"They Die in Youth And Their Life is Among the Unclean"The Life and Death of Elizabeth EmersonBy Peg Goggin KearneyMay 6, 1994University of Southern Maine--------------------------------------------------------------------------------On June 8, 1693 The Reverend Cotton Mather delivered a sermonbefore a large crowd in Boston. Mather exhorted the crowd,delivering what he unabashedly referred to as one of hisgreatest sermons ever. 1 In the crowd sat Elizabeth Emerson,singlewoman of Haverhill. Whether she sat penintently lookingdownwards or definantly staring into Mather's eyes we can onlyimagine. That the sermon was delivered for her benefit isundoubted. The lecture was based upon Job 36:14, "They die inyouth and their life is among the unclean." 2 The life of Elizabeth Emerson would have been whollyunremarkable were it not for three related events: The first wasa severe beating she suffered at the hands of her father whenshe was a child; the second, the birth of her illegitimatedaughter Dorothy; and the third event, the reason for herpresence in the meeting hall that June day three hundred yearsago, her death by hanging for the crime of infanticide. 3Elizabeth had been born in the town of Haverhill in what wasthen the Massachusetts Bay Colony on January 26, 1664/65. Shewas the sixth of fifteen children of Michael and Hannah WebsterEmerson, and one of only nine to survive infancy. Of hersiblings who did not survive infancy only one died before shewas born, the remainder were born and died during her lifetime.4The tragedy of frequent death in the Emerson household may havepredisposed Elizabeth to the crime for which she ultimatelyhanged. Death of children was assuredly a part of life in earlyNew England, and attitudes toward infants would strike manytwentieth century readers as callous. But a certain distancingor lack of affection may well have allowed women, such asElizabeth's mother, to bear the burden of the frequent death oftheir offspring.5 In fact, colonists frequently referred totheir infants and toddlers as "it" rather than he or she.Michael and Hannah Emerson were among the early settlers ofHaverhill, though not founding members of the town. He wasvariously employed as a contable, a Grand Juryman, a cordwainer,a sealer of leather, and a tax collector.6 Despite theimpressive sound of this list, they were positions which thoseof greater estate would endeavor to avoid. Michael Emerson'slife, too, would have been wholly unremarkable were it not forthe fame of one daughter and the infamy of another.In 1666, when Elizabeth was but a year old, Michael Emersonchose to move his family closer to town. He decided to settle onMill Street which was then in the heart of Haverhill. One of hisnew neighbors, a Mr. White, evidently disliked either Michael,his family, or perhaps both. It was decided by the town that ifthe Emersons would "go back to the woods," they would grant himan additional tract of land. Michael seeminly obliged the townand moved two miles from the center, which at the time wouldindeed have been in "the woods."7 This incident seems innocuousenough and is certainly a unique and expedient way of resolvinga neighborly difficulty in an area rich in land. One wonders,though, what it was about the family that so angered Mr. White.Undoubtedly, removal that far from town was not onlyinconvenient but dangerous. The reason for the removal,unfortunately, is not described by the record, but it certainlymust have been compelling.Michael's first child, Hannah Emerson Dustin, was born onDecember 23, 1657. She was destined to become famous in theannals of New England history as the only female Indian captiveever to have slain her captors and escaped, not only with herscalp but with theirs as well.8 Hannah slew her captors with thehelp of Mary Neff, another captive, and a young boy, SamuelLennardson. Upon her escape from her captors she realized shehad forgotten to take trophies of her exploit. She returned tothe scene and took scalps from the ten dead Indians; sixchildren, two women and two men. She and her little partymanaged to find their way down the Merrimac River, from nearpresent day Concord, New Hampshire, to their home in Haverhill.She became a heroine to white New Englanders frustrated with thelong Indian wars.9Violence was inescabable in the lives of early New Englanders.Certain types of violence were unacceptable to communitystandards, whereas other types were not only accepted but alsocondoned. Among the types of condoned violence were not onlyviolence toward Indians, but also corporal punishment ofchildren, servants and in some cases wives.10 Children wereoften singled out as victims of violence. The poetess AnneBradstreet once wrote "some children (like sowre land) are of sotough and morose a dispo[si]tion, that the plough of correctionmust make long furrows