J98 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



.1 



contains aoout 5,000 volumes. The students are 260. Phillips JlcademT/, at Andover, is onk 



of the oldest and best endowed seminaries of its kind in the country. It was founded in 1778. 

 The Theological Seminary, at Andover, was founded in 1S07, and is liberally endowed ; it 

 has tive professors, and a library of 13,000 volumes. There are a Baptist Theological Insti- 

 tution at Neu'ton, and 5G incorporated academies in the State. The number of free schools 

 is about 3,000, attended by 140,000 pupils. The annual expenditure for the support of these 

 schools is 500,000 dollars. Two Normal schools, one for male teachers, at Barre, and one 

 for females, at Lexington, afford gratuitous instruction. 



14. Antiquities. At Berkley, on the west side of Taunton River, which runs into 

 Narragansett Bay, are some curious inscriptions on a rock at the water's edge, called the 

 Dighton rock, because it was formerly within the limits of that town. They consist of 

 rude figures of men and animals intermixed with different unintelligible marks. Both their date 

 and signification are utterly unknown. Some endeavors have been made to assign them a Trans- 

 atlantic origin, but there appears no good reason for such conjectures. Some Mohawk Indi- 

 ans, who had seen the inscription, declared, that they were made to represent a great slaughter 

 made among the people of the country by a wild beast. 



15. Historij. When Sebastian Cabot discovered North America, in 1497, he sailed along 

 the coast of INlassachusetts, in his passage from Newfoundland to Florida. Verazzano, in 1524, 

 made a similar visit to the coast ; but the first proper discoveries in this State took place in 

 1602, when Bartholomew Gosnold explored Cape Cod and Buzzard's Bay. At the lattei 

 place, he built a fort, and traded with the Indians ; he made, however, no permanent settle- 

 ment. In 1614, Captain John Smith explored the whole coast of Maine and Massachusetts, 

 as far as the southern extremity of the bay. The splendid accounts of the country which he 

 transmitted to England, induced Prince Charles, afterwards King Charles the First, to give it the 

 name of New England. Smith was not successful in his attempts to establish a colony. The 

 Puritans, who were persecuted in England, resolved to emigrate to America for liberty of con- 

 science, and, obtaining a grant of the land, they set sail on this memorable voyage, in Septem- 

 ber, 1620. The}' landed, built a settlement, and established a republican government at Ply 

 mouth, in December of the same year. Their hardships here were numerous, and theii 

 dangers formidable, yet their numbers were soon augmented by the arrival of other emigrants. 

 Salem was founded in 1627, and Boston in 1630. 



The colony of Massachusetts Bay and that of Plymouth, or the Old Colonj^, as it was called, 

 were under distinct governments till 1692, when, by a royal charter, they were united. From 

 this period, the governors of the colony were appointed by the king, and the power of annulling 

 the colonial laws was assumed as a royal prerogative. This regulation continued until the Revo- 

 lution, and the monarchical principle thus infused into the Massachusetts democracy, occasioned 

 an almost perpetual struggle between the republican spirit of the people and the royal authority. 

 Massachusetts stood ever foremost in opposition to the oppressive domination of the mother 

 country, and the American Revolution began at Boston. The last remnant of British authority 

 expired in Massachusetts on the 17th of March, 1776, when the British were driven from Bos- 

 ton by Was'iington, 156 years from the landing of the pilgrims at Plymouth. The colonial 

 form of government continued till 1780, when a convention of delegates established the present 

 constitution. This instrument underwent a revision in 1820, but the alterations were not mate- 

 rial. In the interval between the close of the revolutionary war and the establishment of the 

 federal government, there occurred an insurrection in the western counties of Massachusetts, 

 which deserves particular notice here. 



The public debt of the State at the close of the war, and the languishing condition of trade 

 and industry, had brought a heavy burden of taxation upon the people. Several minor causes 

 of discontent contributed to promote a disaffection toward the government, which at length, in 

 the summer of 1786, assumed a serious character, in the counties of Hampshire and Berkshire, 

 where the inhabitants conceived the taxation to have been apportioned unequally. Various in- 

 flam.matory publications were issued, and, on the 22d of August, a convention of delegates from 

 50 towns in Hampshire, met at Hatfield, and drew up a specification of their grievances, in 

 which they denounced the system of representation, the court of common pleas, the system of 

 taxation, the management of the public finances, &c. Encouraged by this declaration, the peo- 

 ple of the neighborhood took up arms, and assembled to the number of 1,500 at Northampton, 

 where they took possession of the court-house, and prevented the court from sitting. Upon the 

 news of this violence, Governor Bowdoin issued a proclranation, calling upon the citizens to aid 



