u again; goodbye.' I never
saw him again. He was killed that day. His extreme sadness, his
depression, was perhaps indicative of a conviction or presentiment of
some impending misfortune."

* * * * *

OLD DORCHESTER.

By Charles M. Barrows.

The quaint old Puritan annalist, James Blake, wrote as a preface to his
book of records:

"When many most Godly and Religious People that Dissented from y'e way
of worship then Established by Law in y'e Realm of England, in y'e Reign
of King Charles y'e first, being denied y'e free exercise of Religion
after y'e manner they professed according to y'e light of God's Word and
their own consciences, did under y'e Incouragment of a Charter Granted
by y'e S'd King, Charles, in y'e Fourth Year of his Reign, A.D. 1628,
Remoue themselues & their Families into y'e Colony of y'e Massachusetts
Bay in New England, that they might Worship God according to y'e light
of their own Consciences, without any burthensome Impositions, which was
y'e very motive & cause of their coming; Then it was, that the First
Inhabitants of Dorchester came ouer, and were y'e first Company or
Church Society that arriued here, next y'e Town of Salem who was one
year before them."

Nonconformity, then, was the "very motive and cause" which settled
Dorchester, the oldest town but one in Puritan New England, and planted
there a sturdy yeomanry to whom freedom of conscience was more than home
and dearer than life. Nor was this "vast extent of wilderness" to which
they succeeded by right of purchase from the heirs of Chickatabat any
such narrow area as that of the same name, recently annexed to the city
of Boston. It extended from what is now the northern limit of South
Boston to within a hundred and sixty rods of the Rhode Island line, thus
giving the township a length of about thirty-five miles "as y'e road
goethe." The late Ellis Ames, of Canton, a competent authority, says the
town "was formerly bounded by Boston, Roxbury, Dedham, Wrentham,
Taunton, Bridgewater and Braintree," so that its history is the history
of a large part of the towns in Norfolk county and a portion of Bristol.
The manner in which the original territory has been gradually reduced is
thus told by Mr. Ames: "Milton was set off in 1662; part of Wrentham, in
1724: Stoughton, in 1726; Sharon, in 1765; Foxborough, in 1778; Canton,
in 1797; strips were also set off to Dedham, pr