attained, under the ministrations of Samuel Skelton of Cambridge, in
England, the religious awakening which placed him in the forefront of the
Puritan dissenters of his time; and it may be surmised that the force of
nature which gave him his self-command would, otherwise directed, have
opened still wider the gates of license and recklessness which marked the
conduct of many in that period. But, having taken his course, he
disciplined himself to the strictest observances, and required them of
others. He was a man of perfect moral and physical courage, austere and
choleric; yet there was in him a certain cheerfulness and kindliness, like
sunshine touching the ruggedness of a granite bowlder. An old portrait of
him presents a full and ruddy countenance, without a beard, and with large
eyes which gaze sternly out upon the beholder. When the Massachusetts
Company was formed, it contained many men of pith and mark, such as
Saltonstall, Bellingham, Eaton, and others; but, by common consent,
Endicott was chosen as the first governor of the new realm, and he sailed
for Boston harbor in June, 1628. He took with him his wife and children,
and a small following of fit companions, and landed in September.

Many tales are told of the doings of Endicott in Massachusetts. Like
those of all strong men, his deeds were often embellished with legendary
ornaments, but the exaggerations, if such there be, are colored by a true
conception of his character. At the time of his advent, there was at
Merrymount, or Mount Walloston, now within the boundaries of Quincy, near
Boston, a colony which was a survival of the one founded by Thomas Weston,
through the agency of Thomas Morton, an English lawyer, who was more than
once brought to book for unpuritanical conduct. Here was collected, in
1628, a number of waifs and strays, and other persons, not in sympathy
with the rigorous habits of the Puritans, whose proceedings were of a more
or less licentious and unbecoming quality, calculated to disturb the order
and propriety of the realm. Endicott, on being apprised of their behavior,