History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts - citizen hylbom blog

ut it was too late, and thenceforth, for many years,
the civil magistrate ordered the things of God.
Mr. Matthews did not remain long in Maiden,
but returned with several of his church to England.
He became vicar of St. John's in his native Swansea,
where he remained until the Restoration, when
he again gave proof of his sincerity and independ-
ence by leaving his living rather than to subscribe
to the tyrannical Act of Uniformity. He remained
at Swansea, where he lived by the bounty of his
friends and with the love of the people, and died,
having attained a ripe old age, about the year
1683."
Having a church of their owti, and a town gov-
ernment, tlie people of Maiden waited not long for
another concomitant of English populations ; and
early in 1651 a petition was made by the selectmen
and the constable, Richard Adams, for the
appointment of Thomas Skinner as keeper of an
ordinary " for tlie Accomodacon of Travellers and
such like occasions." John Hawthorne, how-
ever, received the favor of the court and the ap-
pointment; but, having apparently incurred the
displeasure of his neighbors for certain testimony
against ilr. Matthews, the court afterwards licensed
"Thomas Skinner to keepe an ordinary there in
the roome and stead of John Hawthorne." Later
the selectmen asked a broader license for "our
Bro' Thomas Skiiier," that he might " sell Strong-
waters And wine to Supplie the necessitys of the
Towne and Travellers." In 16.57 the town was
without an inn ; and " A Bro'' of the Church there
namely Abraham Hill " was allowed " to keep
an Ordinarie there. As AUso to draw wine for
the better Accomodating both the church and
countrie." The house of Abraham Hill was the
precursor of a line of taverns kept by the Hill
family, the last of which, venerable in years but
not in its appearance, is still in existence. For
more than a century it occupied the site of the
town-house, and was known, in its palmy days, as
the Rising Eagle. Its rival, the Half-Moon, for
a lifetime kept by Daniel Newhall, and lastly by
James Kettell, stood near by. A relic of the latter
days of the seventeenth century, it was razed many
years ago ; but its well, at which generations of
men and beasts have drunk, is that, so well known,
at the corner of Main and Salem streets.
After the departure of Mr. Matthews, Maiden
received a minister who was destined to spend a
long life \vith her people. This was ]\Iichael Wig-
MALDEN. 117
of age, and who had been graduated at Har\ard
College, at the head of his class, in 1651. He is
supposed to have preached here in 105-1; but he
supplied the pulpit nearly two years before he accepted
the call to become the teacher of Maiden
and was ordained. Tlie custom of the New Eng-
land churches recognized both pastors and teach-
glesworth, who was then about twenty-two years colleague of Mr. Wigglesworth, and the third pas-
ers ;
and, although the colleagues of Mr. "Wiggles-
worth were pastors, the title was not applied to
him until the later years of his ministry, and it is
probable that he never assumed it. Soon after his
ordination a sickly constitution, which had mani-
fested itself while he was at college, so prevailed
upon iiiin that for a long period, variously supposed
to have been from twenty -one to twenty-eight years,
he was unable regularly to attend his pulpit duties.
Shut out from the more active affairs of his office,
he turned his attention to literary labors ; and his
poems. The Bay of Boom, and Meat out of f/ie
Eater, those " grim utterances of the past/' now
known only as literary curiosities of an age of
thought and belief now departed, attained a popu-
larity which we of the present, with more generous
views of God and man, can hardly understand. A
modern writer says of his muse : "Homely and
coarse of speech as she is, her voice probably sunk
into the hearts of those who listened to her rude
melody, leaving there an impression deeper than any
which the numbers of some of our modern bards
may ever produce ; " and iiis biographer says
" There are passages in his \\ritiiigs wiiich are truly
poetical, both in thought and expression, and which
siiow that he was capable of attaining a higher
position as a poet than can now be claimed for
him."
In 1663, while Mr. Wigglesworth was absent in
Bermuda, Rev. Benjamin Bunker was ordained as
" Pastor in Maldon." As Mr. Wigglesworth's
colleague he gained the Maiden teacher's love and
esteem ;
and the friendship wiiich a companionship
of six years in the ministry had cemented was cele-
brated by the poet in an elegy which rebuked tlie
sins of "Mnldon" while it praised the departed
saint. After the death of ilr. Bunker, there is no
record of any other than Mr. Wigglesworth having
preached at Maiden until 1674, when Rev. Benjamin
Blackman began to preach. He continued
here four years, and then removed to the banks of
the Saco River, where he became a large land-
proprietor and a prominent man. He is supposed
to have died in the vicinity of Boston. The next
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