THE PURITANS AND THE LADY ARBELLA,

The Whole History of Grandfather's Chair

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

THE PURITANS AND THE LADY ARBELLA,, THE WHOLE HISTORY OF GRANDFATHER'S CHAIR by Nathaniel Hawthorne



BUT before relating the adventures of the chairs found it necessary to
speak of circumstances that caused the first settlement of New England.
For it will soon be perceived that the story of this remarkable chair
cannot be told without telling a great deal of the history of the
country.

So Grandfather talked about the Puritans, {Foot Note: It is more precise
to give the name of Pilgrims to those Englishmen who went to Holland and
afterward to Plymouth. They were sometimes called Separatists because
they separated themselves from the church of England, sometimes
Brownists after the name of one of their eminent ministers. The Puritans
formed a great political as well as religious party in England, and did
not at first separate themselves from the church of England, though
those who came to this country did so at once.} as those persons were
called who thought it sinful to practise certain religious forms and
ceremonies of the Church of England. These Puritans suffered so much
persecuted in England that, in 1607, many of them went over to Holland,
and lived ten or twelve years at Amsterdam and Leyden. But they feared
that, if they continued there much longer, they should cease to be
England, and should adopt all the manners, and ideas, and feelings of
the Dutch. For this and other reasons, in the year 1620 they embarked on
board the ship Mayflower, and crossed the ocean, to the shores of Cape
Cod. There they made a settlement, and called it Plymouth, which,
though now a part of Massachusetts, was for a long time a colony by
itself. And thus was formed the earliest settlement of the Puritans in
America.

Meantime, those of the Puritans who remained in England continued to
suffer grievous persecution on account of their religious opinions. They
began to look around them for some spot where they might worship God,
not as the king and bishops thought fit, but according to the dictates
of their own consciences. When their brethren had gone from Holland to
America, they bethought themselves that they likewise might find refuge
from persecution there. Several gentlemen among them purchased a tract
of country on the coast of Massachusetts Bay, and obtained a charter
from King Charles, which authorized them to make laws for the settlers.
In the year 1628 they sent over a few people, with John Endicott at
their bead, to commence a plantation at Salem. {Foot Note: The Puritans
had a liking for Biblical names for their children, and they sometimes
gave names out of the Bible to places, Salem means Peace. The Indian
name was Naumkeag.} Peter Palfrey, Roger Conant, and one or two more had
built houses there in 1626, and may be considered as the first settlers
of that ancient town. Many other Puritans prepared to follow Endicott.

"And now we come to the chair, my dear children,'' said Grandfather.
"This chair is supposed to have been made of an oak-tree which grew in
the park of the English Earl of Lincoln between two and three centuries
ago. In its younger days it used, probably, to stand in the hall of the
earl's castle. I)o not you see the coat of arms of the family of Lincoln
carved in the open work of the back? But when his daughter, the Lady
Arbella, was married to a certain Mr. Johnson, the earl gave her this
valuable chair."

"Who was Mr. Johnson?" inquired Clara.

"He was a gentleman of great wealth, who agreed with the Puritans in
their religious opinions," answered Grandfather. "And as his belief was
the same as theirs, he resolved that he would live and die with them.
Accordingly, in the month of April, 1630, he left his pleasant abode and
all his comforts in England, and embarked, with Lady Arbella, on board
of a ship bound for America."

As Grandfather was frequently impeded by the questions and observations
of his young auditors, we deem it advisable to omit all such prattle as
is no( essential to the story. We have taken some pains to find out
exactly what Grandfather said, and here offer to our readers, as nearly
as possible in his own words, the story of the Lady Arbella.

The ship in which Mr. Johnson and his lady embarked, taking
Grandfather's chair along with them, was called the Arbella, in honor of
the lady herself. A fleet of ten or twelve vessels, with many hundred
passengers, left England about the same time; for a multitude of people,
who were discontented with the king's government and oppressed by the
bishops, were flocking over to the New World. One of the vessels in the
fleet was that same Mayflower which had carried the Puritan Pilgrims to
Plymouth. And now, my children, I would have you fancy yourselves in the
cabin of the good ship Arbella; because, if you could behold the
passengers aboard that vessel, you would feel what a blessing and honor
it was for New England to have such settlers. They were the best men and
women of their day.

