General Notes

From Batchelder, Batcheller Genealogy compiled by Frederick Clifton Pierce in 1898:

"From tradition and the characteristics of his descendants, it is probable that he was tall and sinewy, with prominent features, especially the nose; a very dark complexion; black, coarse hair in early days, white in age, mouth large and firm, eyes black as sloes; features long rather than broad; a strong, clear voice; rather slow of motion and speech; simple in dress, wearing in Lynn a suit of liste which he brought from England; obstinate and tenacious of his opinions to a marked degree; a powerful preacher, drawing largely from the scripture and impressing his hearers with the uncommon power and sanctity of his sermons; strong in his friendships and his hates."

From John Greenleaf Whittier, a descendant, "The tradition is that Mr. Bachiler was a man of remarkable personal presence, and was particularly noticeable on account of his wonderful eyes; they were dark and deep set, under broad arches, and could throw lightning glances upon occasion. For more than a century the Batcheler eye has been proverbial and in Essex county, Massachusetts, the striking feature has been steadily maintained. The resemblance between Whittier and Daniel Webster were long ago observed by those who were unaware of any relationship. Though unlike in many respects, there appeared to be a marked similarity in their broad and massive brows, swarthy complexions and expressive eyes. The characteristic of the eyes were in the looks of inscrutable depth, the power of shooting out sudden gleams, and the power of tender and lovable expression as well. It is now known that not only Whittier, Webster, but W. Pitt Fessenden, Caleb Cushing, William B. Green and other prominent men inherited their fine features, penetrating eyes and gravity of manner from the same ancestor, Rev. Stephen Bachiler. The majestic bearing and the presence of Webster were everywhere known. The keen glances of Cushing, the eminent scholar and diplomat; the deep looks of Col. Green were well remembered in Massachusetts. "



REV. STEPHEN BACHILER, OF LYNN.

