2o8 The Smithsonian Institution 



grandson, the Reverend Cotton Mather, the last two both 

 early members of the Royal Society of London ; also, the 

 Reverend John Cotton, D.D., author of nearly fifty books, 

 all published in London, he who introduced into New Eng- 

 land the custom of keeping the Sabbath from evening to 

 evening. Others were Colonel John Phillips, of Charleston, 

 treasurer of the Province of Massachusetts ; Lieutenant Ralph 

 Sprague, lieutenant of the Provincial forces in the Pequot 

 War, and Captain John Sprague, his son, both members of 

 the Massachusetts General Court ; William Sumner and his 

 son, Lieutenant George Sumner, of Dorchester and Milton, 

 both deputies to the General Court ; Edward Howell, Esquire, 

 one of the founders of Southampton (in 1642, the first Eng- 

 lish settlement within the present limits of New York), and 

 his son, Major John Howell, both members of the Provincial 

 Legislature of Connecticut; Captain Stephen Williams, of 

 Roxbury, who commanded a troop of horse on the frontier 

 from 1707 to 1712, and Colonel Joseph Williams, his grand- 

 son, who served in the Mohawk War, the Canadian campaign 

 of 1758, and in the Revolution. Captain Samuel Langley, 

 Mr. Langley's great-grandfather, was also a Revolutionary 

 soldier and commanded a company of veterans engaged in 

 the suppression of Shay's Rebellion. And then there was 

 another military ancestor, remembered in family tradition, 

 who always wore a red coat, and who " when he saw a man 

 whose face he did not like, knocked him down." This may 

 have been Joseph Pierpont, of Roxbury, who, local history 

 tells, fought with the Honorable Captain William Montagu, 

 brother of the Earl of Sandwich, commonly called " Mad 

 Montagu," and drubbed him within an inch of his life ; so 



from the beginning of the World into this pre- Boston, in New England. . . . Boston in 



sent year MDCLXXXIII. ... As also two New England. Printed by S. G. for S. S. 



Sermons Occasioned by the late Blazing Stars. and sold by F. Browning. . . . 1683. octo- 



By Increase Mather, Teacher of a Church at decimo, pages (12) 1-143-1-1. 



