COUNTIES. — VARIATIONS OF SPELLING.

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Plymouth County. Plymouth, Scituate, Duxbury, Marshfield, Bridgewater, Middleborough, and plantations to the north toward the Colony line.

Barnstable County. - Barnstable, Sandwich, Yarmouth, Eastham, Falmouth, Rochester, and the village of Monamoy (which in 1712 became the town of Chatham). There was also the Indian town of Mashpee, with a government by itself.

Bristol County.- Bristol, Taunton, Rehoboth, Dartmouth, Swansea, Little Compton, Freetown, and plantations where now are Attleborough, Cumberland, and Warren.

Several of these towns had more than one village. Dartmouth comprised the future New Bedford, Westport, and Fairhaven; Plymouth included the present Kingston, Carver, and Plympton, with parts of Halifax and Wareham. Thus, several towns not named above were already existing as thriving villages.

The relative standing of the towns in 1689 may be inferred from the tax laid for the Maine expedition in the Indian war; namely. Scituate, £8 Taunton, £6; Plymouth, Sandwich, and Barnstable, £5 each; Rehoboth, £4 10s.; Yarmouth, Marshfield, Eastham, and Bristol, £4 each; Dartmouth, £3 10s.; Bridgewater and Swansea, £3 each; Duxbury and Little Compton, £2 10s. each; Middleborough and Falmouth, 1 each; Rochester, Freetown, and Monamoy, 10s. each: total, £67 10s. (The next year the "ratable estate" of these towns varied very widely from the above ratio.)

VARIATIONS OF SPELLING.

In the Pilgrim era there was no fixed spelling of English words, and the same writer varied his orthography to an extent truly marvellous. Bradford only conformed to the usage of the highest dignitaries when, on four adjoining pages of his History (118-19-20-21, MS.), he spells Oldham four different ways; thus, Oldom, Oldum, Oldame, and Oldam, and none of them as it was finally established. Emanuel Downing, a university man, went so far in one sentence as to write both Sweades and Sweedes.1 Queen Elizabeth employed seven different spellings for the word "sovereign;" and her favorite,

1 In the building accounts (1610-13) of Wadham College, Oxford, one finds the term gargoyle rendered "Gorgel," "Gargill,” “Gurgul,” “Gurgoll." In the same document "Cornish" is reckoned at 2d. per foot. The fine workmen who wrought stone are alluded to as "Free Masons" or "Free Stone Masons."

Leicester, rendered his own name in eight different ways, according to his passing fancy. In the Buckingham deeds the name “Villiers” is given in fourteen different forms; and in the family documents of the Percys, their name is spelled fifteen ways. William Penn's father is recorded by turns as Admiral Pen, Penn, or Penne. The most awkward and inconsistent variations of orthography in the seventeenth century, or earlier, are no evidence of illiteracy. This might be inferred from a letter by Day, the printer of the famous Bay Psalmbook, at Harvard College, who wrote that a person was about to "mare his dauter" to a suitor who "hath catel all rede" for his use.1

Of course, as the Indians had no alphabet, their words had no spelling. The first-comers, therefore, used what seemed to them to express the sound, and of course they fell into various renderings of many words. Modern writers err much when they suppose that some early spelling of an Indian name establishes its form, or anything else, except the sound of it according to the pioneer's ear. Thus, when a distinguished leader in Philip's War writes "Saughkonnett," the only thing to be said is that such was his way of representing Saconet (pronounced Saw-conet). There is no right or wrong as to these names so long as the sound is preserved; but every reason exists for reducing them to their simplest form. Long ago some bungler put a second on the end of Dracut, and it has but recently been loppedoff again. So somebody wrote two t's at the end of Narraganset, and the senseless superfluity is kept up by local writers.

In the Plymouth records the clerks gave full vent to the prevailing fancy. Chyrurjeon for surgeon, on their pages, is not so odd-seeming as is a reference to "the governments of evrup" and "the cause to be jswed" (issued). Olerton for Allerton is somewhat phonetic, like the English form Ollerton. Mixed-up with the modern spellings, and other variations, one meets with Mary as Marie, Catharine as Catorne, Bridget as Brigett, Jane as Jaane, Evans as Evance, Collier as Colyar, Alden on one page and Alldin on the next, Aldrich as Aldereg, Springfield as Sprinkfield, Cushman as Cochman, Brown as Browen, Sprague as Spragg, Moses as Moyses, Quincy as Quinsey, and so on in a long succession, which shows that many of the slight distinctions of modern names are wholly without significance.

Mrs. Bradford's name, Alice, is given as Allice, and Alles (Els in the Dutch records); some uninformed descendants, in naming

1 See Mass. Hist. Coll., i. 364.

VARIATIONS OF SPELLING.

