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The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 by Various
page 51 of 376 (13%)
clearings and settlements across the Powow. So, December 26, 1642, about
three years after this little colony had crossed the Merrimack, a town
meeting was held in which it was voted:--"Yere shall thirtie families
remove to the west side of ye Powowas river." This motion was very easy
to carry. But it had not been voted what families were to move on beyond
the immediate protection of the small colony at East Salisbury. Who was
to go? Every man sat still in his place and nodded to his neighbor with
a "Thou art the man," in manner if not in words. It seems to us a very
little thing to give or take the advice, "Go West young man,--or woman."
But it was very different then. To do it meant, besides living encircled
by forests, to be obliged to go on Sunday through these forests, worse
than lonely, to the meeting-house at East Salisbury, and always with the
possibility of being at any moment obliged to flee all the distance to
that town for comparative safety, perhaps of being obliged to flee in
the night. Signals of alarm were arranged by the General Court. Alarm
was to be given "by distinctly discharging three muskets, or by
continual beat of the drum, or firing the beacon, or discharging a pesse
of ordnance, and every trained soldier is to take the alarm immediately
on paine of five pound." It was also ordered, "That every town provide a
sufficient place for retreat for their wives and children to repaire to,
as likewise to keepe safe the ammunition thereof." And also, "That all
watches throughout this country bee set at sunset at the beat of the
drums, & not bee discharged till the beate of the drum at sunne rising."

But those old Puritans were not men to be bundled by any of the
weaknesses of human nature. In ten days, when it was found that nobody
had started "westward, ho!" another town-meeting was held, in which, in
spite of the dangers to be encountered by the new colony, the first vote
was re-affirmed, and it was decided that "the thirtie families be chosen
by ye seven men," probably the selectmen. And to ensure the matter,
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