Old words in use in colonial Massachusetts
Author: Jim Crawford (jim@craw.us or aimcraw@aol.com). Last updated September 25, 2009
Some of the words and customs used in colonial Massachusetts were different from current times and need some explanation.
(1) Freeman. One of the important records recorded in the town books was the day a person became a "freeman", i.e., a male who held town privileges including the right to live in the town and the right to vote. A "freeholder" was a freeman who also owned at least forty or fifty acres of land. Anyone first entering the MA colony was formally not "free". His movements were observed and if he strayed from the Puritanical ideal, he was asked to leave the colony. When he finished a probationary period of time which could be one or two years, he was allowed his freedom and permitted to possess land outright given to him by the town. Until 1673, church membership was required before allowing an individual to take the freeman oath.
(2) Husbandman. Husbandman was the old term for farmer. We still use the term "animal husbandry" to refer to the practice of breeding and raising livestock.
(3) Large Families. Families were often huge by our modern standards. It was not unusual for a mother to have a dozen children, and when a wife died, the husband routinely re-married within a year and had more children. One of our ancestors had 19 children from two wives, and several had three wives. Likewise when a husband died, the widow might remarry within a year, and at least one ancestor had three husbands. It appears that there was no period of mourning such as is currently observed after the death of a spouse, and no stigma to a fast remarriage. One of the reasons for the large families and multiple marriages was that children frequently died young, and mothers frequently died from childbirth. It was common practice to name children after the parents, and it was also common practice to give the same name to multiple children if the first born with the name died young.
(4) Old Style (O.S.). In 1752 England and the British colonies changed from using the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. This involved shifting the start of the new year from March 25 to January 1. To say the least, this has presented a huge problem in talking about old dates, especially since other countries in Europe such as France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal switched calendars in 1582. This leads to the puzzle: William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes died on the same date, 23 April 1616, but not on the same day: Cervantes actually died ten days before Shakespeare. In terms of genealogy, it is important to know whether a date is Old Style (O.S.) using the Julian calendar, or New Style (N.S.) using the Gregorian calendar. For example, the date listed in a town's record book might say 23 1 1642, indicating the 23rd day of the 1st month of 1642 (O.S.). This would be translated to March 23, 1642 (N.S.) since the 1st month in 1642 was March. To really confuse the issue, the date 23 12 1642 (O.S.) is Feb. 12 1643 (N.S.) - note the year has changed. So often books report this as Feb. 12 1642/1643 to indicate that it was considered in the year 1642 when it happened, but is now considered to be in the year 1643. Needless to say, this has produced much confusion in the genealogy literature. The date 23 12 1642 might be reported by different authors to be Dec 23, 1642, Feb 23, 1642, Feb 23, 1643, or Feb 23, 1642/1643.
(5) The Massachusetts Bay Company. In 1628, a group of Puritan businessmen formed the "Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay", a profit-making endeavor similiar to a modern joint-stock corporation. The "freemen" (stockholders) chose the company's officers consisting of a Governor, Deputy-Governor and 18 Assistants (president and board of directors). Yearly the freemen and officers met in a "Great and General Court" (annual stockholders meeting) to choose the officers and keep track of the Company's business. They received a land grant covering the area from 3 miles north of the Merrimack River to 3 miles south of the Charles River, and a Royal Charter from King Charles I that overrode competing land claims of other companies. More importantly, the Royal Charter, for the first time, failed to indicate where and when the annual meeting of the stockholders of the company was to take place. On August 26, 1629, twelve stockholders met and signed an agreement which stated that they would move to Massachusetts within the following year provided the Company first transfered the government and Patent for the Colony to them in the new land. They also agreed that any shareholders who did not want to emigrate would be bought out by shareholders who did emigrate. Thus for the first time, a colony in the new world would be governed by local people living in the colony rather than stockholders living in England. The twelve signers of the "Cambridge Agreement" were Richard Saltonstall, Thomas Dudley, William Vassall, Nich. West, Isaack Johnson, John Humfrey, Thomas Sharp, Increase Novell, John Winthrop, William Pinshon, Kellam Browne, and William Colbron.
