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Page 29
It was a curious theory of Frater Johannes Drabicius, that the principal
employment of the blessed in heaven will be the continual ringing of
bells; and he occupied four hundred and twenty-five pages of a work
printed at Mentz, in 1618, to prove the same.
Truly has it been said: "From youth to age the sound of the bell is sent
forth through crowded streets, or floats with sweetest melody above the
quiet fields. It gives a tongue to time, which would otherwise pass over
our heads as silently as the clouds, and lends a warning to its
perpetual flight. It is the voice of rejoicing at festivals, at
christenings, at marriages, and of mourning at the departure of the
soul. From every church-tower it summons the faithful of distant valleys
to the house of God; and when life is ended they sleep within the bell's
deep sound. Its tone, therefore, comes to be fraught with memorial
associations, and we know what a throng of mental images of the past can
be aroused by the music of a peal of bells.
'O, what a preacher is the time-worn tower,
Reading great sermons with its iron tongues.'"
* * * * *
[Illustration]
CHELSEA.
By William E. McClintock, C.E.
[City Engineer of Chelsea.]
Sheltered from the winds of the Atlantic by the outlying towns of Revere
and Winthrop, and that section of the metropolis known as East Boston,
Chelsea occupies a peninsula, once called Winnisimmet, fronting on the
Mystic River and its two tributaries, the Island End and Chelsea Rivers.
Its area of fourteen hundred acres presents an undulating surface,
rising from the level of the salt marshes to four considerable
elevations, known as Hospital Hill, Mount Bellingham, Powderhom Hill,
and Mount Washington.
[Illustration: OLD FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH.
Corner of Broadway and Third Street.]
Originally it was included within the township of Boston, and was
settled as early as 1630; and a few years later was connected with
Boston by the Winnisimmet Ferry, whose charter, granted in 1639, makes
it the oldest chartered ferry company in the United States.
In those early days the Winnisimmet Ferry connected the foot of Hanover
Street, in Boston, with the old road leading to Salem and the eastward,
which followed the course of Washington Avenue.
Samuel Maverick, of Noddle's Island, an early settler, was the first
claimant of the land. Richard Bellingham, "the unbending, faithful old
man, skilled from his youth in English law, perhaps the draughtsman of
the charter [of the Massachusetts Colony], certainly familiar with it
from its beginning, was chosen to succeed Endicott," as governor. About
1634, he came into possession of most of Winnisimmet, but his title was
rather obscure; it was confirmed to him, however, by the town of Boston,
in 1640. He is not known to have lived upon his estate. He divided the
land into four farms, which he let to tenants,--subdivisions which
remained substantially the same for two centuries. The government
reservation is said to have remained in the possession of Samuel
Maverick.
[Illustration: WINNISIMMET FERRY LANDING.
About forty years ago.]
Governor Bellingham died in 1672, at the age of eighty, and, although
a lawyer and a good man, left behind him a will which gave rise to
litigation that continued for over a century. As this instrument affects
every title in Chelsea, it becomes of public interest. He bequeathed the
estate of Winnisimmet to trustees, to be devoted to the support of his
widow, his son, and his two nieces, during their lives, after which it
was to be used to build a meeting-house, support a minister, and educate
a limited number of young men for the ministry.
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