At a County Court held at Boston 27 July 1659 Mary Reynolds deposed this pap. to be a true Inventory of her Late husbands ROBERT REYNOLDS Estate to her best knowledge that when she knowes more she will discover it. Edw. Rawson Recorder." The Family Church: Robert and Mary and their five children from the first attended the First Church of Boston, the only Boston congregation until 1650. Our family was thus early grounded in the Congregational faith of New England, in which the early generations continued and in which many Eastern descendants still remain. The first minister of this church was the Reverend John Wilson, who was educated at Cambridge University, England. It is interesting to note that his grand-daughter, Susanna Rawson, the daughter of the Reverend Grindall Rawson, married Benjamin Reynolds, grandson of Robert Reynolds. The original building of the First‡ Church of Boston was erected in August, 1632, at a cost of about £120 raised by subscription. It was a not very large one-story, thatched roof building of rough stone walls. chinked with mud to keep out Boston's bitter Northeasters. The building was not heated, and it probably did not have many, or any, large windows a very uncomfortable and austere place of worship. It§ stood at a spot now surrounded by a court or alley on the southwest corner of modern State (No. 27) and Devonshire Streets, but a few blocks from our Robert's home. It was not put up until Boston was almost two years old; meanwhile the Boston people had attended church in their earlier settlement of Charlestown. Almost before the door of the church itself was the town whipping post. The building was abandoned in 1640, probably because it was too small, and a new one was erected at a cost of about £1000 on the west side of Washington Street in front of what is NOTES: The original is not added up to a total. The above amount was then a considerable sum. Long Island was probably in Boston Harbor. Muddy River is modern Brookline. "Doublett"— an obsolete, close-fitting garment for men, reaching to the waist or a little below. "Bandeleer"—a soldier's broad leather belt, slung over the shoulder, and used for carrying the musket or ammunition. "Trammel"—an iron hook for hanging vessels over the fire, or, perhaps a fish-net. "Chaffer"-warming-pan. The 2 "Bibles and books" may have included the old religious work mentioned previously in this Chapter. Was the military equipment Robert's or that of his son, Nathaniel, then of the Ancient & Honorable Artillery Company? The compiler never has carefully traced the transfer of possession of the various tracts of land owned by Robert. The £120 "book debts" is so large, for that time, that it was perhaps a loan to some one. IN. E. H. G. Register, 1860, p. 152: see also History of First Church of Boston. now Young's Hotel. This second home of the First Church was burned in 1711, but it was soon rebuilt of brick. The Second Church Society about 1650 built the famous old North Church, later celebrated for its connection with Paul Revere's ride. It was over a half-mile distant from Robert's home. The Third Society was housed in the Old South Church which was erected of wood in 1670 on what had been Governor John Winthrop's "green." This was on the corner just across from Robert's home corner. The present Old South building on the same spot was put up in 1729. Under the detested Governor Andros, King's Chapel was built in 1689 as the First Church of England building in Boston. The record of Robert's admission (1634) to the First Church, the first mention of him in the New World, reads: "10th (a Sunday) of 6th Mo. (as August was then so considered) Robert Reynoldes, Shoomaker, and Edward Hutchinson, ye younger, a single man." (Winsor: Hist. Boston, I: 569.) It had been decided in 1631 by the General Court that none but church members should be admitted freemen. To this same church in 1645 was admitted Mary Reynolds, most probably Robert's daughter who was soon afterwards married. In it were baptized the children of Robert's only son, Captain Nathaniel, and the children of Robert's grandson, Nathaniel, Jr. The regular First Church preachers under whose long sermons Robert and his family sat of a Sunday were John Wilson (1630-d. 1667), John Cotton (1633-52), and John Norton (1656-1663). It was likely Norton who conducted his funeral service. Religious feeling ran high, and there was often much excitement in the Church over abstruse questions of theology, such as those raised, for instance, by Anne Hutchinson. The attitude of the First Church towards her (1637) and the Quakers, and the Salem radical, Roger Williams, is strongly evidenced. The Puritans considered these people to be dangerous elements, and drove them into exile in Rhode Island. The interest of our Robert and Nathaniel in the contentious theology of the day is vividly brought home to us by our possession of the fat