But, before relating the adventures of the chair, Grandfather found it
necessary to speak of the circumstances that caused the first settlement
of New England. For it will soon be perceived that the story of this
remarkable chair cannot be told without telling a great deal of the
history of the country.

So, Grandfather talked about the Puritans, as those persons were called
who thought it sinful to practise the religious forms and ceremonies which
the Church of England had borrowed from the Roman Catholics. These
Puritans suffered so much persecution in England that, in 1607, many of
them went over to Holland, and lived ten or twelve years at Amsterdam and
Leyden. But they feared that, if they continued there much longer, they
should cease to be English, and should adopt all the manners and ideas and
feelings of the Dutch. For this and other reasons, in the year 1620, they
embarked on board of the ship Mayflower, and crossed the ocean to the
shores of Cape Cod. There they made a settlement, and called it Plymouth;
which, though now a part of Massachusetts, was for a long time a colony by
itself. And thus was formed the earliest settlement of the Puritans in
America.

Meantime, those of the Puritans who remained in England continued to
suffer grievous persecution on account of their religious opinions. They
began to look around them for some spot where they might worship God, not
as the king and bishops thought fit, but according to the dictates of
their own consciences. When their brethren had gone from Holland to
America, they bethought themselves that they likewise might find refuge
from persecution there. Several gentlemen among them purchased a tract of
country on the coast of Massachusetts Bay, and obtained a charter from
King Charles, which authorized them to make laws for the settlers. In the
year 1628, they sent over a few people, with John Endicott at their head,