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"the

children for her, have adopted one of these misspellings as original way." Colonel Stetson appears as Cunel Studson, and Jones River as Joanes Riuer. So prominent a citizen as Bradford's stepson is mentioned indifferently as Southwood, Southerne, and Southworth; and he seems to have been unsettled in his own usage.1

One man is recorded as violating the "kinke's" (king's) peace. A curiously free-and-easy orthography is in a General-Court record concerning Governor Hinckley's cow, which is mentioned as "haueing the tipps of bother hornes sawed off" (vii. 265). Then comes the name of Vre, Ure, or Ewer; and of Fans (Faunce), Phance, or Vance. Bradford's Mms. renders Cromwell as Cormuell."

The development of the name of Fobes is curiously traceable in the official writings of those days. The first-comer wrote his name "ffarabas," and the form gradually changed, thus: ffarabas, Farrowbush, fforbas, Forbes, Forbus, Forbush, Forbish, Furbish, Furbush, Fobes. Some branches of the family stopped the development process at one stage, and some at another; thus giving several names, all from the same original ffarabas (Barrabas?). It is to be noticed that formerly the ff was the equivalent of the capital F. Thus, Dr. Fuller wrote "ffuller," while others wrote his name "Fuller." Some modern writers make the mistake of copying these old names, and capitalizing the first of the f's, while retaining the second. The true method is to begin such names with the two small letters, or to drop both if a capital is used.

Few of these changes are more curious than that by which a family bearing the fine old name of Stanley wrought it through several preposterous forms into the equally fine old name of Sterling; thus, Stanley, Stallon, Stolion, Stallion, Sterling. One branch of it went to Connecticut, and in New London in 1650 a prominent member was uncouthly subscribing himself " Edward Stallion."

=

Some freak changed Satuit into Scituate, and left it so; but fortunately Dokesberry, Dukesbury (Orig. The Duke's Bury), Dukes Bery, Ducksberry, Ducksborough, Ducksburrow, Duxbarow, Duxburrow, and Duxborough all gave way to the compact modern English form Duxbury.

These few examples, given from the many at hand, are enough to show the chaotic condition of English orthography in colonial days, and to illustrate the fact that the forms of words found in old papers

1 See note, p. 249, for Southworth spellings.

2 Sityate.-Bradford.

and records of high authority prove little as to the general usage in the matter, or even as to the ordinary practice of the writer in question. A fixed form of spelling is a modern idea as well as a modern practice. It is to be hoped that many of the present methods are not yet so firmly set that they may not give way to something more simple and more easily learned. For the great purposes of a written language, a person may almost hesitate between the present unvarying absurdities and the ancient usage which accepted whatever a doubtful or erratic pen chanced to throw off.

TIIE PILGRIM SOCIETY; ITS HALL, AND MONUMENTS.

The landing of the Pilgrims was first formally celebrated Dec. 22, 1769. In that year the Old Colony Club had been formed by seven men of Plymouth, and they held a social observance of the day. In 1773 the club, after its fifth celebration, was dissolved through the strife between Whigs and Tories. There have since been frequent celebrations, at some times with great ceremony, and at others with very little, under direction of various bodies, including churches, the Pilgrim Society, and the Standish Guards. In 1770 an address was made to the Old Colony Club by Edward Winslow (great-great-grandson of the Governor Edward); and the succession of orators includes John Quincy Adams (1802), Daniel Webster (1820), Edward Everett (1824), and many eminent divines and publicists of Old Colony affiliations.

As mentioned in the Preface (p. xx), the Old Colony Club, like all others interested, applied to the Pilgrim reckoning not the ten days due the English calendar for 1620, but the eleven days which had been found its due in 1751, when Old Style was corrected to New Style: As the landing was certainly on a Monday, they set it down as on the impossible date of Monday, Dec. 22, 1620. The Dutch and French almanacs, which had been brought to New Style, show that the Monday in question was the 21st, while by the Old Style almanac of the English the 22d was Friday. So by no system was Monday the 22d.

In 1850 Judges Savage and Warren, with Dr. N. B. Shurtleff, having demonstrated in a report that the landing was on the 21st, the Pilgrim Society unanimously adopted that as the true date of the anniversary.

THE PILGRIM SOCIETY.

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The reformed date was adopted in Boston, and found its way to Brooklyn, N.Y., but does not seem to have extended farther, nor to have found its way into many of the almanacs. Even in Plymouth an element was found which preferred established error to novel truth, and to it, strange to say, in 1882 the Pilgrim Society surrendered the date it had upheld for thirty-two years. Yet still the Society voted that the 21st was the correct date, and that they were yielding to an erroneous but time-honored usage. A trustee remarked that if their spirit had ruled the Scrooby Separatists in 1607, there would have been no Pilgrim Fathers to commemorate. (The Society has since, with great propriety, re-adopted the 21st as their date.)

In 1824 the Pilgrim Society built Pilgrim Hall, at Plymouth, and apparently by chance selected a site which was once owned by the first Governor Winslow, and later by Governor Bradford. In 1880 J. Henry Stickney, of Baltimore, seeing the needs of the edifice while paying it the chance visit of a stranger, proceeded to expend $15,000 in reconstructing it and rendering it fire-proof. (His generous zeal has also been extended to the Society's work upon Cole's Hill.) The hall is visited each year by many thousands of tourists, who study (?)