145 



from the beauty of its siiiTouiulii\2:s and partly from the 

 fact that it is the pUice where Gov. Gage formerly had 

 his headquarters. Gen. Gage, before he took command 

 of the British forces in the colonics, was governor of 

 ^Montreal. He did not succeed well as governor of 

 Massachnsetts, and went back to England before inde- 

 pendence was declared, though he had enough to do with 

 the inauguration of our revolution to set on fool tlie ex- 

 pedition which resulted in the battle of Lexington. He 

 lived long enough to see our independence acknowledged, 

 and died in 1787, the year when our present constitu- 

 tional form of government was adopted. Gov. Endicott 

 came over, the tirst governor, in liJ'2S, and, on April 30, 

 1029, he was elected governor for one year; but, mean- 

 time, the charter and Company were transferred to New 

 England, and John Winthrop, who had joined the Com- 

 pany, was elected governor six months afterwards. Gov. 

 Endicott resided at what is now Danversport, and Gov. 

 Gage, at the Collins house, as above stated, though it 

 was but a temporary residence. 



But the section of the town where the meeting was 

 held is especially interesting fr(jm the fact that it was 

 the region where most of the "Salem Witchcraft Delu- 

 sion" took its rise. The first meeting house of Salem 

 Village stood not many rods from the present struc- 

 ture, on Hobart street, near the house of Mr. Hiram 

 Hook. The first minister of the Salem Village church 

 was James Bailey, and he lived in a house occupy- 

 ing the site where now stands the house of INIr. Ben- 

 jamin Hutchinson near the old road leading from the 

 old meeting house to the Plains, and not far from the 

 Tapleyville village. On this same road, not far from 

 the Plains, and near the gravel pit, may still l)e seen the 

 remains of the old cellar of the house of Nathaniel Put- 



