Governor Bradford: Eaton and Salem

The Company were careful to make "plentiful provision of godly ministers" for the colony, and in the summer after Endicott's departure, three of these--Skelton, Higginson and Bright--were sent to Salem, with about two hundred additional settlers. Soon after their arrival a church was organized by the choice of Samuel Skelton as pastor, and Francis Higginson as teacher or assistant. They were ordained by a simple ceremonial. Mr. Higginson and three or four of the gravest men laid their hands on Mr. Skelton's head, while he knelt, and then prayed. Mr. Higginson was consecrated by Mr. Skelton in the same way. Mr. Higginson then drew up a confession of faith and plan of church government, and an invitation was sent to the Plymouth people to be present at a formal organization of the society. On a warm day, the 6th of August, the people were gathered in the shade of great elms at Salem, when the two ministers preached, and thirty persons signed the covenant and associated themselves as a church. Governor Bradford and others, who came from Plymouth by sea, did not reach Salem until the ceremony was ended, when they "came into the assembly and gave them the right hand of fellowship." So was founded the first church in New England. They claimed that they were not Separatists-that is, separated from the Church of England-but a better part of it, discarding its corruptions and trying to reform it. Yet in all outward things they were Separatists. Endicott and his friends punished two brothers named Browne for worshipping in accordance with the prescriptions and rituals of the Book of Common Prayer, the governor declaring the liturgy and ceremonials to be "sinful corruptions of the worship of God." The offenders persisted and Endicott sent them back over the ocean, telling them that New England was no place for such as they. The Company did not disclaim the act, but simply asked Endicott to be discreet, for fear of offending the home government.

This high-handed act unreproved, established the fact that the authorities of Massachusetts might, at their discretion, exclude all persons from the colony who did not conform to the pattern of morals and religion prescribed by the governor and ministers. This was the beginning of that blind intolerance of the Puritans of Massachusetts, which appears as a dark stain upon the annals of New England. We must judge those early settlers leniently by the standard of ethics which prevailed in civilized society at that time.

Toward the close of the summer of 1629, an important measure was adopted by the Company, which gave a mighty impulse to emigration to Massachusetts. It was the transferring of the government of the colony from the Company to the people there, and so establishing a democracy like that at Plymouth. That was done on the 29th of August. The old officers in the colony resigned, and John Winthrop, one of the many wealthy and influential heads of families who had determined to emigrate to Massachusetts in the event of such a change in its political affairs, was chosen governor. John Humphrey, brother-in-law to the Earl of Lincoln, was chosen deputy-governor, but, on the eve of embarkation, his place was filled by Thomas Dudley, a veteran soldier and then the manager of the estates of the earl. Eighteen assistants were also chosen.

Winthrop was then forty-two years of age. he was a native of Groton, Suffolk county, where he had considerable landed property. A lawyer by profession, he had moved in the higher circles of society among eminent men in church and state, by which means he became learned in statesmanship and polished in manners. Dudley had served as a soldier under Henry the Fourth of France thirty years before and "was old enough," Palfrey says, "to have lent a shrill voice to the huzzas at the defeat of the Armada." Of the assistants, Johnson, Saltonstall, Eaton, Bradstreet and Vassall were the most conspicuous. Isaac Johnson was the richest of the emigrants, and son-in-law of the Earl of Lincoln. Sir Robert Saltonstall, of Halifax, Yorkshire, was an opulent supporter of the enterprise. Theophilus Eaton was an eminent merchant of London, and a polished courtier who had been the earliest minister of Charles the First, in Denmark. Simon Bradstreet was the son of a Puritan minister in Lincolnshire and college graduate, and William Vassall was an opulent West India merchant.

Winthrop and his companions, consisting of about three hundred families, sailed from Yarmouth in the spring of 1630. The governor was in the Arabella, a ship carrying twenty-eight guns, and so named in compliment to Arabella Johnson, wife of one of the assistants. Before leaving the port, the governor, in behalf of his company, sent an address, drawn by the Rev. Mr. White, to "the rest of the brethren in and of the Church of England," saying that they esteemed it a favor to call that church their "dear mother;" that they wished her prosperity, and that they left her and their native land with "much sadness of heart and many tears." They declared that they went to establish an independent church, but not a separate one.