Stories of the old Bay state

Preface

The Old Bay State has built itself into the very bone and sinew of the republic. Interests throughout our land are too often local, and loyalty is too apt to be merely civic pride ; but the story of Massachusetts, as it is known to all Americans, is dear to all, for it is, to a certain extent, the story of America.

Pilgrim and Puritan, rebel and " revolutioner," pioneer and patriot, dissenter and democrat, reformer and repubhcan, — these names and the ideas they represent, the crop of Massachusetts planting and of Massachusetts reaping, were borne, in seed or pollen, north, west, and south upon the searching, health-laden breezes that blow straight inland from the broad and glorious Bay. The names and deeds of Standish and Winthrop and Vane, of Otis and all the Adamses, of Hancock and Revere, of Daniel Webster and Horace Mann, of Andrew and Everett and Sumner, belong not to Massachusetts alone, but to that great republic of which they were forerunners, founders, or loyal and devoted sons.

It is to foster this broad national spirit rather than simply to gratify State pride that these stories of the

Old Bay State have been written. With full acknowledgment of the errors which far too many Americans place to the discredit of Massachusetts alone, remembering the chain of intolerance, persecution, fanaticism, " isms," theories, reforms, and ideas that links the past and the present, the writer still feels that even these shortcomings did indeed bring health and vigor to the land, and were not of Massachusetts alone, but are the heritage of all America from the days when our fathers were slowly laying, through error as well as justice, the firm foundations of the republic.

These stories of the Old Bay State have been prepared as a contribution toward this record of foundation laying. Although each is complete in itself, the reader will readily discover the vein of connection or association running through the series, and can from the several stories make the complete story, — a sort of Bay State e pliiribus umim, as it were : out of many, one!

By them may the children of the Old Bay State, and of those greater States to whose growth, upbuilding, and defense the commonwealth of Massachusetts gave so freely of its blood, brains, and vigor, be knit anew to love for the dear old commonwealth and for that nobler republic in which all the American commonwealths have equal part and equal pride.

Elbridge S. Brooks.

Contents

How Captain John Smith went a-Voyaging How the People called "Pilgrims" made a Pilgrimage How they Signed an Agreement on Shipboard . How Captain Mi;.es Standish met the Indians . How Governor Winthrop Played the Part of Moses How William Pynchon Blazed the Bay Path

How Mrs. Sherman's Pig almost Upset the Government How Governor John Winthrop *' Sinned against the

Light " . . . ,