upon their back."11 Surely if so gentle apersonage as Anne Bradstreet advocated corporal punishment inthe raising of children, then it must have been both widespreadand condoned. This very approval on a community-wide basisserves as a counterpoint to the case that was brought before theQuarterly Court of Essex County Massachusetts in May of 1676.Michael Emerson was brought to court that May day "for cruel andexcessive beating of his daughter with a flail swingle and forkicking her, was fined and bound to good behavior."12 Thedaughter in question was Elizabeth.13 In November of the sameyear the back due portion of his fine was abated because ofEmerson's status as a grand juryman, and he was freed from hisbond for good behavior.14 Corporal punishment in and of itselfwas not considered a crime, but the excessive beating of a childdid deserve punishment. Although Michael's status as a grandjuryman did help to get his fine abated and perhaps influencedhis release from the bond for good behavior, it did not preventhis fellow grand jurymen from censuring him for the cruelty ofhis act. What Elizabeth did to deserve such a beating isunknown. Also, whether this beating was an isolated incident ora pattern of violence in the family can only be guessed, but acourt case involving another family member may shed furtherlight.The case involved Elizabeth's younger brother Samuel who wasapprenticed to a John Simmons. Simmons was brought to court byanother of his servants, Thomas Bettis, in March of 1681. Bettisclaimed in his deposition that his "master haith this maniyeares beaten me upon small and frivelouse ocasion." Bettisclaimed that Simmons had "brocke my hed twice, strucke me on thehed with a great stick...tied me to a beds foott [and] a tablefoott" and a long list of other injuries and insults suffered athis master's hand. He begged the court to be allowed to leavehis master. A number of community members deposed that Bettishad, indeed, been beaten excessively and had not been clothedproperly. But Samuel Emerson took his masters side in the suitsaying, "that he had lived with his master Simmons about fouryears and Bettis was very rude in the family whenever the masterwas away, etc."15 Perhaps Samuel's deposition was a form of self defence. Afterall, he still had to live with Simmons after the suit was over.But maybe Samuel really did think that Bettis deserved thebeatings and that they were not excessive given the situation.If the latter is true, it could indicate that this type ofviolence was by no means foreign to Samuel Emerson's upbringing.In any event, Bettis was told to return to his master's house,and there the record ends.On April 10, 1686 Elizabeth Emerson gave birth to her firstchild, an illegitimate daugher named Dorothy. There is somecontroversy surrounding the father of her first child. CharlesHenry Pope in his book The Haverhill Emersons statedunequivocally that the father of little Dorothy was Samuel Laddof Haverhill. This is the same Samuel Ladd who would later benamed as the father of the dead twins. Pope, in what can only beviewed as a noble attempt to salvage the reputation of hisancestress, writes that "whatever else Elizabeth might havebeen, she was certainly not promiscuous."16 But the Records AndFiles Of The Ipswitch Quarterly Court reflect something quitedifferent. Michael Emerson accused a neighbor, Timothy Swan, of being thefather of Elizabeth's daughter Dorothy.17 Timothy Swan's father,Robert Swan, Sr., vehemently denied the charge. Robert Swan wenton record as saying that it was unlikely that Timothy was thefather as he "...had charged him not to go into that wickedhouse and his son had obeyed and furthermore his son could notabide the jade."18The phrase "that wicked house" rings down through the centuries.Why was Michael Emerson's house referred to as "wicked" and whywas Timothy forbidden to enter the house? Not that Timothy Swanwould have necessarily have had to enter the house in order tobe the father of Dorothy. It is possible and even likely thatElizabeth contrived to get pregnant elsewhere. But why thephrase "wicked house"? Presumably Robert Swan and Michael Emerson were well acquaintedwith one another. Robert Swan had even sold Michael and hisbrother Robert Emerson "twenty or thirty acres of land."19 Theyhad also voted on the same side in a dispute about moving themeeting house to a different location. The breakdown of themeeting house case is rather interesting as NathanielSaltonstall, a very wealthy and respected member of theHaverhill community as well as a member of the Court of Assists,and Robert Emerson, brother to Michael but much wealthier and amember of the church in question,20 both came down on theopposite side of the argument, favoring building the newmeetinghouse on the site of the old one.21 This would indicatethat the