|
REHOBOTH and ATTLEBORO. 229 |
  |
|
Washington Street, North Attleboro who sold his inheritance and grew poor through vicious habits. He lived for a while in Connecticut, but returned to Attleboro, from which he was expelled with his wife Catherine in 1718, after which time little is known of him. Another famous personage who dwelt for a time in Rehoboth was Roger Williams. After being driven from Boston he took up his abode in Seekonk on Martin’s Neck. He was not allowed to remain undisturbed, however, for Governor Winslow wrote him that he had better move on, and so with five friends he sailed to India Point, where he received the famous salutation of "What Cheer" from the Indians, and founded Providence. A detailed history cannot of course be given here. Those who wish for that will find it among the early records, in Bliss’s or Daggett’s histories. For fifty years after the land was divided among the proprietors, as the early settlers were called, the forests were felled, the land was cultivated, the population slowly increased, additions coming from other places on this side of the water and from the old homes across the sea, and the little settlement gradually became a fair-sized town. The church of course was prominent in the hearts of the people, church and state in their minds and habits being closely associated. These pioneers were a church-going, Bible-loving people, and ordered their lives in strict accordance with what they considered the divine will. They were a colony of brave, determined men and women, voluntary exiles from their far-off home, with definite ideas of life and destiny, fearing nothing earthly, wresting hard, persistent labor, — the women doing their full share of work in the humble home. Westward was a vast, almost untrodden forest, which few white men cared or dared to penetrate, and which it was expected would long remain a terra incognita. Their portion was to improve the land which was theirs. In 1662 John Brown, one of the first purchasers, died. In 1663 Rev. Mr. Newman died, at the age of sixty-three; his wife Basheba surviving him till 1687. They were buried in the cemetery just |
