women in their common lives; it ought to lead us into the interior of society, and introduce us to the family circles and home experiences of the past. It cannot but do us good to know Thomas Lothrop, not only as an early counsellor among the legislators of the colony, and as having immortalized by his blood a memorable field of battle and slaughter, but as the centre of a happy and virtuous household on a New England farm. He made that home happy by his benignant virtue. Although denied the blessing of children of his own, his fireside was enlivened with the prattle and gayeties of the young. Joy and hope and growth were within his walls. He was not a parent; but his heart was kept warm with parental affections. He had a home where dear ones waited for him, and rushed out to meet and cling round him with loving arms, and welcome him with merry voices, when he returned from the sessions of the General Court, or from campaigns against the French and Indians.

Besides these offices of beneficence in the domestic sphere, we find traces, in the local records, of constant usefulness and kindness among his rural neighbors. He was called, on all occasions, to advise and assist. As a judicious friend, he was relied upon and sought at the bedside of the sick and dying, and in families bereaved of their head. His name appears as a witness to wills, appraiser of estates, trustee and guardian of the young. He was the friend of all. I know not where to find a more perfect union of the hero and

the Christian; of all that is manly and chivalrous with all that is tender, benevolent, and devout.

With much allow her to

Somewhere about the year 1650, after he had been married a considerable time, he revisited his native country. A sister, Ellen, had, in the mean while, grown up from early childhood; and he found her all that a fond brother could have hoped for. persuasion, he besought his mother to return with him to America. He stated that he had no children; that he would be a father to her, and watch over aud care for her as for his own child. At length the mother yielded, and committed her daughter to his custody, not without great reluctance, trusting to his fraternal affection and plighted promise. He brought her over with him to his American home. She was worthy of his love, and he was true to his sacred and precious trust.

Ellen Lothrop became the wife of Ezekiel Cheever, the great schoolmaster; and I should consider myself false to all good learning, if I allowed the name of this famous old man to slip by, without pausing to pay homage to it. His record, as a teacher of a Latin Grammar School, is unrivalled. Twelve years at New Haven, eleven at Ipswich, nine at Charlestown, and more than thirty-eight at Boston, more than seventy in all, may it not be safely said that he was one of the very greatest benefactors of America? With Elijah Corlett, who taught a similar school at Cambridge for more than forty years, he bridged over the wide chasm between the education brought with them

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by the fathers from the old country, and the education that was reared in the new. They fed and kept alive the lamp of learning through the dark age of our history. All the scholars raised here were trained by them. One of Cotton Mather's most characteristic productions is the tribute to his venerated master. It flows from a heart warm with gratitude. Although he had usefully spent his life among children, yet he was not become twice a child," but held his faculties to the last. In this great work of bringing our sons to be men, he was my master seven and thirty years ago, was master to my betters no less than seventy years ago; so long ago, that I must even mention my father's tutor for one of them. He was a Christian of the old fashion, an old New England Christian; and I may tell you, that was as venerable a sight, as the world, since the days of primitive Christianity, has ever looked upon. He lived, as a master, the term which has been, for above three thousand years, assigned for the life of a man." Mather celebrated his praises in a poetical effusion:

"He lived, and to vast age no illness knew,

Till Time's scythe, waiting for him, rusty grew.
He lived and wrought; his labors were immense,
But ne'er declined to preterperfect tense.

"Tis Corlett's pains, and Cheever's, we must own,
That thou, New England, art not Scythia grown."

To our early schoolmasters, as Mather says, and the later too, I may add, it is owing, that the whole country did not become another Scythia.

In

About

Ezekiel Cheever was in this country as early as 1637. He was then in New Haven, sharing in the work of the first settlement of that colony, teaching school as his ordinary employment, but sometimes preaching, and in other ways helping to lay the foundations of church and commonwealth. While there, he had a family of several children. The first-born, Samuel, became the minister of Marblehead. 1650, he was keeping a school at Ipswich. this time, he lost his wife. On the 18th of November, 1652, he married Ellen, the sister whom Captain Lothrop had brought with him from England. They had several children; one of them, Thomas, was ordained first at Malden, and afterwards at Chelsea. The old schoolmaster died on the 21st of August, 1708, aged ninety-three years and seven months. His son Thomas reached the same age. Samuel, the minister at Marblehead, was eighty-five years old at his death. The name of Ezekiel, jr., appears on the rate-list of the village parish as late as 1731, so that he must have reached the age of at least seventy-seven years.

The antiquarians have been sorely perplexed in determining the relationship of the Cheevers and Reas, as they appear to be connected together as heirs of the Lothrop property, in an order of the General Court of the 11th of June, 1681.

The facts are these: Captain Lothrop married Bethia, daughter of Daniel Rea. He died without issue, and had made no will. As he was killed in battle, his widow undertook to set up a nuncupative

will. A snow-storm, on the day appointed to act upon the matter, so blocked up the roads, that neither Ezekiel Cheever nor his son Thomas, who had charge of his mother's rights, could get to Salem; and the court granted administration to the widow. The Cheevers demanded a rehearing: it was granted; and quite an interesting and pertinacious law-suit arose, which was finally carried up to the General Court, who decided it in 1681. The widow does not appear to have been actuated by merely selfish motives, but sought to divert a portion of the landed estate from the only legal heir, Ellen, the wife of Ezekiel Cheever, to other parties, in favor of whom her feelings were much enlisted. There is no indication of any unfriendliness between her and her "sister Cheever."

Lothrop's wife had become much attached to one of her connections, who had been brought into the family. Her husband, having been fond of children, had often expressed great affection for those of her brother, Joshua Rea. He had also sometimes, in expressing his interest in the Beverly Church, evinced a disposition to leave to it "his ten acre lot and his house upon the same," as a parsonage. Perhaps, if he had not been suddenly called away, he might have done something, particularly for the latter object. It appeared in evidence, from her statements and from others, that he had been importuned to make a will, and that it was much on his mind, particularly when recovering from a long and dangerous sickness the winter before his death; but he never could be