proposed location of the new meetinghouse was moreconvenient to both Michael Emerson's and ?Robert Swan'shouseholds, i.e. they must have been "neighbors." Neighbors or otherwise, Robert Swan threatened to "carry thecase to Boston" if his son Timothy was formally accused of beingDorothy Emerson's father.22 Nothing ever came of the chargesagainst Timothy and little Dorothy came into the worldfatherless.Elizabeth was 23 years old at the time of Dorothy's birth. Shestill resided at her father's house. Three years previous toDorothy's birth Elizabeth had witnessed her sister Mary'ssuccessful marriage to Hugh Matthews of Newbury on August 28,1683. Hugh and Mary were both sentenced by the Essex CountyCourt in September of 1683 to be "fined or severly whipped" forthe crime of fornication before marriage.23 No offspring of thisalleged fornication is mentioned in the records but that theydid the deed and subsequently had a successful marriage couldnot have gone unnoticed by Elizabeth. Perhaps Elizabeth expectedthe same thing to happen to her upon getting pregnant. And whynot? The colonial court records are literally strewn with casesinvolving fornication before marriage where the parties did,indeed, get married and became respectable members of thecommunity. As we know, for Elizabeth, this would not be herfate.Elizabeth next appeared in the court records in May of 1691,five years after the birth of Dorothy, when she was arrested andcharged with the murder of two bastard infants. On May 7, 1691Elizabeth gave birth to twins sometime during the night in atrundle bed at the foot of her parents bed. She managed tosomehow hide the birth from her parents, conceal the infants forthree days in a trunk, sew them up in a bag and bury them in thebackyard of the Emerson house.24 The Sunday following the birth, while her parents were atchurch, some concerned citizens of Haverhill who suspected thatElizabeth was pregnant went to the Emerson house to find her.When they arrived at the Emerson home they inquired afterElizabeth's health which she descibed to them as "not well." Shewas read a warrant and told that the women who were present wereappointed to examine her.25 Elizabeth submitted to thisexamination without protest. Meanwhile, the men went into thebackyard and found the bodies of the two infants sewn up in abag and buried in a shallow grave.The discovery of the bodies led to statements being taken byNathaniel Saltonstall. The depositions of the parties involvedwere similar. They suspected Elizabeth of being with child andtherefore sought her out that Sunday morning with the intent ofmaking inquiry. Elizabeth denied any wrongdoing, stating thatshe "never murdered any child in my life." She also said "Inever committed a murther that I know of...." But the evidenceagainst her in the form of the infant bodies and the physicalexamination by the women present, where they discoveredElizabeth to be post partum, was overwhelming.The following day, May 11th, Elizabeth, Michael and HannahEmerson were all questioned and a transcript of that exchange isstill extant. Elizabeth was asked her husband's name to whichshe replied, "I have never [had] one." She confessed that shedid give birth to twins. When asked where they were born shereplied, "On the bed at my father's beds feet...." She statedthat she did not call for help during her travail because,"there was nobody near but my Father and Mother and I was afraidto call my mother for fear of killing her." When asked if shetold her father or mother afterwards, she replied, "No, not aword; I was afraid." Elizabeth was then questioned as to whethereither of her parents knew of her pregnancy to which she repliedthat they did not know of the pregnancy, birth or burial ofthem.How could Elizabeth have given birth to twins in the same roomher parents were sleeping and kept it a secret from them? Therecord indicates that her mother did suspect Elizabeth of beingpregnant but was told "no" every time she inquired of Elizabeth.Elizabeth's fear of "killing" her mother denotes a certainamount of love and respect, but what of her statement, "No, nota word; I was afraid"? Elizabeth had, after all, been in thisposition before. She already had one illegitimate child whichher father had unsuccessfully tried to pin on Timothy Swan.Could it be that the treatment she had received from ther fatherafter the incident with Robert Swan, Sr. made her loathe toreveal to him her latest indiscretion? After all, Michael wasknown to have beaten her severely at least once; perhaps she wasafraid of similar treatment if the truth was made known to him.Whatever her reason, it must have been compelling for her tohave given birth to twins in complete silence while her parentsslept mere inches away.Michael was also questioned on May 11th regarding his daughter'scrime. According to the