No. IV. THE PRIMITIVE MEETING HOUSE IN NEW HAVEN. THE custom still lingers in some parts of New England, of seating" the people in the meeting house by a committee. When this custom was given up in New Haven, I have not ascertained. Probably it was continued till about the middle of the last century. In several instances the records of the town exhibit the assignment of persons to seats, with the names of all the individuals. The earliest record of this kind is in the proceedings of "a General Court," or town meeting, "held the 10th of March, 1646." As the record shows both the meeting house and the congregation, I have thought it worth copying. "The names of people as they were seated in the meeting house were read in court; and it was ordered that they should be recorded which was as followeth, viz: "The middle seats have, to sit in them, 1st seat. 2d seat. 3d seat. Gibbard. The Governor and Deputy Governor. Mr. Malbon, magistrate. Mr. Evance, Mr. Bracey, Mr. Francis Newman, Mr. 4th seat. Goodman Wigglesworth, Bro. Atwater, Bro. Seely, Bro. Myles. 5th seat. Andrews. Bro. Crane, Bro. Gibbs, Mr. Caffinch, Mr. Ling, Bro. 6th seat. Bro. Davis, Goodman Osborne, Anthony Thompson, Mr. Browning, Mr. Rutherford, Mr. Higginson. 7th seat. Bro. Camfield, Mr. James, Bro. Benham, Wm. Thompson, Bro. Lindall, Bro. Martin. 8th seat. Jno. Meggs, Jno. Cooper, Peter Browne, Wm. Peck, Jno. Gregory, Nich. Elsie. 9th seat. Edw. Banister, John Herryman, Benja. Wilmot, Jarvis Boykin, Arthur Holbridge. "In the cross seats at the end, 1st seat. Mr. Pell, Mr. Tuttle, Bro. Fowler. 2d seat. 3d seat. Thom. Nash, Mr. Allerton, Bro. Perry. 4th seat. Robert Johnson, Thom. Jeffery, John Punderson. 5th seat. Thom. Munson, John Livermore, Roger Allen, Jos. Nash, Sam. Whithead, Thom. James. In the other little seat, John Clarke, Mark Pierce. "In the seats on the side, for men, 1st, Jeremy Whitnell, Wm. Preston, Thomas Kimberly, Thom. Powell. 2d, Daniel Paul, Rich. Beckly, Richard Mansfield, James Russell. 3d, Wm. Potter, Thom. Lampson, Christopher Todd, William Ives. 4th, Hen. Glover, Wm. Tharpe, Matthias Hitchcock, Andrew Low. On the other side of the door. 1st, John Mosse, Luke Atkinson, Jno. Thomas, Abraham Bell. 2d, George Smith, John Wackfield, Edw. Pattison, Richard Beech. 3d, John Basset, Timothy Ford, Thom. Knowles, Robert Preston. 4th, Richd. Osborne, Robert Hill, Jno. Wilford, Henry Gibbons. 5th, Francis Browne, Adam Nichols, Goodman Leeke, Goodman Daighton. 6th, Wm. Gibbons, John Vincent, Thomas Wheeler, John Brockett. "Secondly, for the women's seats, in the middle. 1st seat. 2d seat. Hooke. 3d seat. Old Mrs. Eaton. Mrs. Malbon, Mrs. Grigson, Mrs. Davenport, Mrs. Elder Newman's wife, Mrs. Lamberton, Mrs. Turner, Mrs. Brewster. 4th seat. Myles. Sister Wakeman, Sister Gibbard, Sister Gilbert, Sister 5th seat. Mr. Francis Newman's wife, Sister Gibbs, Sister Crane, Sister Tuttil, Sister Atwater. 6th seat. Sister Seely, Mrs. Caffinch, Mrs. Perry, Sister Davis, Sister Cheevers, Jno. Nash's wife. 7th seat. David Atwater's wife, Sister Clarke, Mrs. Yale, Sister Osborne, Sister Thompson. 8th seat. Sister Wigglesworth, Goody Johnson, Goody Camfield, Sister Punderson, Goody Meggs, Sister Gregory. 9th seat. Sister Todd, Sister Boykin, Wm. Potter's wife, Matthias Hitchcock's wife, Sister Cooper. "In the cross seats at the end. 1st, Mrs. Bracey, Mrs. Evance. 2d, Sister Fowler, Sister Ling, Sister Allerton. 3d, Sister Jeffery, Sister Rutherford, Sister Livermore. 4th, Sister Preston, Sister Benham, Sister Mansfield. 5th, Sister Allen, Goody Banister, Sister Kimberly, Goody Wilmott, Mrs. Higginson. In the little cross seat, Sister Potter the midwife, and old Sister Nash. "In the seats on the sides. 1st seat. Sister Powell, Goody Lindall, Mrs. James. 2d seat. Martin. 3d seat. Sister Whithead, Sister Munson, Sister Beckly, Sister Sister Peck, Joseph Nash's wife, Peter Browne's wife, Sister Russell. 4th seat. Sister Ives, Sister Bassett, Sister Pattison, Sister Elsie. "In the seats on the other side of the door. 1st seat. Jno. Thomas's wife, Goody Knowles, Goody Beech, Goody Hull. 2d seat. Sister Wackfield, Sister Smith, Goody Mosse, James Clarke's wife. 3d seat. Sister Brockett, Sister Hill, Sister Clarke, Goody Ford. 4th seat. Goody Osborne, Goody Wheeler, Sister Nichols, Sister Browne." From the fact that in the foregoing schedule, no seat is assigned to Ezekiel Cheevers, and from some occasional mention of "the scholars' seats" in other parts of the records, it may be inferred that the pupils of the school were seated together, perhaps in the gallery, under the care of their instructor. Servants also, and young people generally, seem to have no place in the schedule.