Page:The Journal of American History Volume 9.djvu/458

 The Pastor of Chebacco Parish was the leader in this movement and was one of the great men of the times. The Encyclopaedia Britannica" has this to say:

"John Wise (1652–1725), a Puritan author deserving better remembrance than he has had, was born at Roxbury, Massachusetts, graduated at Harvard in 1673, began in 1680 to preach in Ipswich, Mass., and passed his life in that charge."

Here I find sound authority for my attempt to keep this truly great man in remembrance, and we may well thank this good British publication for its sturdy commendation of our early genuine American patriot.

Chebacco Parish contained a collection of rich farms, occupied by prosperous farmers who had, with great difficulty, succeeded in organizing a new parish and building a church but a few years prior to 1687. The church was situated in the school-district where I was born, and Mr. Wise's residence, which was at first on the parsonage land nearby, was later, in 1703, built by himself on land adjoining my ancestral home, and there his house is still standing in good repair.

On another farm adjoining was my father's ancestral home, owned in 1687 by his mother's great-grandfather, Captain William Goodhue, Jr. Captain Goodhue was an able Indian fighter, was Parish Clerk, a Deacon, and the confidential friends of the Pastor.

Mr. Wise, then thirty-five years of age, was of towering frame, a vigorous athlete, an able theologian, and an impassioned orator. The ten-acre field given him by his parishioners at his settlement, about 1681, was on my father's farm and is called "Wise's field" to this day. While plowing in this field in 1855 I found an ancient gold mourning ring. Mr. Goodhue died October 12, 1712. On the inside of this ring may be seen a Latin abbreviation for died and some initials and figures as follows: "W. G. Obt, Oc. 12, 1712."

In all of this time four generations have come between me and Captain Goodhue. I have no doubt but following the ancient custom then in vogue among all well to do English people his widow presented this mourning ring to her Pastor, her husband's dearest friend, as a tender memento of the friendship and undying love which existed between these two leaders who had suffered together in the great cause we are now commemorating.

I love to think that Mr. Wise must have worn this ring with many touching recollections of his long and intimate association with his parish clerk and church deacon, Captain William Goodhue, Jr.

With his friend Goodhue and some of the Ipswich town officers,