THE DORSET COLONY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 107 



between the personel of the two towns was still traceable, notwith- 

 standing the lapse of time and the changes inevitable thereupon. 

 It is a curious fact that there are no less than ten Dorchesters in 

 America. This is, doubtless, partly due to the fact that there are 

 two Dorchesters in England ; partly, also, I suspect, to these towns 

 having conferred titles on noble families whose scions might be 

 supposed, not improbably, to have been concerned in some way in 

 the planting of America. 



I will now proceed to relate what I have been able to ascertain 

 relative to the settlement of Weymouth, which, like Dorchester, 

 may be regarded as an offshoot of New Plymouth. I may state in 

 the first place, but not at all in the way of grievance, that in all 

 America there are only three Weymouths ; but then, on the other 

 hand, Weymouth, Mass., claims to be the second oldest settlement 

 in the State. I confess I cannot quite make out the truth of the 

 assertion ; but, no matter, the claim seems to be recognised. In a 

 very recent American Gazeteer Weymouth is described as "a 

 postal village and township, Norfolk County, Mass., twelve miles 

 south of Boston. It is the second oldest settlement in the State, 

 dating from 1626. It has a high school, a national, and a savings 

 bank, and a weekly paper. The township contains several other 

 villages, chiefly engaged in manufacturing boots and shoes. Popu- 

 lation of township 10,571." In the American "Atlas" of Thomas 

 Jeffery's, 1775, I find Weymouth placed near the source of a river 

 of that name which runs into one of the many inlets on the south 

 of Boston Harbour. Eastward of this flows the River Way into 

 another similar inlet, so there is little doubt about this colony 

 deriving its name from, and possibly owing its origin to, the ancient 

 and loyal borough in which I am privileged to live. From the 

 " Ecclesiastical History" by Cotton Mather I quote the following : 

 " One Mr. Weston, a London merchant of good note, interested at 

 first in the Plymouth design, afterwards deserted it, and in the 

 year 1622 sent over two ships, with about 60 men, to begin a 

 plantation in Massachusett Bay. These beginners being well 

 treated at Plymouth travelled more northward unto a place known 



