The Higleys and their Ancestry, an Old Colonial Family, by Mary Coffin Johnson 1896
CHAPTER VII.
YOUTH AND MARRIAGE OF CAPTAIN JOHN HIGLEY.
It is a deep mystery—the way the heart of a man turns to one woman out of all the rest he’s seen i’ the world, and makes it easier for him to work seven years for her, like Jacob did for Rachel, sooner than have any other woman for the asking.—GEORGE ELIOT.
JOHN HIGLEY had ready adaptability, and soon accustomed himself to the interests and habits of the well-ordered household of the Drakes. His infantile years had passed during the eventful time of Cromwell’s reign. Charles I. was beheaded the year he was born. Until he was eight years old, he no doubt frequented the home of his grandfather, the Rev. John Brewster (for whom he was probably named), when “England was greatly stirred, and eager debates and heated arguments on Puritanical subjects were continually taking place in every household,” especially those associated with ecclesiastical affairs. The time lapsing between eight and sixteen years of age, following his grandfather’s death, great events had been passing. Charles II. had come to the throne. “Puritanism had been well-nigh silenced under stern repression. The Revolution and great changes had taken place in the social world.”28-1
Though young in years we may well conclude that his quick perception and naturally sagacious mind had fully taken in a good many of these things that were passing. “On the restoration of Charles II. to the throne, religious despotism with merciless energy was revived.”
The sight which John Higley had seen before he left England, “of pious and learned clergymen driven from their homes, and their flocks; of religious meetings broken up by constables; of preachers put side by side with thieves and outcasts; of jails crammed with honest enthusiasts whose piety was their only crime,”28-2 must have left a deep impression on his youthful mind.
No lad of sixteen years with his lively intellect could have been ignorant of the iron hand which was laid without mercy upon the Quakers during this time (1662—65). “The fires of persecution were hot,” says Sewell. The victims were flogged In the streets; husbands and wives were separated and condemned to transportation; they were distrained of their property, and large numbers were banished to strange countries.29-1 “In 1662 the returns from their meetings throughout England showed that between four and five thousand were then lying in prison” merely for religion’s sake.29-2 “These prisons were cold, leaky, and filthy, and many men and women had nothing but a board to lie upon.” Many were relieved only by death.29-3
It may have been that these measures, taken against inoffensive peace-loving religionists, not only touched John Higley’s tender and sensitive nature, but kindled a strong instinctive sense of their unjust treatment, which had the effect of giving him the tolerant spirit, and which rooted in him the idea of the individual liberty of every man, with which he was endowed in after life.
The summer previous to leaving London he had witnessed the awful devastation of the Plague (1665), a never-to-be-forgotten period of his life. Death reigned in the streets. Entire families were swept away. Citizens who were apparently in health in the morning, were found dead in the afternoon. Sewell relates that “the city became so emptied that grass grew in those streets that used to be so populous, few people being seen by the way. Thus the city became a desert, and the misery was great. Great fires were kindled in the streets to purify the contagious air; but no relief was found by it, for in the latter end of September there died in London alone eight thousand people in one week, as I remember to have seen in one of the bills of mortality of that time. There was little to be earned by the tradesmen. Traveling in the country was stopped.” “The plagues of the Lord fell heavily,” continues the narrator. “It is stated that the entire number of deaths during that fatal summer exceeded sixty-eight thousand.” De Foe, in his story of the Plague, mentions “glovemakers” among other tradesmen whose establishments were closed. It was one of these to whom John Higley was apprenticed. It is reasonable to suppose that he returned for the time to his mother’s cottage-home in Frimley, though here was no safe refuge, for the destroying pestilence mowed down the inhabitants of the suburbs adjacent to London, and “blasted into voiceless and lifeless desolation” many of the beautiful valleys in the vicinity.
But our reader will remember that it was neither religious persecution, nor political principles, nor the destroying pestilence, that exiled the lad from his native shores. The boy no doubt often experienced in his new life in the western world a strange yearning rising within him, for the glen in which he was born. He may have had many a longing look toward the stars that were twinkling above his mother home and the group assembled there. Sometimes when among the solitudes there may have fallen upon his heart a shade of melancholy, as memory brought before his face the boy-friends and associates whom he had left behind.
But he was not disappointed in his American home. He was admitted to the family as one of its number, and became a favorite in the household. Soon an intimacy sprang up between the young English stranger and the young people of John Drake’s house. The eldest son was near his own age—two months younger—and Hannah, the eldest daughter, was a bright girl in her teens just enough his junior to be interesting. As a matter of course they were brought into daily association.
