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Page 23
As showing some of the phases of a common humanity, the reading of the
trial is interesting. Mr. Cheever, who was then thirty-five years old,
was desired to answer these charges of unseemly gestures, which his
accusers had brought down to a rather small point, such as holding down
his head into the seat, "then laughing or smiling," and also "wrapping
his handkerchief about his face, and then pulling it off again;" and
still another, "that his carriage was offensively uncomely," three
affirming "that he rather carried it as one acting a play, than as one
in the presence of God in an ordinance."
In his answer to these, Mr. Cheever explained his actions as arising
from violent headaches, which, coming upon him usually "on the Lord's
day in the evening, and after church meeting," were mitigated by winding
his handkerchief around his head 'as a fillet.' As to his smiling or
laughing, "he knew not whether there was any more than a natural,
ordinary cheerfulness of countenance seeming to smile, which whether it
be sinful or avoidable by him, he knew not;" but he wished to humble
himself for the "least appearance of evil, and occasion of offence, and
to watch against it." As to his working with the church, he said: "I
must act with the church, and (which is uncomfortable) I must either act
with their light, or may expect to suffer, as I have done, and do at
this day, for conscience' sake; but I had rather suffer anything from
men than make a shipwreck of a good conscience or go against my present
light, though erroneous, when discovered."
He then went on to say that, while he did not wholly free himself from
blame as to his carriage, and as to his "want of wisdom and coolness in
ordering and uttering his speeches," yet he could not be convinced as
yet that he had been guilty of "Miriam's sin," or deserved the censure
which the church had inflicted upon him; and he could not look upon it
"as dispensed according to the rules of Christ." Then he closed his
address with the following words, which will give some idea of his
Christian spirit: "Yet I wait upon God for the discovery of truth in His
own time, either to myself or church, that what is amiss may be repented
of and reformed; that His blessing and presence may be among them and
upon His holy ordinances rightly dispensed, to His glory and their
present and everlasting comfort, which I heartily pray for, and am so
bound, having received much good and comfort in that fellowship, though
I am now deprived of it."
At about this time of his trial with the church he was afflicted by the
death of his wife. Three more children had been born to them--Elizabeth,
Sarah, and Hannah. Soon after this, in 1650,--and, it has been said, on
account of his troubles,--he removed to Ipswich, Massachusetts, to
become master of the grammar school there. His services as teacher in
New Haven must have been valued, if one can judge by the amount of
salary received, for, in the case of the teacher who followed him, the
people were not willing "to pay as large a salary as they had done to
Mr. Cheever," and so they gave him ten pounds a year.
After Mr. Cheever had been in Ipswich two years, Robert Payne, a
philanthropic man, gave to the town a dwelling-house with two acres of
land for the schoolmaster; he also gave a new schoolhouse for the
school, of which this man was the appreciated teacher; for many
neighboring towns sent scholars to him, and it was said that those who
received "the Cheeverian education" were better fitted for college than
any others.
In November of this same year he married Ellen Lathrop, sister of
Captain Thomas Lathrop, of Beverly, who two years before had brought her
from England to America with him, with the promise that he would be a
father to her. While living in Ipswich they had four children, Abigail,
Ezekiel, Nathaniel, and Thomas; two more, William and Susanna, were born
later, in Charlestown. Their son Ezekiel must have lived to a good old
age, at least seventy-seven years, for as late as 1731 his name appears
in the annals of the village parish of Salem, where he became heir to
Captain Lathrop's real estate; while their son Thomas, born in 1658, was
graduated at Harvard College in 1677, was settled as a minister at
Malden, Massachusetts, and later at Rumney Marsh (Chelsea),
Massachusetts, where he died at a good old age.
After having thus lived in Ipswich eleven years, Mr. Cheever removed,
in 1661, to Charlestown, Massachusetts, to become master of the school
there at a salary of thirty pounds a year. The smallness of this salary
astonishes and suggests much to the modern reader; but when he is
informed that the worthy teacher was obliged during his teaching there
to petition the selectmen that his "yeerly salarie be paid to him, as
the counstables were much behind w'th him," the whole matter becomes
pathetic. Mr. Cheever also asked that the schoolhouse, which was much
out of order, be repaired. And in 1669 he is again before them asking
for a "peece of ground or house plott whereon to build an house for his
familie," which petition he left for the townsmen to consider. They
afterward voted that the selectmen should carry out the request, but as
Mr. Cheever removed in the following year to Boston, it is probable that
his successor had the benefit of it.
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