The Story of Byfield. By John Lewis Ewell, D.D. (G.
E. Littlefield, Boston, U.S.A.)—Byfield is a parish in Essex County, Massachusetts, comprising parts of three small towns, Newbury, Rowley, and Georgetown. In the story which Professor Ewell tells nothing is more pleasing than his description of the pious journeys which he took to the " Ancestral Homes in England." From Devonshire to Yorkshire, he visited the various places from which the first settlers of Byfield came. The history begins in the first half of the seventeenth century, the names of Dummer, Sewall, and Spofford being conspicuous among the pioneers. An inventory of the goods of a wealthy inhabitant of the second generation (Richard Dummer, d. 1689) is interesting. His lands and "privilidges " are valued at 42,000; his wearing apparel at 430; his plate at £2; his arms (including a cane priced at 7s.) at 49 19s.; and his books at 45. The last item on the list is a "Neagro," valued at 460, a. price which may be compared with the 420 which is set down for a "Hoes and Furnitture." Slavery appears again and again. At the very beginning of the national existence the Abolition controversy was active. Benjamin Colman not un- reasonably urged on his countrymen when they were struggling for freedom that they should give it to those whom they held in bondage. He had a fierce dispute with his pastor about it, and, as one might expect, had a majority of the Church members against him. He was suspended from communion, and not restored for nearly five years, and then only on his acknowledging that he had "urged his arguments against the slavery of Africans with excessive vehemence and asperity." He certainly came off the worse when, accepting the minister's challenge to put the question to the slave woman Violet whether she wanted to be free, he "got an answer that was too emphatic for publication, and that restrained him from ever repeating his inquiry." Violet, indeed, flatly refused the gift of freedom when it was offered her by her master. "Yon have had the best of me," she said, "and you and yours must have the worst." She lived till close upon ninety, and was buried in the family tomb. We hope these parish histories will become as frequent in the States as they are here.
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