Chornicals of the First Planters of CMB
Footnote on William Hubbard
Chap: 2
Pages; 34 & 35
2. William HUBBARD, from whose History of New-England this Chapter is taken, was born in England in 1621, and came to this country with his father in 1635. He was one of the first class that graduated at Harvard College, in 1642, and about the year 1657 was settled in the ministry at Ipswich, where he died Sept. 14, 1704, at the age of 83.
His History of New-England was completed in 1680, to which time it is brought down, but contains few facts after 1650. In 1682, the General Court of Massachusetts granted him fifty pounds as a manifestation of thankfulness for his work. It remained in manuscript till 1815, when it was published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in the 15th and 16th volumes of their Collections.
The manuscript was of at use to Mather, Prince, and Hutchinson, and until it was printed was held in high estimation as an original authority for our early history. But the collation of it with the complete edition of Gov. Winthrop's History of New-England, published by Mr. Savage in 1825, disclosed the, source, whence Hubbard had derived his facts, and even his language through successive pages. He seems to have sustained the same literary relation to Winthrop, that Secretary Morton did to Gov. Bradford, that of a close but not very accurate copyist. A just estimate of the value of his History is given by Mr. Savage in his note on Winthrop, i. 297.
The most original and valuable part of Hubbard's History is unquestionably this very Chapter, in which he gives us a statement of facts in relation to the first settlements at Cape Ann and Salem, which can be found nowhere else. Now from whom did he obtain these facts? Most probably from Roger Conant, the father of the Colony, of Whom he was a contemporary and neighbour. Living at Ipswich, he must have been acquainted with this porminent old planter, who resided but a few miles from him, at Beverly, and who survived till 1679.
Some of the facts which he relates he could hardly have obtained from any other source; as for instance, Mr. White's acquaintance with Conant's brother, his procuring Mr. Humphrey to write to Conant, and his subsequently writing to him himself "not to desert the business." The manner too in which Hubbard speaks of Conant, indicates one with whom he was personally acquainted, and for whose character and intellect he felt the highest respect. He speaks of him as " that good man," as " a religious, sober and prudent gentleman," and in a particular emergency, as "one inspired by a superior instinct."
In another part of his History he mentions "a strange impression on the mind of Roger Conant to pitch upon Naumkeag." Now the fact of such "inspiration" and "impression" could have been derived only from Conant's own mouth. We may therefore consider that in this Chapter we have Roger Conant's own narrative, as taken down by Hubbard in the conversations which he held with him when collecting the materials for his History.
I have copied this Chapter from Hubbard's MS., preserved in the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and have thus been enabled to correct several errors in the printed volume of the History. See Hutchinson's Mass. ii. 147, and Farmer's Memorials of the Graduates of Harvard College, pp. 12-17, .and Holmes's Annals of America, i. 490. (2d ed.)