John Motley, the great-grandfather of the subject of this Memoir, came in
the earlier part of the last century from Belfast in Ireland to Falmouth,
now Portland, in the District, now the State of Maine. He was twice
married, and had ten children, four of the first marriage and six of the
last. Thomas, the youngest son by his first wife, married Emma, a
daughter of John Wait, the first Sheriff of Cumberland County under the
government of the United States. Two of their seven sons, Thomas and
Edward, removed from Portland to Boston in 1802 and established
themselves as partners in commercial business, continuing united and
prosperous for nearly half a century before the firm was dissolved.

The earlier records of New England have preserved the memory of an
incident which deserves mention as showing how the historian's life was
saved by a quickwitted handmaid, more than a hundred years before he was
born. On the 29th of August, 1708, the French and Indians from Canada
made an attack upon the town of Haverhill, in Massachusetts. Thirty or
forty persons were slaughtered, and many others were carried captive into
Canada.

The minister of the town, Rev. Benjamin Rolfe, was killed by a bullet
through the door of his house. Two of his daughters, Mary, aged
thirteen, and Elizabeth, aged nine, were sleeping in a room with the
maid-servant, Hagar. When Hagar heard the whoop of the savages she
seized the children, ran with them into the cellar, and, after concealing
them under two large washtubs, hid herself. The Indians ransacked the
cellar, but missed the prey. Elizabeth, the younger of the two girls,
grew up and married the Rev. Samuel Checkley, first minister of the "New
South" Church, Boston. Her son, Rev. Samuel Checkley, Junior, was
minister of the Second Church, and his successor, Rev. John Lothrop, or