transcript, he did not even suspect thatElizabeth was with child, nor did he know of the birth or burialof them. When asked if he knew who the father was, he stated forthe first time on the record, that the father of the childrenwas Samuel Ladd.Samuel Ladd was a resident of Haverhill. He was considerablyolder than Elizabeth, for he was married to his wife on December1, 1674 when Elizabeth was 9 years old. At the time of the twinsbirth Pope gives his age as 42 and Elizabeth's as 28. AlthoughSamuel Ladd was named as the father of the children a number oftimes in the court records, he was even said to be the oneperson who knew of Elizabeth's pregnancy, he was neverquestioned about the matter.Samuel Ladd's father, Daniel Ladd was on the list of the firstsettlers of Haverhill in 1640.26 As a first settler he wouldhave received a considerable estate from the normal course ofland distribution. Samuel was referred to as Lieutenant Ladd,27a high rank in the Colonial militia, and he was paid more thantwice the amount of any of the other soldiers who formed themilitia company during King Philips War.28 Thus Samuel Ladd wasnot only the son of a wealthy founder of the community but animportant member of it in his own right. As to the character ofSamuel Ladd, a court case in which he was involved may beinstructive.On June 9, 1677 Samuel Ladd "was fined for misdemeanors.""Frances Thurla, aged about forty-five years, and Ane Thurla,his wife, testified that in the evening after Mr. Longfelow'svessel was launched, about nine or ten o'clock, and after he andhis family were in bed, having shut the door and bolted it,Sameull Lad of Haverhill and Thomas Thurla's man, EdwardBaghott, came to their house. One or both of them went into theleanto where their daughter Sarah lay, and having awakened herurged her to rise and go to her aunt's, telling her that she wasvery sick. Whereupon deponent arose and seeing one at the doorreproved him for being there, and mistrusting that there was onewith his daughter, as he went to light a candle, Samuell Ladleaped out of the house. Sworn in court."29For this Samuel Ladd was found guilty of a misdemeanor. What washe doing at Frances Thurla's house after all had retired to bed?Why had he tried to get Sarah to leave the house and go to heraunt's? And if her aunt were, in fact, sick, why did he not tellSarah's parents, as the aunt presumably would have been sisterto one of them? Was Samuel Ladd bent upon the seduction of youngSarah Thurla? At the time of the incident Samuel had beenmarried for three years.This was the man accused of being the father of the dead twins.Why he was never questioned regarding his involvement isunknown. Perhaps it was his relative standing in the communitythat saved him. He was, after all, the son of a founder andsomewhat wealthy himself based upon his position in thecommunity. The Emersons were undoubtedly much poorer. Andcertainly, the fact that Elizabeth already had one bastard childmade her testimony as to the patrimony of the twins suspect.Samuel Ladd did eventually reap some kind of poetic justice forhis part in Elizabeth's demise. On February 22, 1697/98 he waskilled during an Indian raid.30 He left a wife and five(legitimate) children.Elizabeth's mother Hannah was the next to be questionedregarding her daughter's crime. She stated for the record thatshe suspected her daughter was pregnant but as she was big, shecould not tell and Elizabeth would not confess to it. She wasthen accused of being the one to sew them up in a bag but againshe denied any knowledge of it. She too named Samuel Ladd as thefather of the children.The women who were sent to the house to examine Elizabeth alsogave testimony at the same time as the Emersons. They testifiedthat one of the children had its navel string twisted about itsneck. There was apparently no sign of violence to either of thechildren but in their opinion one or both of them died "for wantor caer att the time of travell."31With these statements went another intriguing document. In it,Elizabeth confessed that Samuel Ladd was the father of thechildren and that the "place of his begetting...was at Rob'tClements inn house."32 Elizabeth also states for the record thatSamuel is the only man with whom she had slept, indicating bythis that he was not only the father of the dead twins but thefather of Dorothy as well, contrary to her father's assertionthat Timothy Swan was the father of Dorothy.There is no record of Robert Clements running an inn or tavern,though he is listed as one of the founders of the town.33 It isentirely possible that he was running an unlicensed ordinary asthis was not an uncommon practice at the time. Evidently SamuelLadd and Robert Clements were well acquainted with one anotheras they were close neighbors. Nathaniel Saltonstall was later towrite of the perfidy of