The time came when the large heart of the stripling was no longer his own. He saw in Hannah Drake all that was worth living and striving for, and if she, in her maidenly reserve, had resolved not to allow herself to be ensnared by his handsome appearance and good qualities, her resolution did not hold out. The young lovers came to an understanding, to which her parents appear to have freely consented.
But the affairs of true love were sometimes fraught with great difficulties in those days, as they are in these. The hard old taskmaster in England was yet alive, and the unexpired apprenticeship from which young John had fled lay unsettled. Besides this, the Article of Indenture under which he had been apprenticed read, “No Apprentice shall contract Matrimony within the said term of apprenticeship.”30-1 The colonial law also imposed a penalty upon “both male and female not being at his or her own disposal,” who should “either make or give entertainment to any suit in way of marriage without the knowledge and consent of surviving parents, masters, or guardians, or such like.”30-2
The wide Atlantic lay between him and his mother, and these formidable obstructions to his future happiness. However, it was not probable that one of his earnest nature, and of the force that was born in him, would be deterred by barriers. His first step was to pen a carefully written letter to his mother stating his case. We may easily imagine the young lover in the attic of the rough-hewed wooden house of early colonial days, with anxious heart and puzzled brain, straining every nerve to put upon paper just the proper thing to be said, which would insure her favor, and her mediation between the offended employer and himself. Then the uncertainty of receiving a favorable answer to his petition arose in his mind. Another plan came into his devising brain. Success was already crowning his labor, and with his savings he would return to England the bearer of his own letter, visit his mother, and settle all claims. Instigated by the noblest spirit of life, with his heart set upon an idol-love, he was off at once. He retraced his way across the wide ocean to his English home.
In those days is was a serious undertaking to cross the Atlantic. It required fifty-one days to make the passage. Ocean steamers were as yet unknown. The journey occupied more than four months. Landing safely in England, he reached Frimley and gazed once more upon familiar scenes. He soon crossed the threshold of his mother’s home. The tall, well-formed man, roughed in personal appearance by forest-life in the New World, and bronzed by the winds of a seven weeks’ sea voyage, did not closely resemble the glover’s apprentice boy whose sudden disappearance had caused such consternation five years previous. He placed his letter, which contained the declaration of his true and honest heart, into her hand, unrecognized. As she read it, she wept—then glanced at the stranger before her, and read again. Then, another scrutinizing glance. Maternal instinct is subtle and keen.
Advancing to his side she parted his hair and pierced all disguises; for she discovered a well-known mark, a scar that he received by a fall on the stairs when he was ten years of age, which left a deep cut high on his forehead that he carried through life. “John, you rogue! Is this you?” she exclaimed, and raising her hand she gave his ear a sound cuffing.
Gladness and joy were in the village-home that night. The evening was given to quiet chat about the boy’s life. Like other mothers, since the world began, she affectionately entered into the interesting plans and future career which were opening for her son. A satisfactory settlement was made with his former master, and after a short visit he returned to America.32-1
In Windsor, Conn., the town of his adoption, he married Hannah Drake on the 9th of November, 1671.
Footnotes
28-1. Extracts from Green’s “History of the English People.”
28-2. “History of the English People,” by J. K. Green, p. 609.
29-1. “History of the People called Quakers,” by William Sewell.
29-2. “The Fells of Swathmore.”
29-3. History of the People called Quakers,” by William Sewell.
30-1. From Book of Old English Laws.
30-2. “Connecticut Colonial Records,” 1643.
The following law was enacted by the General Court June 3, 1644, which had not then been repealed:
“Whereas many stubborn, refractory, and discontented servants and apprentices whhdraw themselves from their masters’ services, to improve their time to their own advantage; for the preventing thereof:
“It is Ordered, that Whatsoever servant or apprentice shall hereafter offend In that kynd, before their covenant or term of service are expired, shall serve their said masters, as they shall be apprehended or retained the treble term, or threefold time of their absence in such kynd.”—ConConnecticut Colonial Records.
32-1. The main incidents concerning the courtship and marriage of John Higley and Hannah Drake are drawn from the best sources. It is an interesting fact that there have been venerable grandparents, hale and hearty, whose years of early manhood were contemporary with some of John Higley’s sons and daughters, and whose lives extended to the middle of the present century, bridging the gap between that era and descendants now living, to whom it was their delight to recount the interesting story. These channels, with the traditions gathered from nearly every branch of the family now widely scattered in many different sections of our country, many groups of whom had no knowledge of each other until recent time, together with old scraps and papers written nearly a half a century ago, all agree upon these points—that of the apprenticed runaway lad, the circumstances under which be came to America, and his romantic love story as related abovc.—THE EDITOR.