* The reader will notice that in this assignment of seats no mention is made of "Mrs. Eaton the Governor's wife;" which seems to agree with what Lechford says as cited on p. 48. Another assignment of seats was made in 1655; and then, as the committee come to "the women's seats," they begin thus, "The long seats. The first as it was," giving no name. Yet in the same document, that is afterwards spoken of as "Mrs. Eaton's seat." If there had been such a rule as Lechford describes, they seem to have begun to get around it as early as 1655. At the second seating, the house seems to have been more crowded than at the first; probably because many who in 1646 were servants, had in 1655 become householders, and under the equalizing influence of free institutions, were approaching the same level with their former masters. No. V. NOTICES OF SOME OF THE PLANTERS OF NEW HAVEN. STEPHEN GOODYEAR, who from the organization of the civil government of New Haven till his death, stood almost uniformly in the office of deputy governor, appears to have been one of the merchants who followed Mr. Davenport from London to this country, and whose commercial habits and tastes determined the location of the colony and the plan of the town. His wife was one of the company who were lost at sea in 1646. (Winthrop, II, 176.) He afterwards married Mrs. Lamberton, the widow of the master of that unfortunate bark. Among other specimens of his activity and public spirit, we find him in 1655 forward in proposing and getting up "the iron works" at East Haven, which he thought "would be a great advantage to the town." He died in London, in the year 1658. He was obviously considered by the colonists, as second only to Eaton in qualifications for the service of their commonwealth. Trum. I, 233. THOMAS GREGSON, (or GRIGSON,) was a man of less wealth than many of his associates in the colony; yet while he lived he was continually entrusted with important offices. He was always one of the "magistrates," who with the governor and deputy governor, were at once the superior branch of the legislature, and the supreme judiciary. He was sent with Gov. Eaton, in 1643, to meet commissioners from the other colonies, for the purpose of forming that New Eng-. land confederacy, in which, with its annual congress, the philosophic reader of history sees the first manifestation of the tendency which has resulted in our great federal government. In only one instance while he lived, was any other person associated with Eaton in the responsibility of representing New Haven colony in that congress. Of his activity as a member of the Church, some indication appears in the extracts from early Church records in No. III, of this Appendix. He was one of those lost at sea in 1646, he being then commissioned by the colony to apply to parliament for a charter. His only son afterwards settled in London. One of his daughters married the Rev. John Whiting of Hartford. Dodd, East Haven Register, 125. His name has had some accidental celebrity, by its being the theme of one of the stupendous falsehoods of Peters. See Kingsley's Discourse, 87-90. The two most remarkable military men of the New England colonies, Standish of Plymouth, and Mason of Connecticut, had acquired military skill and experience in the wars of the Netherlands. The same is true of Underhill, first of Boston, afterwards of Piscataqua, afterwards for a season of Stamford, in the New Haven jurisdiction, and afterwards a subject of the Dutch government in the New Netherlands, whose wife was a Dutch woman, and who was himself one of the most dramatic characters in our early history. The same may be presumed of "Captaine NATHANIEL TURNER," who at a General Court on the 1st of the 7th month, 1640, was formally "chosen" "to have the command of all martiall affairs of this plantation." Like Underhill, he had acquired his military title before coming to this country. He was made a freeman of Massachusetts in October, 1630. His name next appears in the first roll of representatives in Massachusetts, (A. D. 1634,) he having been deputed from Sagus, where he was one of the most considerable planters. Winthrop, I, 129. Next we find him (ibid. 192,) one of the captains in the expedition of 1636, from Massachusetts against the Pequots. In January, 1637, his house at Sagus was burnt down, "with all that was in it save the persons." (ibid. 213.) The editor of Winthrop (II, 276,) speaks of him, (I know not on what authority,) as having been in Stoughton's expedition in 1637; though the burning of his house in January might naturally have excused him from such a service in June. In 1638, he accompanied the adventurers who were to form the new colony at Quinnipiack. In this colony he was one of the most valued men. He not only had "the command of all martial affairs," but was continually entrusted with important civil offices. He was one of the committee of six appointed in 1639, to "have the disposing of all the house lots about this towne," and without whose "consent and allowance" none should come to dwell as planters. He was the agent of New Haven for the purchase of land on the Delaware Bay, and the beginning of a plantation there. In 1643, at the first complete organization of a legislature for the whole jurisdiction, he was one of the deputies from New Haven. He too was lost in the fatal ship. His wife afterwards married a Dutch merchant, Samuel Goodenhouse, (or Van Goodenhousen,) who was for many |