tavern houses 34 and could well havebeen thinking of this case when he wrote it. Elizabeth was remanded to the custody of the Boston prison onMay 13, 1691, accompanied by a letter from NathanielSaltonstall. In this letter he writes that he had Elizabethbefore him on May 11th and 13th..."upon examination forwhore-dom." He then reiterated the facts of the case as theywere known and commanded the prison keeper to safely keep her inprison until she "shal be thence delivered by due order ofLaw."35Elizabeth was kept in prison until September 1691 when she wassentenced to hang for her crime. Previous to this case it was acrime in England to conceal the death of a bastard child. Thislaw, though repealed in England by the time of the Emerson case,was still on the books in the Massachusetts Bay.36 Therefore,while it was never sufficiently proven that she intentionallykilled her children, such proof was unnecessary as their veryconcealment was considered to be a crime. She did maintain herinnocence of the charge throughout the proceedings but that wasof little consequence, even though by 1691 convictions on thecharge of concealment of the death of a bastard were waning.Nathaniel Saltonstall's comment that she had been examined for"whore-dom" was, perhaps, more to the point. It could be thatthe good people of Haverhill had tired of the antics ofElizabeth and had determined that being a whore, she could justas easily be a murderess. The society at large may have wantedto point to her as a warning to their own children. At the time,fewer and fewer of the children of the first settlers wereowning the covenant and that was certainly a cause for greatconcern among the "saints."Although convicted in September 1691 Elizabeth was not hangeduntil June 8, 1693. In the interim she came under the care andguidance of the Reverend Cotton Mather. How he found time tominister to Elizabeth while at the same time actively pursuingthe Salem Witch Trials is unknown. Perhaps it was purelyconvenience, as Elizabeth was incarcerated in Boston, presumablywith the unfortunate victims of the witchcraft hysteria. He did,however, get her to do something which nobody else could, to"confess." During his sermon on Job 36:14 he read to thecongregation what he claimed was a confession given him byElizabeth. He writes that she confessed that "when they wereborn, I was not unsensible, that at least, One of them wasalive; but such a Wretch was I, as to use a Murderous Carriagetowards them, in the place where I lay, on purpose to dispatchthem out of the World." What did she mean by "murderouscarriage?" Did she lay upon them or did she merely neglectedthem? Or were they, as per her initial assertion, trulystillborn? According to Mather, she claimed that she should have listenedto her parents, that she was "always of an Haughty and StubbornSpirit." and that "Bad Company" was what led to her downfall.Although her confession is very moving and seemingly sincere,Cotton Mather was not moved. He claimed that she "has more toconfess, I fear..." and held little hope for her salvation.According to Mather "there never was Prisoner more Hard-Hearted,and more Unfruitful than you have been..."37 It is a little puzzling that Mather was so disappointed with hisprisoner. She did, after all, confess her crime and exhort therising generation not to follow in her footsteps. Perhaps shedid not confess readily enough to suit him. She was in prisonfor a little over two years and under those circumstances wouldsurely have been broken into a confession at the hands of a lessexpert confessor than Mather. She may have continued to protesther innocence until very near the end, disappointing Mather whowould have wanted to use her for his own ends. Elizabeth was executed in Boston on that June day in 1693 andthere her story ends. Dorothy, her daughter, also diseappearedfrom the record, and one can't help but wonder at her fate.Michael, in his last will dated 1709, left distributions of afew shillings to at least some of his grandchildren, but Dorothywas noticeably absent.38Elizabeth may be seen in a number of different ways, as eithervictim or murderer, as evil or misguided. Her concealment of thebirth seems unintellibible to many but in the context of a 17thcentury Puritan home it may be understandable, particularly inlight of Michael Emerson's known temper. That Samuel Laddcertianly bore responsiblity is undeniable. That he was not evenquestioned can only be seen as a result of his class andstanding in the community. Was she coerced into sexualrelations, and when the result was made known to him did heexhort her to silence? Perhaps, but by her own admission she hadslept with Ladd many times. If he was the father of Dorothy aswell as the twins they must have had a relationship lasting overfive years. Such a relationship would not be seen as