The arrival of Governor Winthrop, with the Massachusetts Company and the Charter of the Colony, has somtimes been assumed by chronologists and historians as the date of the permanent colonization of Massachusetts. And it would certainly be difficult to over-estimate the influence of that event, not only in promoting and multiplying settlements where they had never before been attempted, but in giving security and permanence to those which already existed. No one can be ignorant, however, that local plantations had been previously commenced at various points which are now included within the limits of Massachusetts; and though some of them had already died out, and others were in a weak and precarious condition, more than one of them has happily vindicated its claim to be regarded as having been permanent, by surviving to this day.

First of all, there was the ever-honored Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth in 1620, which is estimated to have contained about three hundred inhabitants, of all ages and sexes, when Winthrop arrived. This was a Colony by itself, under rulers of is own, and continued such until it was united with the Massachusetts Colony in the year 1692.

Next there was the Wessagusset or Weymouth settlement, by Weston's Company, in 1622; but this never numbered more thanfifty or sixty persons, and was broken up in the following year. The same site was soon afterwards occupied by a second company, under the lead of Robert Gorges, a son of Sir Ferdinando Gorges; but it had been again abandoned long before the arrival of Winthrop.

Then there was the Nantasket attempt, by Conant, Lyford, and Oldham, in the year 1623 or 1624; which was abandoned, in 1625, for a fishing settlement at Cape Ann, over which Roger Conant presided, under a charter, as has recently been alleged, from Lord Sheffield.

Still again, there was the "Merry Mount" settlement, in 1625, under Morton and Wollaston; which consisted only of about thirty persons at the outset, and which was thoroughly disgraced, if not wholly dispersed, in 1630.

And lastly, and more important than all save that at Plymouth, there was the plantation at Naumkeag, now Salem, commenced originally by Roger Conant and others in 1626, and renewed and re-enforced by Endicott and those who came with him in 1628, and by Higginson and his associates in 1629.

There were also, or had been, scattering settlements elsewhere: among others, that of William Blackstone at Shawmut, now Boston; that of Thomas Walford at Mishawum, now Charlestown; and that of Samuel Maverick on Noddle's Island. There is some discrepancy between the accounts which have come down to us of the number of persons by whom Endicott was accompanied. White, in his "Planter's Plea," published in 1630, says as follows:-

"Master Endicott was sent over Governor, assisted with a few men; and arriving in safety there in September, 1628, and uniting his own men with those which were formerly planted in the country into one body, they made up in all not much above fifty or sixty persons."

But Higginson, in his "New England's Plantation," estimated the number of persons in the Colony previous to his own arrival at about one hundred. He brought two hundred persons with him; and was thus able to say, in September, 1629, "There are in all of us, both old and new planters, about three hundred, whereof two hundred of them are settled at Nehum-kek, now called Salem, and the rest have planted themselves at Masathusets Bay, beginning to build a town there, which we do call Cherton or Charlestown."

The entire population of the plantation may thus, perhaps, be estimated at not very far from three hundred persons, when Governor Winthrop and the Massachusetts Company came over; though, as will presently be seen, the intervening winter had made somewhat serious inroads upon their number.

Roger Conant had presided over the Salem Plantation until 1628, and had been succeeded by Endicott on his arrival. Endicott was sent over, at first, under the patent obtained from the Plymouth Council, March 19, 1628. In the following year, after the Royal Charter had been obtained (March 4, 1629), a commission was made out for him as "Governor of London's Plantation in the Mattachusetts Bay in New England." In the exercise of this commission, he was subordinate to "the Governor and Company of the Mattahcusetts Bay in New England," by whom he was deputed, and who, from time to time, sent him elaborate instructions for the regulation of his conduct. The Instructions of the Governor and Company to Endicott, dated 17th of April, 1629, and 28th of May, 1629, are among the most interesting and valuable of our early colonial papers, and show clearly the relation which existed between the plantation at Naumkeag and the Governor and Company in London.

On the arrival of Governor Winthrop, all this double machinery was abolished. The chief government, as we have seen, was transferred; and the local government was, of course, absorbed in it. Winthrop came over at once as Governor of the Company, and to exercise a direct and personal magistracy over the Colony. Nor was the change a mere nominal or formal change. He brought with him a Company to be governed. Not less that a thousand persons were added to the Colony about the period of his arrival. Seven or eight hundred persons came with him, or speedily followed, as a part of his immediate expedition. Two or three hundred more arrived almost simultaneously, though in ships not included in the Company's fleet. A second thousand of inhabitants was soon afterwards added, under the same influence and example.

Winthrop was, in a word, the chosen leader of "the great Suffolk emigration", as it has been called, whereby that which had been hitherto regarded as a precarious plantation was at once transformed into a permanent and prosperous Commonwealth. He came, with his companions, "to continue and inhabite", agreeably to the compact which had been signed at Cambridge (Eng); and henceforth, instead of two or three hundred pioneer planters, thinly scattered around the Bay, looking to a Governor and Company across the wide and wintry ocean for their authority and instructions, two or three thousand inhabitants are to be seen, with a Governor and Legislature upon their own soil, and of their own selection; erecting houses, building ships, laying out villages and towns; establishing churches, schools, and even a college; and laying broad and deep the foundations of an independent Republic.

Such was the result of that transfer of the chief government, which Matthew Cradock, the first Governor of the Massachusetts Company in Old England, moved on the twenty-eighth day of July, 1629, and which John Winthrop, the first Governor of the Company in New England, was the honored instrument in carrying out to its completion on the twelfth (twenty-second) day of June, 1630. On that day the transfer was consummated, and the consequences soon began to develop themselves.