Among the passengers was John Winthrop, who had sold the estate of his
forefathers, and was going to prepare a new home for his wife and
children in the wilderness. He had the king's charter in his keeping,
and was appointed the first governor of Massachusetts. Imagine him a
person of grave and benevolent aspect, dressed in a black velvet suit,
with a broad ruff around his neck, and a peaked beard upon his chin.
{Foot Note: There is a statue representing John Winthrop in Scollay
Square in Boston. He holds the charter in his hand, and a Bible is under
his arm.} There was likewise a minister of the gospel whom the English
bishops had forbidden to preach, but who knew that he should have
liberty both to preach and pray in the forests of America. He wore a
black cloak, called a Geneva cloak, and had a black velvet cap, fitting
close to his head, as was the fashion of almost all the Puritan
clergymen. In their company came Sir Richard Saltonstall, who had been
one of the five first projectors of the new colony. He soon returned to
his native country. But his descendants still remain in New England; and
the good old family name is as much respected in our days as it was in
those of Sir Richard.

Not only these, but several other men of wealth and pious ministers were
in the cabin of the Arbella. One had banished himself forever from the
old hall where his ancestors had lived for hundreds of years. Another
had left his quiet parsonage, in a country town of England. Others had
come from the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge, where they had gained
great fame for their learning. And here they all were, tossing upon the
uncertain and dangerous sea, and bound for a home that was more
dangerous than even the sea itself. In the cabin, likewise, sat the Lady
Arbella in her chair, with a gentle and sweet expression on her face,
but looking too pale and feeble to endure the hardships of the
wilderness.

Every morning and evening the Lady Arbella gave up her great chair to
one of the ministers, who took his place in it and read passages from
the Bible to his companions. And thus, with prayers, and pious
conversation, and frequent singing of hymns, which the breezes caught
from their lips and scattered far over the desolate waves, they
prosecuted their voyage, and sailed into the harbor of Salem in the
month of June.

At that period there were but six or eight dwellings in the town; and
these were miserable hovels, with roofs of straw and wooden chimneys.
The passengers in the fleet either built huts with bark and branches of
trees, or erected tents of cloth till they could provide themselves with
better shelter. Many of them went to form a settlement at Charlestown.
It was thought fit that the Lady Arbella should tarry in Salem for a
time; she was probably received as a guest into the family of John
Endicott. He was the chief person in the plantation, and had the only
comfortable house which the new-comers had beheld since they left
England. So now, children, you must imagine Grandfather's chair in the
midst of a new scene.

Suppose it a hot summer's day, and the lattice-windows of a chamber in
Mr. Endicott's house thrown wide open. The Lady Arbella, looking paler
than she did on shipboard, is sitting in her chair, and thinking
mournfully of far-off England. She rises and goes to the window. There,
amid patches Of garden ground and cornfield, she sees the few wretched
hovels of the settlers, with the still ruder wigwams and cloth tents of
the passengers who had arrived in the same fleet with herself. Far and
near stretches the dismal forest of pine-trees, which throw their black
shadows over the whole land, and likewise over the heart of this poor
lady.

All the inhabitants of the little village are busy. One is clearing a
spot on the verge of the forest for his homestead; another is hewing the
trunk of a fallen pine-tree, in order to build himself a dwelling; a
third is hoeing in his field of Indian corn. Here comes a huntsman out
of the woods, dragging a bear which he has shot, and shouting to the
neighbors to lend him a hand. There goes a man to the sea-shore, with a
spade and a bucket, to dig a mess of clams, which were a principal
article of food with the first settlers. Scattered here and there are
two or three dusky figures, clad in mantles of fur, with ornaments of
bone hanging from their ears, and the feathers of wild birds in their
coal-black hair. They have belts of shellwork slung across their
shoulders, and are armed with bows and arrows, and flint-headed spears.
These are an Indian sagamore and his attendants, who have come to gaze
at the labors of the white men. And now rises a cry that a pack of
wolves have seized a young calf in the pasture; and every man snatches
up his gun or pike and runs in chase of the marauding beasts.

