1623-1628
In summer
1625, a group of planters led by Richard Wollaston arrive at Wessagusset with
forty servants. They settle three miles to the north at Passonagesset, which
offers better access to Massachusetts Bay. “Mt. Wollaston,” they call the
plantation in honor of their captain but the real leader is Thomas Morton, born
a sportsman, bred a lawyer, ingrained an adventurer.
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| Thomas Morton (reputed portrait) |
Long Tom
has visited these shores before, as a member of the settlement financed by
Weston. His three months in New England in 1622 left an indelible impression of
the country: “The more I looked, the more I liked it. In mine eye ’twas
Nature’s Masterpiece, her chiefest magazine of all. If this land be not rich,
then is the whole world poor!”
Morton
found the Massachusett Indians “more full of humanity than the Christians. The
more savages the better quarter, the more Christians the worser quarter I had.
These people lead the more happy and freer life, being void of care which
torments the minds of many Christians.”
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| Secotan warriors in North Carolina. Watercolour painted by John White in 1585. British Museum, London via Wikipedia |
In many
ways, Thomas Morton is the first American frontiersman, a bold and
independent-thinker with contempt for bigots. Long Tom’s enemies will
repeatedly banish him from the colony. Always he returns to a land he loves
with passion.
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| Mount Wollaston (circa 1840) |
In spring
1626, Wollaston decides that he can do better in Virginia and leaves with
fifteen servants. He sells their indentures and sends word for his
second-in-command, Rasdall, to bring fifteen more.
When only ten servants
remain and the plantation is threatened with extinction, Thomas Morton strikes
the first blow for freedom in New England:
“Will you
be transported to Virginia to be sold like slaves or will you stay at Mar-re-Mount,
my lads? Lusty, brave and free as the air you breathe?”
A great
huzzah seals Long Tom’s declaration of independence and the birth of
Mar-re-Mount, as he re-christens Mt. Wollaston.
Imagining Boston -- 14
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