old theological tome written by the Reverend Andrew Willett, which has come down from them to us. Robert's friend, Captain Keaynet, came in for the censure of this censorious Church: "The 26th day of ye same 9th Moneth (1639) being a day of Publique fast for our Congregation, our brother Mr. Robert Keayne was Admonisht by or Pastor in ye Name of ye Church for selling his wares at excessive rates, to ye Dishonor of God's Name, ye Offence of ye Generall Cort, & ye publique Scandall of ye Cuntry." The Passing of the Elders: Robert himself was the first of this family to die, but it would seem very likely that he had other children who had died before coming to America or during Robert's life-time in America. His will is the sole original document giving us the names and relationships of the second generation as we have constructed it in this book. It naturally does not refer to any possibly deceased other members of his family, and gives no hint of England, nor of any of his brothers or sisters, if he had any. The Boston birth, marriage and death records-unhappily far from perfect or complete-in this early period name no other Reynoldses than are in this genealogy. We do not know certainly where Robert and Mary and their daughters are buried. It is most probable that Robert, however, was buried in King's Chapel Burying Ground, northeast corner of modern Tremont and School Streets, Boston, as that was the only cemetery at the time of Robert's death in 1659. It follows that the widow Mary (d. 1663) and some of her children may have been buried there. The Granary Burial Ground just north of the Park Street Church (oldest stone is dated 1667) was opened about a year after Robert's death; it may contain some of the third or fourth generation descendants. Naturally at this date no Reynolds headstones remain. The brown or grey 1662. †R. G. Thwaites: The Colonies, p. 128. Winsor: Hist. Boston, I: 554. Copps Hill Cemetery was opened 1659-60; oldest stone bears date stone then used was too soft to withstand the weathering of two and a half centuries. Most of the original party of Winthrop were buried in King's Chapel Yard, which was a cemetery for fifty years before the Chapel itself was built within its enclosure. Robert's friends, Governor John Winthrop (d. 1649), Captain Robert Keayne (d. 1656), Rev. John Cotton, and Benjamin Church, are buried there. The headstone of Edward Marion, who m. Mary' Reynolds, daughter of Nathaniel, 2nd, is still to be seen there. We conclude that Robert and Mary, and probably Nathaniel, 2nd, and Nathaniel, 3rd, were interred in King's Chapel Ground. Captain Nathaniel, son of Robert, was probably buried in the old (East) cemetery in the heart of Bristol, R. I., where he died in 1708, after almost thirty years' residence there. No stone is found for him; he may lie near his son Joseph. Joseph's head-stone (he d. 1659, just a century after the death of his grandfather Robert) bears the fine old arms of the family. A picture appears in this book. Captain Nathaniel, a shoe-maker and tanner, was the first of seven consecutive Nathaniels traced in this book. Every one of them was an expert shoe craftsman. The Boston Home: It would be most interesting to know what Robert's home looked like in the later years of his life, say about 1650. If we were standing where the Old South Church of Boston now is, we should be upon the Governor's lawn. Next behind us would be the home of Winthrop, which after 1670 was for many years used as a parsonage for the minister of the Old South. Nearby on the other side of that house was a fine natural spring from which the townsmen of the immediate vicinity used to get their water. Next down Milk Street and adjoining Winthrop was the home of Atherton Hough, who was, like John Cotton, of Lincolnshire. Not far down the gentle slope, Milk Street ran into the marshes and mud-flats and eventually the harbor. The streets were of dirt, or were pebbled, and probably much rutted by the carts and chaises of the time. The sidepaths were hard-packed dirt or cobbles or flags. The first school-house, on School Street, was later demolished to make room for enlarging King's Chapel. Robert's house was on the corner across Milk Street from the GoverProbably it was a large frame house, gambrel roof with generous gables. It was chinked with clay-mud or battened to keep out the winds of winter. Originally it was most likely thatched roof, and later it may have been shingled or shaked. Surely in the house there was an immense fire-place, with the chimney dominating one end of the outside of the house. Probably there were not many rooms within, two or three, or four, at most. It may have had one window, perhaps two, not of very great size. Heavy, hewn timbers, browned and seasoned in the smoke of the fireplace, were the beams and rafters of the rooms; and if there was a second-story, a rude ladder was the only stairs. |