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BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY,

CONTAINING

A BRIEF ACCOUNT

OF THE

FIRST SETTLERS,

AND

OTHER EMINENT CHARACTERS

AMONG THE

MAGISTRATES, MINISTERS,

LITERARY AND WORTHY MEN,

NEW-ENGLAND.

BY JOHN ELIOT, D.D.

Corresponding Secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

These were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of
their times.

Son of Syrach.

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PUBLISHED BY CUSHING AND APPLETON, SALEM,
AND EDWARD OLIVER, No. 70, STATE STREET, BOSTON.

1809.

E. OLIVER, PRINTER.

4

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS-To wit.

BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the eighth day of September, in the thirty fourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, JOHN ELIOT, junior, of the said district, has deposited in this office, the title of a Book, the Right whereof he claims as Proprietor, in the words following-to

wit:

"A Biographical Dictionary, containing a brief account of the first settlers, and other eminent characters among the magistrates, ministers, literary and worthy men, in New England. By John Eliot, D. D. Corresponding Secreta

ry of the Massachusetts Historical Society. These were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times. SON OF SYRACH."

In conformity to the Act of the congress of the United States, entitled, "An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the times therein mentioned ;" and also to an Act entitled, "An act supplementary to an Act, entitled an Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies during the times therein mentioned; and extending the benefits thereof to the Arts of Designing, Engraving and Etching Historical, and other Prints."

WILLIAM S. SHAW, Clerk of the District of Massachusetts.

W

PREFACE.

FOR the credit of human nature, some men have appeared in every age, who adorned their lives by good actions, or their publick stations by the dignity, virtue, and splendid excellencies of their characters. Memoirs of such persons excite a lively interest, and, from admiring their extraordinary qualities, we desire to see them in various attitudes, and to know the incidents of their private life. Hence encouragement is given to works of biography, which, in some form or other, are daily issuing from the press. Even short sketches of eminent men have been thought instructive, as well as entertaining.

The first discoverers of this quarter of the globe possessed the spirit of enterprise in a very uncommon degree. The fathers of New England were remarkable for their piety and moral worth, and also for their active virtues. They were men of firmness and resolution, ready to endure every suffering, for the sake of civil and religious freedom. They had to level forests where savage beasts, and savage men had roamed for ages, and to make comfortable dwelling places amidst barren deserts. By their sagacity and prudence, their attention to the means of improving their situation, they soon enjoyed the blessings of civilized and cultivated society: Among the first planters, we find men of genius and literary acquirements, who would have been conspicuous as statesmen in the courts of Europe, or as divines of the church of England. It is no wonder that their characters were so highly esteemed by the puritans in their own country, or that they shone as lights in the dark places of this American wilderness: Cotton, Hooker and Davenport might well rank with the Lightfoots and Owens of the age; they had equal reputation as scholars at the universities. President Chauncy, as professor of Greek, or Hebrew, had no superiour, and might have had any preferment in the national church, if he had become subservient to the views of

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