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| In the center of Charlestown, between Main St and Harvard St, is the stone plaque for 11 ships of the "Winthrop Fleet" which was first to arrive in the Boston area. They briefly stopped in Salem, then explored what is now Charlestown as a prospective new site. They laid out the village of Charlestown before deciding Shawmut (Boston) was better due to the greater supply of fresh water. (One of the ships mentioned is a "Mayflower" but this was not the ship that earlier had sailed to Plymouth.) The flagship of the fleet was the Arbella. The precise number of people on the fleet is uncertain but less than 1,000 probably. The project was well organized and financed, not like the Plymouth Colony project. For example, the Arbella arrived at the start of summer, the Plymouth colonists arrived at the start of winter. This fleet was the beginning of the Great Migration from 1630-1642, when the Puritans' battles with King Charles I led to England's Civil War (1642-1649). On the Arbella was 1st Massachusetts Governor, John Winthrop, Sr.; later 1st Connecticut Governor, John Winthrop, Jr.; Sir Richard Saltonstall, a founder of Watertown; Thomas Dudley, who alternated terms of Governorship with Winthrop, Sr.; Captain John Underhill, militia leader; Rev. Stephen Bachiler, later founder of Hampton NH; Anne Bradstreet, who became a famous poet; Thomas Mayhew, who gained ownership of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket and first settled the Vineyard with Whites starting in Edgartown; and many others. Underhill is the 9th great-grandfather of Steven and me. Bachiler is the 10th great-grandfather of Steven and me. They built a windmill, practical, in the commercial center of Charlestown on top of this hill. But first they built a church (Meetinghouse). When they decided to move to Shawmut, they brought the church with them and re-established it on what is presently Devonshire St opposite Boston Massacre cobblestones, next the Old State House. This was "First Church". It moved several times but still exists, presently at Marlborough & Berkeley Sts. Before leaving Charlestown, they laid the town out in this memorial of the hill between present day Main St and Harvard St. This is a close-up of Charlestown's initial lay-out. The top of the hill is present day "Harvard Mall". At the bottom clearly seen is "Main St.", the same Main St. which runs amidst Charlestown today. "Crooked Lane", at the top, was later re-named Harvard St. (see below). On the lower left it states "Market Place", where City Square Park lies today. In the center (horizontally) is marked "The High Street" which is present day "Henley St.". Most of the other lanes on the map have been subsumed by buildings or parks. This is a memorial to John Harvard. • How many students, so blessed to attend Harvard University, do you suppose view this memorial? • I would guess, few or none. Not much is known about John Harvard, except he was a Minister, immensely wealthy, and left half his estate and all his books (the largest English language library in North America) to the school when he died in 1638. All but one of his books were burned in 1764 when Harvard Hall burned down. The State Legislature had been meeting in Harvard Hall to escape smallpox in Boston, so the State paid to re-construct Harvard Hall (today's building). The school was re-named in John Harvard's honor. The previous name of the school had been "New College". Also, the town where New College stood, which had been called "Newtowne", was re-named: "Cambridge". If this had not happened, the brilliant students in the sublime school today would have become graduates of: New College Newtowne, Massachusetts Instead of "Harvard Yard", they would be smoking marijuana in "New Yard". Newtowne was re-named "Cambridge" because England's Cambridge University was where educated Puritan leaders had graduated. [Oxford tended to be pro-King Charles I. In 1649 a Puritan army decapitated King Charles I illegally.] This plaque is a quotation from the Prophet Micah, chapter 6, with which Governor John Winthrop began a speech to the members of his project in Southampton, England before they set forth. The paragraph, from which the quotation, was taken follows unabridged: • "Now the only way to avoid shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as His own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways, so that we shall see much more of His wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, “may the Lord make it like that of New England.” For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. " |
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