Poor Lady Arbella watches all these sights, and feels that this New
World is fit only for rough and hardy people. None should be here but
those who can struggle with wild beasts and wild men, and can toil in
the heat or cold, and can keep their hearts firm against all
difficulties and dangers. But she is not of these. Her gentle and timid
spirit sinks within her; and, turning away from the window, she sits
down in the great chair and wonders whereabouts in the wilderness her
friends will dig her grave.

Mr. Johnson had gone, with Governor Winthrop and most of the other
passengers, to Boston, where he intended to build a house for Lady
Arbella and himself. Boston was then covered with wild woods, and had
fewer inhabitants, even, than Salem. During her husband's absence, poor
Lady Arbella felt herself growing ill, and was hardly able to stir from
the great chair. Whenever John Endicott noticed her despondency he
doubtless addressed her with words of comfort. "Cheer up, my good lady!"
he would say.

"In a little time you will love this rude life of the wilderness as I
do." But Endicott's heart was as bold and resolute as iron, and he could
not understand why a woman's heart should not be of iron too.

Still, however, he spoke kindly to the lady, and then hastened forth to
till his cornfield and set out fruit-trees, or to bargain with the
Indians for furs, or perchance to oversee the building of a fort. Also,
being a magistrate, he had often to punish some idler or evil doer, by
ordering him to be set in the stocks or scourged at the whipping-post.
Often, too, as was the custom of the times, he and Mr. Higginson, the
minister of Salem, held long religious talks together. Thus John
Endicott was a man of multifarious business, and had no time to look
back regretfully to his native land. He felt himself fit for the New
World and for the work that he had to do, and set himself resolutely to
accomplish it.

What a contrast, my dear children, between this bold, rough, active man,
and the gentle Lady Arbella, who was fading away, like a pale English
flower, in the shadow of the forest! And now the great chair was often
empty, because Lady Arbella grew too weak to arise from bed.

Meantime, her husband had pitched upon a spot for their new home. He
returned from Boston to Salem, travelling through the woods on foot, and
leaning on his pilgrim's staff. His heart yearned within him; for he was
eager to tell his wife of the new home which he had chosen. But when he
beheld her pale and hollow cheek, and found how her strength was wasted,
he must have known that her appointed home was in a better land. Happy
for him then--happy both for him and her--if they remembered that there
was a path to heaven, as well from this heathen wilderness as from the
Christian land whence they had come. And so, in one short month from her
arrival, the gentle Lady Arbella faded away and died. They dug a grave
for her in the new soil, where the roots of the pine-trees impeded their
spades; and when her bones had rested there nearly two hundred years,
and a city had sprung up around them, a church of stone was built upon
the spot.

Charley, almost at the commencement of the foregoing narrative, had
galloped away, with a prodigious clatter, upon Grandfather's stick, and
was not yet returned. So large a boy should have been ashamed to ride
upon a stick. But Laurence and Clara had listened attentively, and were
affected by this true story of the gentle lady who had come so far to
die so soon. Grandfather had supposed that little Alice was asleep; but
towards the close of the story, happening to look down upon her, he saw
that her blue eyes were wide open, and fixed earnestly upon his face.
The tears had gathered in them, like dew upon a delicate flower; but
when Grandfather ceased to speak, the sunshine of her smile broke forth
again.

"Oh, the lady must have been so glad to get to heaven!" exclaimed little
Alice. "Grandfather, what became of Mr. Johnson?" asked Clara.

"His heart appears to have been quite broken," answered Grandfather;
"for he died at Boston within a month after the death of his wife. He
was buried in the very same tract of ground where he had intended to
build a dwelling for Lady Arbella and himself. Where their house would
have stood, there was his grave."

"I never heard anything so melancholy," said Clara.

"The people loved and respected Mr. Johnson so much," continued
Grandfather, "that it was the last request of many of them, when they
died, that they might be buried as near as possible to this good man's
grave. And so the field became the first burial ground in Boston. When
you pass through Tremont Street, along by King's Chapel, you see a
burial-ground, containing many old grave-stones and monuments. That was
Mr. Johnson's field."

"How sad is the thought," observed Clara, "that one of the first things
which the settlers had to do, when they came to the New World, was to
set apart a burial-ground!"

"Perhaps," said Laurence, "if they had found no need of burial-grounds
here, they would have been glad, after a few years, to go back to
England."

Grandfather looked at Laurence, to discover whether he knew how profound
and true a thing he had said.