adulterous,as adultery was defined by the marital status of the woman. But what of Michael Emerson's charge in court that Timothy Swanwas Dorothy's father? The Swans and the Emersons were from thesame social strata of Haverhill society. It may have been easierto try to claim paternity of his grandchild was theresponsibility of an unmarried young neighbor than that of ahigh ranking, older married man. Perhaps Elizabeth herself,weighing the options, chose to lie to her father regardingDorothy's paternity, hoping that Timothy would marry her orseeking to protect Samuel from scandal. Eventually the truthmust have come out as both of Elizabeth's parents name SamuelLadd without hesitation as the father of the twins. One thinksthey may have known of their relationship prior to the discoveryof the dead girls.If Elizabeth had lived in the 20th century her life would havebeen very different. Rarely is the charge of whore-dom meted outtoday. In today's society it would be her sister, Hannah Dustin,seen as the murderess, and Elizabeth as only an unfortunategirl, a victim of circumstance. But in the context of the 17thcentury Elizabeth was seen as the result of a moral degenerationthat was very real and very frightening to Puritans of the firstgeneration. A vast falling away from godliness in New England,not to be rectified until the next century's Great Awakening.With nowhere to turn in her society, she sought to hide herpregnancy as long as possible, and when the twins were eitherborn dead or died shortly thereafter, she took what steps shethought necessary to conceal her sin from her parents and fromthe community. How many others who did likewise were not caught?--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Footnotes:1. Charles Henry Pope, The Haverhill Emersons (Boston: Murrayand Emery, 1913-1916, p. 27. 2. Cotton Mather, "Warnings From the Dead", Boston 1693 (EarlyAmerican Works #665), pp. 35-67.3. She was convicted of murdering twin female infants.4. Pope, The Haverhill Emerson's, p. 25.5. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good Wifes, Image and Reality in theLives of Women in Northern New England 1650-1750 (New York:Oxford University Press) pp. 157-158.6. Pope, The Haverhill Emersons, p. 11.7. Ibid, p. 12.8. This event is cited in a number of different sources. Amongthese are Good Wives, pp. 167-170; The Haverhill Emersons,pp21-23; and Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana, (Boston,1702, reprinted New Haven, 1820) Book VII, pp. 550-551.9. Hannah may have felt she had just cause to slay her captors.During the raid in which she was captured the Indians dashed herdays old infant's brains out against a tree. This was a commonpractice among Native Americans involved in capturing white NewEnglanders for eventual ransom as an infant would have sloweddown the raiding party. 10. Good Wives, pp. 187-188.11. Anne Bradstreet, "Meditations," in The Works of AnneBradstreet, ed. John Harvard Ellis (Gloucester, Mass.: PeterSmith, 1962) p. 65.12. Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex CountyMassachusetts, (Salem, Mass.: Essex Institute, 1917), VI, p.141. Herafter referred to as ECR.13. There is some discrepency as to the age of Elizabeth at thetime of this beatin. Charles Henry Pope in The HaverhillEmersons, p. 12, gives her age as nine. At the time of the courthearing Elizabeth would have been eleven.14. ECR, VI, p. 212-213.15. ECR, VIII, p. 91-92.16. Pope, The Haverhill Emersons, p. 25.17. ECR, IX, p. 603.18. Ibid.19. Pope, The Haverhill Emersons, p. 11.20. Pope, The Haverhill Emersons, pp. 15-16.21. Charles Wingate Chase, History of Haverhill Massachusetts(Somersworth, NH: New England History Press, 1861; reprint1983), pp. 138-139.22. ECR, IX, p. 603.23. ECR, IX, p. 93.24. The following is from Suffolk Court, Early Files, 2636.25. One of the women, Mary Neff, was the same woman who lateraccompanied Hannah (Emerson) Dustin into captivity and helped toslay their Indian captors.26. Pope, The Haverhill Emersons, p. 38.27. Ibid, p. 48.28. Ibid, p. 128. In fact, Samuel Ladd was paid 3.17.00 whilethe man nearest him on the payroll was paid only 1.17.00.Ironically, that man was Robert Swan. No Emersons are listed onthe militial roll.29. ECR, IX, p. 344.30. Pope, The Haverhill Emersons, p. 26.31. Suffolk Court, Early Files, 2636.32. Ibid.33. Pope, The Haverhill Emersons, p. 47.34. Ibid, p. 157.35. Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. May1691, p. 203.36. N.E.H. Full, Female Felons (Urbana: University of IllinoisPress, 1987), p. 34. For the primary source documents on crimespunishable by death in the Massachusetts Bay see Acts andResolves, Public and Private, of the Province of MassachusettsBay, 21 vols. (Boston, 1869-1922), 1, p. 55-56 (1692).37. Early American Works, #655.38. Pope, The Haverhill Emersons, pp. 13-14.