When the first settlers came to Cape Ann, each man, as we have seen, chose a piece of land on which to build his house. Some chose land at the Harbor, some at Fishermen's Field, and some at what is now Riverdale. But there were so few men in the town that acres and acres of land were not used. This was called common land. Most of this common land was covered with forests, and for forty, or fifty years nothing was done with it. Then the town decided to give six acres to each man who owned a house, and six acres to each young man who had been born here, lived here, and paid taxes. And so, on one bright day in 1688, all the men went to
the Meeting House on the Green and drew lots for shares of the common land. In 1700 there were still large tracts of common land owned by no one; but as new settlers were coming all the time, the town began to be a little more careful about giving away land. In 1707 another drawing was held at the Meeting House, when each com-moner and the minister received lots of six, eight, and ten acres apiece. You remember that the first settlers thatched the roofs of their houses with reeds. These reeds grew along the banks of Annisquam River, and the river banks were part of the common land. In 1709 the commoners drew lots once more and divided the thatch banks among themselves. As time went on, the common land was sold, and the commoners died, until now all we know about them is in a big book in City Hall, which tells what they did and who some of them were. A number of years' after Gloucester became a town, an Indian named Samuel English claimed all of Cape Ann, because it had once belonged to his grandfather, the sagamore, or chief, of the. Naumkeag tribe. After much dispute, the town paid Samuel English about fifty dollars, in order that it might own the land forever, free from any more Indian claims. Cape Ann was so well guarded by water and rocky shores that few of the savages in the vast forests to the westward came near enough to harm the settlers. But whenever the Indians put on their war paint, danced the war dance, and attacked the settlers in some other part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, brave Gloucester men were always among those who went to the defense of their brother colonists. In 1676, the Indians rose in what is called King Philip's War (after the Indian leader), and sixteen men, one-quarter of all the men in town, went to the war. After Philip was killed and the Indians subdued, the town of Gloucester gave these sixteen soldiers lots of the common land at Kettle Cove as a reward for their services. Not many years after, in the summer of 1692, there was great excitement in the neighboring town ofSalem. Men and women be-another. This 'excitement is said gan to call each other witchesatn to be terribly afraid of one to have started with the pranks of a few small children, who miere amused at tales of witchcraft told them by an old negress .rom the West Indies, and who spent their time playing at being witches. At last their mischief went so far that they were ashamed to confess that it was only fun, and the good people of Salem, thinking the children were in earnest, became one in our history. Nei hb g ors aeccualem ofgth eS witchcraft is a very dark so excited that the story sed each other, husbands their wives, and children their parents. Some were hanged, some pressed to death under heavy stones. Everybody was thoroughly frightened, and it seemed as if the only way to escape being called a witch was to accuse someone else first. The terrible excitement spread to Gloucester and one of the first to be put in prison was Abigail Somes, who stayed seven long months in Boston Jail. Another who was accused, but not put in prison, was Mrs. Ann Dolliver, whose father, Rev. John Higginson, was then minister of Salem. Mrs. Dolliver lived in the old Dolliver homestead, which you can see still standing on Main street, near the foot of Chestnut street. The witchcraft scare lasted several months, but at last, when winter was nearly over, it died out. Probably the people of both Salem and Gloucester came to be very sorry that they had allowed their feelings to sway them so far as to put to death helpless old men and women for something which we know now was only imagination. Our forefathers had other troubles besides those with witches and Indians. They had come to America to have as much freedom as possible, and they were unwilling to pay the heavy taxes which were laid on them by some of the rulers of England. One of these, King James II, would not let the people of the Massachusetts Bay Colony choose their own governor. He sent over Sir Edmund Andros, who was a very harsh governor, and who tried to make the people pay the heaviest taxes that had ever been asked of them. Indeed, some of the towns would not even try to pay, and Gloucester was one of these towns. Because they would not collect such unjust taxes from the townspeople, five of the selectmen and two of the settlers of Gloucester were taken before the court at Salem and ordered to pay a large fine. But the town very cheer-fully paid the fine, rather than submit to such harsh treatment. While Andros was trying to find a way to make the colonists pay the taxes, a new king, William of Orange, took his seat on the English throne. King William sent over Sir William Phips to take Andros' place. With the coming of the new governor, the colonists had an easier time, although all of their old liberties were not given back to them. This refusal on the part of the settlers to pay heavy taxes was one of the causes that led to the Revolutionary War and the found-ing of a new government, under which the colonists enjoyed the freedom that they had dreamed about and had suffered so many hardships to obtain.
ABBIE F. RUST.