The Handy Boston Answer Book. Samuel Willard Crompton

the earliest and among the most savage of all wars between the Indians and white settlers. In 1636 relations between the Pequot tribe and the settlers of southern Connecticut worsened, and in 1637 the conflict turned into a full-fledged war. The tiny colony of Connecticut carried out most of the actions, but Bostonians were among the officers that led the colonial soldiers.

The climactic end to the war came in present-day Mystic, Connecticut, where an Indian fort was surrounded and set aflame. The Puritans killed nearly seven hundred Indians that day. Few of the Bostonians, or Connecticut men, expressed any sadness or regret: to them, the Pequot were a savage people that hindered the growth and development of Puritan New England. Historians note today with some irony that the Pequot finally obtained a measure of revenge when their casino was established in Ledyard, Connecticut.

      The Pequot War pitted indigenous people against white settlers from 1637 to 1638. The Narragansett and Mohegan tribes allied themselves with the settlers to defeat the Pequot.

      What was King Philip’s War? Was Philip an Englishman or a Native American?

      The grandson of Chief Massasoit, who welcomed the Pilgrims in 1620, King Philip was as Native American as they come. His English name was given him by the Pilgrims and Puritans, who employed it in disdain. They did not realize that Philip had already decided they were his mortal enemies, or that he would fight them to the death.

      In June 1675 Philip led the warriors of several southern New England tribes against the Pilgrims and the Puritans. For almost fourteen months, he and his men terrorized the Massachusetts Bay Colony, taking and destroying more than a dozen towns. Boston was not attacked, partly because its inhabitants fortified The Neck, the sandy, windswept isthmus connecting the peninsula to the mainland.

      What happened to King Philip?

      Realizing he could conquer neither Boston nor Plymouth, Philip headed west, and conducted a very successful hit-and-run campaign in the Connecticut River valley. The town of Northfield was wiped out, and the towns of Deerfield, Northampton, and Hadley were endangered. But the Bostonians had drawn a bead on King Philip, and their revenge came in the late winter of 1676. Three hundred troopers from Boston traveled west to attack the Indians in present-day Turners Falls, named for Captain Jonathan Turner. The Indians were nearly wiped out.

      Where was “The Neck” in relation to the modern city of Boston?

      If one stands right where the Leonard P. Zakim Bridge connects Boston with Charlestown and then walks south for three-quarters of a mile, he or she will stumble right upon where The Neck once was. It was in the South End, very close to the public gardens tended by many of the locals today. Bicyclists now fly along the broad streets that exist where The Neck once connected Boston to the mainland.

      Philip escaped this disaster and continued his raids for a few months, but he was eventually run to earth in Rhode Island. After Philip was killed, his head was severed from his body and placed atop the stockade of Plymouth as a warning to other Indians.

      Was there any way the Indians and Puritans could live together in peace?

      Almost none. The English mindset, especially where real estate and private property were concerned, was too different from the more permissive Native American one. As a result, Puritans and Native Americans were almost fated to misunderstand and mistrust each other. One of the few exceptions to the general rule was Reverend John Eliot, who translated the Bible into Algonquian, and who established several villages of “Praying Indians” in the western suburbs of what is now the modern city of Boston.

      Did Boston’s economic and commercial growth continue to expand?

      Until about the year 1670, Boston and Massachusetts expanded with great vigor. Boston fell into an economic recession by 1675, however, and this lasted for nearly a decade. Fewer ships called at the Puritan town, and it was more difficult for the shipmasters, as well as the sailors and rope makers, to earn a living. Of course there were some exceptions to the general rule, and it is in the 1670s and 1680s that we make our first acquaintance with that man-about-town, Samuel Sewall.

      I know the name Samuel Sewall and believe there is some connection with the Salem witch trials. Was he a Bostonian?

Born in England, Samuel Sewall (1652–1730) crossed the ocean with his family at the age of ten, and he never looked back. Not only did he inherit land and houses from his parents, but he married Hannah Hull, daughter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony mint-master. The legend that Sewall received his wife’s weight in gold as her dowry can be laid to rest, but there is no doubt he benefitted from the marriage, emotionally, materially, and otherwise. What makes Sam Sewall so special, from our point of view, is that he left an extensive diary that chronicles both the public life of the colony and his personal inner life, including accounts of many of his dreams.

      Samuel Sewall was a popular judge who presided over the witch trials in Salem, a role for which he later apologized.

      For example, on January 1, 1686, Sewall recorded a dream in which he witnessed Jesus Christ in the time of his ministry come to live at Boston and choose to dwell at the house of John Hull, Sewall’s father-in-law. Sewall’s powerful religiosity comes through in this account, and in many other parts of the diary, but he also emerges as a very human and likeable person, not at all the strict definition of the Puritan as we often imagine. The reader comes to empathize with Sewall on many levels, not least because he lost nearly three-quarters of his numerous children to disease. As a result of his prominent position as a Boston merchant, Sewall served as a judge during the Salem Witch Trials. A few years later, he issued a statement of remorse, apologizing for his involvement in the trials, the only judge to do so.

      What insight does Sam Sewall provide regarding Harvard College?

      Founded in 1636, Harvard College started out small, but it had big goals from the very beginning. There were lean years, as when only four scholars graduated in 1673, but there were also more successful ones, such as 1690, when nearly twenty-five obtained their degrees. Though he lived in Boston, Sewall attended almost every Harvard College commencement, and from his diary we know the weather conditions, especially because he took a barge from downtown Boston to Cambridge. Beyond the weather, though, we learn that the Latin disputations were the highlight of the ceremonies, and that plenty of beer was consumed in the late afternoon (Sewall was no teetotaler).

      Where are some early Puritan cemeteries?

      There are at least four major grave sites, but the most prominent is Copp’s Hill Cemetery in the extreme northern part of the Old North End. Located three hundred yards north of the Old North Church and Paul Revere Square, Copp’s Hill has the tomb of the Mather family.

What was the state of Harvard College toward the end of the seventeenth century?

      Harvard was already the place to study and, in terms of higher education, it had no rival until the College of William and Mary was established in 1693. The records of the graduating classes suggest that Boston and Cambridge already had a well-established hierarchy with the names of certain families dominating both the college and the local towns. In 1699, for example, there was a Dummer, a Belcher, a Bulkley, and a Quincy (they were numbers one through four, at the top of the social standings).

LOSS OF THE CHARTER

      How important was the charter of 1629 issued by King Charles I?

      To Bostonians, and their country cousins, the charter of 1629 was the single most important document of the time, perhaps even the century. Signed by King Charles I, the charter was granted to the “governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay,” an expression that outlived the document itself. Because King Charles did not anticipate the rapid growth of Boston or Massachusetts, he granted a rather liberal charter, which practically allowed for self-government, just so long as the laws of the Great and General