History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts - citizen hylbom blog

192 HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
flueiice over the Indians was excellent in leading
tliem to intelligence and habits of temperance and
industry. Governor Belcher was a personal friend
who often welcomed him to his house. Besides the
discourse already named^ a sermon of Mr. Peabody's
was published, delivered at the evening lecture at the
New North Church in Boston, June 8, 1742. He
had twelve children. With the servants and visit-
ors his family frequently numbered twenty around
his hospitable board. The oldest son, Oliver, Jr.,
graduated at Harvard, was ordained pastor of the
church in Eoxbury, Mr. Eliot's fourth successor,
but died after a brief ministry. He built a resi-
dence nearly opposite the church, which for eighty
years was the parsonage. It is now owned and
occupied by that eminent scholar and antiquarian,
C. K. Dillaway, Esq.
A meeting of the parish of Natick was called in
1754-, "To see if the inhabitants accept the school
that was kept at Joseph Travis' as a school for
that Squadrian "; and some years later, " To see if
the Parish will Imploy School-Dames to school
their children." A list of the soldiers in Natick
under Captain John Coolidge names forty-two, and
the alarm-men were twenty-one more. Eev. Stephen
Badger's name heads the last company, April 19,
1757. We find returhs of men enlisted or im-
pressed for his Majesty's service. They were at the
lakes in the Ereuch and Indian War, and learned
a soldier's duty, useful hereafter, when not in his
Majesty's service. A number of Indians went in
these campaigns. But in 1759 a distemper carried
off some score of Indians, only two who were
attacked recovering, while of the English who took
cars of the sick natives but one caught the disease
and died. Nantucket chronicles a similar story
about the same time.
On the town records stands this early emanci])ation
proclamation : —
" Know all men whome these Presents may Con-
cern, that we Samuel Taylor and Hannah Taylor
his wife; In Consideration of tlie Good Servis our
Negroc Man Servant, Named Plato, hath Done and
may Do for us During our Life, and Considering
tJie trouble he the said Plato May be brought to
.\fter our Deceas : we
Do by tliese Presents att our
Decease, Absolutely and fully Eree and A(iuit him,
the said Plato from being sold or being any Slav(>
Servant to any Person whooin soever ; but he shall
have his full Liberty to serve with whome he will,
and his wages Siiall be for liis well-maintenance,
and the Eemainder to those that shall take the best
Care of him During his life.
" Given under our Hands in Natick, m the
County of Middlesex, this twenty-first Day of
June, Anno Domini 1764.
" Signed in Presence of
"Nath. Mann.
"Thos. Stanford.
" A Trew Record of his Freedom."
" Sam'l Taylor.
" Hannah Taylor.
Just before this time died Joseph Ephraim, the
Indian deacon. At his election all the whites gave
him their votes, and he held the office from the
organization of the church through Mr. Peabody's
ministry, and probably till his death, about 1761.
He was a n:an of good parts, and highly respected.
Having been asked why young Indians when living
with the whites kept sober and industrious, but
returning to their own kindred soon grew lazy, in-
temperate, and shiftless, he replied, in his broken
English, " Tucks (ducks) will be tucks for all old
hen he hatch um." He had a descendant, John,
Avho inherited his acres, but not his virtues.
Eev. Stephen Badger, in 1753, was appointed
Indian missionary at Natick. The white inhabi-
tants agreed to give £ 13 6*. M. towards his salary,
and build him a house with timter from the minis-
terial lot, and draw him thirty cords of wood yearly.
He was born at Charlestown; graduated at Harvard
College, 1747 ; and was ordained March 27, 1753,
President Appleton, of Cambridge, preaching the
sermon.
The next year a new meeting-house, the fourth
on the spot, was built, largely at the cost of the
Society for Propagating the Gospel among the
Indians. The mutual influence of the whites and
Indians worked badly on many of each race, who
took each other's evil qualities. Natick, as a parish,
voted money toward galleries in the meeting-house,
and the preacher's salary was voted by the town,
often rcluel.iiitly, the trouble growing out of the
location of the church.
Mr. Badger built a manse which is still inhabited.
It well preserved its character of respectable age,
and was the residence of Oliver Bacon, founder of
the free library; but since his death it has been
modernized.
An old diary states: 'March 2P' 53; Mr.
Badger's church was gathered."
Let us sketch the life of John Jones, born in