I propose to illustrate this by a very particular enumeration of
instances, and by details that will give us an insight of the
personal, domestic, and social elements that constituted the condition
of life in the earliest age of New England, particularly in that part
of the old township of Salem where the scene of our story is laid. I
shall give an account of the persons and families who first settled
the region included in, and immediately contiguous to, Salem Village,
and whose children and grandchildren were actors or sufferers in, or
witnesses of, the witchcraft delusion. I am able, by the map, to show
the boundaries, to some degree of precision, of their farms, and the
spots on or near which their houses stood.

The first grant of land made by the company, after it had got fairly
under way, was of six hundred acres to Governor Winthrop, on the 6th
of September, 1631, "near his house at Mystic." The next was to the
deputy-governor, Thomas Dudley, on the 5th of June, 1632, of two
hundred acres "on the west side of Charles River, over against the new
town," now Cambridge. The next, on the 3d of July, 1632, was three
hundred acres to John Endicott. It is described, in the record, as
"bounded on the south side with a river, commonly called the Cow House
River, on the north side with a river, commonly called the Duck River,
on the east with a river, leading up to the two former rivers, known
by the name of Wooleston River, and on the west with the main land."
The meaning of the Indian word applied to this territory was
"Birch-wood." At the period of the witchcraft delusion, and for some
time afterwards, "Cow House River" was called "Endicott River."
Subsequently it acquired the name of "Waters River."

This grant constituted what was called "the Governor's Orchard Farm."