Governor Winthrop, however, commenced his administration in New England under no very hopeful circumstances, "We found the Colony" (says Dudley in his letter to the Countess of Lincoln) "in a sad and unexpected condition, above eighty of then being dead the winter before, and many of them alive weak and sick; all the corn and bread amongst them all hardly sufficient to feed them a fortnight, insomuch that the remainder of a hundred and eighty servants we had the two years before sent over, coming to us for victuals to sustain them, we found ourselves wholly unable to feed them, by reason that the provisions shipped for them were taken out of the ship they were put in; and they who were trusted to ship them in another failed us, and left them behind: whereupon necessity enforced us, to our extreme loss, to give them all liberty, who had cost us about £s;16 or £s;20 a person, furnishing and sending over."

It would thus appear, that no less than one hundred and eighty of the residents under Endicott were the bond-servants of the planters that were to follow, and that one of the first acts of Winthrop's administration was to emancipate all of them who were living; not, indeed, from any consideration of abstract philanthropy, but from absolute inability to provide for their sustanence. The whole Colony was evidently in a weak and almost starving condition when the Arbella (flag ship of the Winthrop Fleet) arrived. It is not surprising, therefore, that Dudley speaks of the "too large commendation of the country, and the commodities thereof;" and adds, "Salem, where we landed, pleased us not."

The famous Captain John Smith, "sometimes Governour of Virginia, and Admirall of New England" (as he styles himself, in his "Advertisements for the unexperienced Planters of New England, or any where; Or, the Pathway to experience to erect a Plantation," published in London in 1631), gives a fearful account of the condition of things in New England when the Massachusetts Company arrived. "It is true" (says he) "that Master John Wynthrop, their new Governour, a worthy gentleman both in estate and esteeme, went so well provided (for six or seven hundred people went with him) as could be devised; but at Sea, such an extraordinarie Storme encountered his Fleet, continuing ten daies, that of two hundred Cattell which were so tossed and brused, three-score and ten died, many of their people fell sicke; and in this perplexed estate, after ten weekes, they arrived in New England at severall times, where they found three score of their people dead, the rest sicke, nothing done, but all complaining, and all things so contrary to their expectation, that now every monstrous humor began to shew itselfe." After describing some of these "mostrous humors" Smith continues: "Notwithstanding all this, the noble Governour was no way disanimated, neither repents him of his enterprise for all those mistakes, but did order all things with that temperance and discretion, and so releeved those that wanted with his owne provision, that there is six or seven hundred remained with him and more than 1600 English in all the Country, with three or foure hundred head of Cattell."

An original "Narrative concerning the Settlement of New England," on the files of Her Majesty's Public Record Office, in London, throws additional light on this early period of the Colony. Under date of 1629, it says as follows:- "This yeare there went hence 6 shippes with 1000 people in them to the Massachusetts, having sent two yeares before betweene 3 & 400 servants to provide howses and Corne against their coming, to the charge of (at least) £s;10.000: these Servants through Idleness & ill Government neglected both theire buildinge & plantinge of Corne, soe that if those 6 shippes had not arived the plantation had ben broke & dissolved. Now so soone as Mr. Winthrop was landed, perceiving what misery was like to ensewe through theire Idlenes, he presently fell to worke with his owne hands, & thereby soe encouradged the rest that there was not an Idle person then to be found in the whole Plantation, & whereas the Indians said they would shortly returne as fast as they came, now they admired to see in what short time they had all housed themselves and planted Corne sufficient for theire subsistence."

Still another contemporanious account of the Colony and of its Governor is found in the following passage from a letter of Thomas Wiggin to "Sir John Cooke, knt. principall Secretary to his Ma'tie and one of his highnes. most honl'ble privie councell," dated Nov. 19, 1632:- "For the plantation in the Mattachusetts, the English there being about 2000 people, yonge & old, are generally most industrious and fitt for such a worke, having in three yeares done more in buyldinge and plantinge then others have done in seaven tymes that space, and with at least ten tymes lesse expence."

"Besides I have observed the planters there, and by theire loving just and kind dealinge with the Indians, have gotten theire love and respect, and drawne them to an outward conforming to the English, soe that the Indians repaire to the English Governor there and his deputies for justice, and for the Governor himselfe, I haue observed him to be a discreete and sober man, givinge good example to all the planters, wearinge plaine apparrell, such as may well beseeme a meane man, drinking ordinarliy water, and when he is not conversant about matters of justice, putting his hand to any ordinarye labour with his servants, ruling with much mildness, and in this particular I observed him to be strict in execution of Justice upon such as have scandalized this state, either in civill or eccleseasticall government, to the great contentmt of those that are best affected, and to the terror of offenders." No worthier testimony to Winthrop's character and services could be furnished than that supplied by these representations of him. Waiving all considerations of official dignity, and working with his own hands, he gave an example, more forcible than any exhortations to others could have been, of that industry, humility, self-denial, and devotion, by which alone the infant Colony was to be rescued from ruin, and reared up into a prosperous and noble Commonwealth.

It was, doubtless, in view of such accounts of the Governor's "self-denying and self-neglecting carriage," that John Humfrey wrote to him so earnestly from London, imploring him not to be prodigal of his life and health; telling him, that, while some needed the spur, he needed therein; and bidding him take heed lest his "bodie, not accustomed to hardnes of unususal kindes, & not necessitated unles by a voluntarie & contracted necessitie, should sinke under his burthen, & fall to ruine for want of a more conscionable tenaunt."

I found this very interesting and it explains a lot about early the early settlement of Massachusetts, and well worth sharing.