrooby, and an early member of the church, writes in all the historical tracts which we owe to him. It may be proper to observe, that no one understood better than he what the people had thought, and done, and suffered while in England, or what

*See Bradford's account of the state of religious feeling about Scrooby.

their condition while in Holland, and after they had become permanently settled on the American continent. He was the governor of New Plymouth colony for many years, while Brewster was the elder, but uniting in himself also the offices of pastor and teacher, till a minister became settled among them.

Their residence in Holland was for one year at Amsterdam, and eleven years at Leyden, whence they began to remove to America in 1620.

The person whom Bradford places first among the ministers, who was a Separatist himself, and who made others Separatists, is John Smith.

Another very zealous Puritan minister in these parts was Richard Bernard, who had the misfortune to fall under the displeasure of Mr. Smith, for not going to the same excess in his non-conformity.

Another of these ministers was Richard Clifton.

When the Separatists, who remained in Nottinghamshire after the removal of Smith's church into Holland, formed themselves in church order, Clifton became either pastor or teacher, probably the latter, while John Robinson held the other office, and Brewster was the ruling elder. I find that he was instituted on July 11th, 1586, to the rectory of Babworth, a country village a short distance from Scrooby, now the seat of the family of Simpson (Bridgman), the present incumbent being one of that family. He is also in all probability the minister of the same name who was instituted on February the 12th, 1585, to the vicarage of Marnham in the same county of Nottingham. He was the son of a Thomas Clifton, who lived at one of the Normantons in the county of Derby.

He was born at Normanton, and married Anne, daughter of J. Stuffen of Warsop, in the county of Nottingham, September, anno 1586. He was minister and preacher of the gospel at Babworth, in the said county, and had issue by his wife three sons, Zachary, Timothy, and Eleazer; and three daughters, Mary, Hannah, and Priscilla, all born at Babworth aforesaid.

He, with his wife and children, came unto Amsterdam in Holland, August, 1608. He died at Amsterdam, 20th May, 1616, and was buried in the South church. Vixit Ann. 63.

We are thus enabled to fix the time of his birth to in or about 1553, so that he was not much above fifty years old when he fell under the animadversions of the ecclesiastical authorities. The pre

cise date of his departure to Holland, August, 1608, is valuable, inasmuch as we have hitherto been left to gather that important date

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