Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/39

 INTRODUCTION. XXXI

haps with their families, being among them. "The Gov- ernor and several of the Patentees dwelt in the great house, which was last year built in this town by Mr. Graves and the rest of their servants. The multitude set up cottages, booths and tents about the Town Hill." * From the sad state of things above described, it is easy to see that the new comers had to give rather than receive assistance from those whom they found already at Charles- town. On Friday, July 30, Winthrop, Dudley, Johnson, and Wilson entered into a church covenant, which was signed two days after by Increase Nowell and four others, — Sharpe, Bradstreet, Gager, and Colborne;t the sub- scribers soon numbering sixty-four men and half as many women. % The next on the list are William Aspinwall and Robert Harding, and then follow the names of " Dorothy Dudley y*^ wife of Tho : Dudley" and "Anne Bradllreete y® wife of Simon Bradflreete." § Johnson says, in his "Won- der-working Providence," || that, after the arrival of the com- pany at Salem, " the Lady Arrahclla and fome other godly Women aboad at Saletn, but their Husbands continued at Charles Town, both for the fettling the civill Government and gathering another Church of Christ.

It may be that Mrs. Bradstreet was one of those who remained at Salem, and that she was not in Charlestown when the covenant was first signed ; but, as her name is


 * Charlestown Records in Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, p. 37S.

t Prince's Chronology. Boston: 1826. p. 311. — Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation. Boston: 1856, p. 278. —Bradford's Letter Book, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. iii. p. 76. — Budington's History of the First Church in Charlestown, pp. 13-15. X Budington, p. 15.

§ MS. Records of the First Church in Boston.

II London : 1654. p. 37.

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