The first meeting of the governing board of the Massachusetts Bay Company, called the Massachusetts General Court, consisting of the Governor, Deputy Governor, and Assistants, met on October 19, 1630, in Boston. At this point, all of the freemen of the company living in the Colony were also Assistants of the company. The Court proceeded to make the astounding step of adding over 100 settlers in the Colony as freemen, and declared that in the future any settler who became a member of a church would be given membership in the Company as a freeman. Within the year, the Court chose six of the Assistants to be Magistrates (judges), but soon after established that all Assistants were Magistrates ex officio. Thus the General Court was both the legislative and judicial branches of government. In 1634 the General Court was enlarged to include two Deputies from every town, and in 1644 the Court was split into the House of Deputies and the House of Associates.
In 1684, King Charles II revoked the Royal Charter and the Massachusetts Bay Company ceased to exist, and by 1691 Plymouth and Maine were added to the colony to become a unified royal colony of Massachusetts. The new charter abolished church membership as a requirement for becoming a freeman, and made the Governor a royal appointee rather than an elected official.
(6) The Great Migration. The Great Migration started when Governor Winthrop landed in June 1630, first in Salem and then Charlestown, Massachusetts with 700 Puritans on eleven ships. Winthrop made Charlestown the capitol, but when several families got sick and died, the settlers decided it was the foul water in Charlestown, and Winthrop moved the seat of government across the river to Boston which had several clear springs. Over the next 10 years, immigration averaged about 2000 people each year. The majority of immigrants were Puritans from the eastern counties of England, in particular Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex counties, although there were also a significant number of West Countrymen from the south-western counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset, England. The last lart contingent of immigrants arrived in the summer of 1940. By the following summer, the English Civil War became imminent, and Puritans still in England felt obligated to stay in England to support the Puritan-controlled Parliment.
(7) Puritans. The Church of England was under the authority of the Roman Catholic Pope until King Henry VIII separated the church from Rome in 1534 so he could annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Many supporters of the new Protestant Reformation started by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli took this opportunity to press for reform within the Church of England. Some reforms were made over the next century (with reforms often granted or revoked based on the whims of the King or Queen), but a number of religious groups felt that the reforms did not go far enough from separating the Church of England from the Catholic Church. These individuals were called "Puritans" because they advocated more "purity" of worship and doctrine, as well as individual piety in life. The Puritans developed into two main factions: Independents, who advocated for local congregational control of church matters without any hierarchy above them, and Presbyterians, who resembled the Church of Scotland and grouped their churchs under a governing body of ordained elders and ministers called Presbyterys, and regional councils of Presbyterys called synods to decide issues of doctrine and administration. In New England, Congregational Churches were noted for following strict guidelines to determine whether an individual could join the church or participate in the sacrements of communion or baptism, while Presbyterian Churchs were noted for being more inclusive.
(8) King Philip's War. Problems with the Indian Metacom, known as "King Philip", started in the 1660s when he became Grand Sachem of the Wampanoag Confederacy, but did not erupt into bloodshed until 1675. Over the next two years half of the 90 towns in New England were attacked and over 800 out of 52,000 English colonists and 3,000 out of 20,000 Indians died. Some towns, like Boston, were little effected except for increased taxes and impressment of men to fight. Others, like Scituate, were completely destroyed. The first major attacks by the Indians were on settlements in the Connecticut River valley. The Colonial forces fighting the Indians were garrisoned at Hadley, which itself was attacked a couple of times. Deerfield, just north of Hadley, was destroyed and was the site of the Indians greatest victory at "Bloody Brook" when the Indians ambused soldiers sent from Hadley to retrieve grain from the destroyed Deerfield. A number of other settlements were completely destroyed, including Lancaster, where the Indians captured Mary Rowlandson and held her captive for several months. In December of 1675 a colonial force attacked the main Narragansett fort in Rhode Island in a bloody battle called the Great Swamp Fight. This led to a winter of attacks on many settlements including Lancaster, Groton, Scituate, and Sudbury. Renewed efforts by the colonists led to King Philip being killed on August 12, 1676, which essentially ended the war for Massachusetts.