History of Northampton, Massachusetts, from its settlement in 1654;

1728.] REV. SOLOMON STODDARD. 65
ludiaii Traditinii. TliG I'espect and deference bestowed upon
the clergy by the Puritan settlers, were also
extended to tlicni by the Indians, who regarded them with
much the same feelings shown to their own medicine-men.
The incident related by the Canadian Indians concerning
Mr. Stoddard.^ may have been correct, but in all probability
it was but the repetition of the story related by Rev.
Hope Atherton, first minister of Hatfield, concerning his
experience in the Falls fight. In. this case the narration of
Mr. Atherton was corroborated by the savages, and may be
regarded as truthful. ^ These men were contemporaries,
and it is easy to conceive how the same tradition may have
been made to do service for both of them.
.Aiarriage. Oh the 18*" of March, 1G70, he married
Esther, widow of his predecessor. Rev.
Eleazar Mather. They had eleven children, six daughters
and five sons. Mrs. Mather had three children by her first
husband, the eldest of whom was six years old at the
time of her second marriage. They took up their residence
at the parsonage given to Mr. Mather by the town, and
lived there till about the time Eliakim Mather, the young-
est son, came of age, when the Mather homestead was sold
to John and Moses Lyman. In 1684, Mr. Stoddard bought
the Clesson place, on the eastern slope of Round Hill, and
within a few years built a house there.
Estate.
Mr. Stoddard accumulated a large estate for
the times in which he lived. It was inven-
toried at i'1126. exclusive of books and wearing apparel,
besides "several hundred pounds'" due on bonds lodged in
Boston. His real estate comprised one hundred twenty-
eight acres, fifty of which was meadow-land, and the rest
scattered in ditt'erent parts of the town. In his library
were four hundred sixty-two volumes, four hundred ninety-
1 The tradition related by the Canada Indians to their English captives in that
country was that once when Mr. Stoddard was passing " Deweys Hole,'' between
Northampton and Hatfield, a Frenchman in ambush, leveled his gun at the minister,
but his Indian compauidu advised him not to shoot, as that was the Englishman's
God. An experience of a similar nature is said to have occurred while Mr. Stoddard
was meditating upon a sermon in an orchard at Deerfield.— Dwight's travels, vol. 1,
p, 331,
2 Vol. 1. p. *«.
S