(From the History of Lynn.)
Among the early settlers of Lynn were some persons of high reputation, and most of them appeared to have been men of good character and of comfortable property. There is no evidence that any of them had abandoned the church, or been persecuted for their opinions, with the exception of the Rev. Stephen Bachiler, and the few persons in his connection.
Governor Winthrop, who came over with them, begins his journal on "Easter Monday," which Mr. Savage says was "duly honored;" and it is not until nearly five years after, that we catch a glimpse of his Puritanism, which he begins to date on "eleventh month."
If all the inhabitants of Lynn, excepting Mr. Bachiler and his six adherents, were Episcopalians, how happened it that they at once zealously lent him their aid in forming the church here? Good churchmen would as soon have thought of fraternizing with Hugh Peters as Mr. Bachiler. His ardent temperament and remembered wrongs led him to manifest such envenomed opposition to the church that it is not clearly seen how her devout children could have been attracted to his fold.
1632. For the first three years the people of Lynn had no minister, but some of them attended church at Salem, and others had meetings for prayer and exhortation. The Rev. Stephen Bachiler, with his family, arrived at Boston on Thursday, 5 June, after tedious passage of eighty-eight days. He came in the ship William and Francis, Capt. Thomas, which sailed from London, 9 March. He immediately came to Lynn, where his daughter Theodate, wife of Christopher Hussey, resided. He was seventy-one years of age. In his company were six persons who had belonged to a church with him in England; and of these he constituted a church at Lynn, to which he admitted such as desired to become members, and commenced the exercise of public ministrations on Sunday, 8 June, without installation. He baptized four children, born before his arrival; two of whom, Thomas Newhall and Stephen Hussey, were born the same week. Thomas, being the first white child born in Lynn, was first presented, but Mr. Bachiler put him aside, saying, "I will baptize my own child first," meaning his daughter's.
Mr. Bachiler had been in the performance of his pastoral about four months, when a complaint was made of some irregularities in his conduct. He was arraigned before the court at Boston, on the 3rd of October, when the following order was passed: "Mr. Bachiler is required to forbear exercising his giftes as a pastor or teacher publiquely in our pattent, unlesse it be to those he brought with him, for his contempt of authority, and until some scandal be removed." This was the commencement of a series of difficulties which agitated the unhappy church for several years.(*) In the course of a few months, Mr. Bachiler had so far succeeded in regaining the esteem of the people that the court, on the 4th March, removed their injunction that he should not preach in the colony, and left him at liberty to resume the performance of his public services.
1636. Mr. Bachiler had been readily dismissed from his pastoral charge, in expectation that he would desist from its exercise, or remove from the town; instead of which, he renewed his covenant with the persons who came with him from England, intending to continue his ministration. The people opposed this design, as its tendency would be to frustrate their intention of settling another minister; they therefore complained to the magistrates, who forbade his proceeding. Finding that he disregarded their injunction, and refused to appear before them, they sent the marshal to compel him. He was brought before the Court of Assistants, at Boston, in January, and was discharged on engaging to leave the town within three months. Whoever has attentively read the lives of the early ministers of New England, as written by the Rev. Cotten Mather, must have noticed that they are all represented to have been men of uncommon learning, piety and worth. This may be imputed partly to the embellishments of his pen, and partly to the fact that they
(*)This was the second church in Essex Co.--[Essex Antiquarian.]
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were born and educated in the bosom of the church, and the best universities of Europe. We are greatly indebted to Mr. Mather for his account of those ministers; but we should have been far more grateful to him, if he had been more particular with regard to dates and facts respecting the subjects of his biography, instead of devoting so much time and space to the worthies of Greece and Rome; for we could easily have presumed his acquaintance with ancient history and the classics, without so ostentatious a display of it. In his life of Mr. Cobbet, he has given us but one date with certainty--the rest had been supplied by my laborious research. Mr. Bachiler he did not notice, and the following short sketch of his life is the first which has ever been offered to the public. The Rev. Stephen Bachiler was born in England, in the year 1561, and received orders in the established church. In the early part of his life he enjoyed a good reputation, but being dissatisfied with some of the ceremonies of the church, and refusing to continue his conformity, he was deprived of his permission to perform her services. The church has been much censured for her severity, and all uncharitableness and persecutions are to be deprecated; but in simply ejecting her ministers for nonconformity, after they had approved her mode of worship, and in the most solemn manner possible engaged themselves in her service, the church is no more censurable than all other communities, with whom the same practice is common. On leaving England, Mr. Bachiler went with his family to Holland, where he resided several years. He then returned to London, from which place he sailed, on the 9th of March, 1632, for New England. He arrived at Lynn on the 6th of June, having in his company six persons, his relatives and friends, who had belonged to his church in Holland. With them, and the few who united with them, he constituted a little church at Lynn, without any of the ceremonies usual on such occasions. He continued his ministrations here for about three years, with repeated interruptions, but he never had the support or the affections of the great body of the people. He was admitted a freeman on the 6th of May, 1635, and removed from Lynn in February, 1636. He went first to Ipswich, where he received a grant of fifty acres of land, and had the prospect of a settlement; but some difficulty having arisen, he left the place. In the very cold winter of 1637, he went on foot with some of his friends to Yarmouth, a distance of about one hundred miles. There he intended to plant a town and establish a church, but finding the difficulties great, and "his company being all poor men," he relinquished the design. He then went to Newbury, where, on the 6th of July, 1638, the town made him a grant of land. On the 6th of September, the general court granted him permission to settle a town at Hampton. In 1639, the inhabitants of Ipswich voted to give him sixty acres of upland and twenty acres of meadow, if he would reside there three years; but he did not accept their invitation. On the 5th of July, he and Christopher Hussey sold their houses and lands in Newbury for six score pounds and removed to Hampton. There a town was planted and a church gathered, of which Mr. Bachiler became the minister. The town granted him three hundred acres of land, and he presented them with a bell for the meeting house in 1640. Here he was treated with respect, and in 1641 he was appointed umpire in a case of real estate between George Cleves and John Winter. Dissensions. however, soon commenced, and the people were divided between him and his colleague, Rev. Timothy Dalton. He was accused of irregular conduct, which is thus related by Governor Winthrop.
"Mr. Bachiler, the pastor of the church at Hampton, who had suffered much at the hands of the bishops in England, being about eighty years of age, complained to the magistrates against a woman and her husband for slandering him. Soon after, his house took fire and was consumed, with nearly all his property. In 1643 he was restored to the communion, but not to the office of minister. In 1644, the people of Exeter invited to settle with them, but the court laid their injunction. In 1647, he was at Portsmouth, where he resided three years. In 1650, being then eighty-nine years of age, and his second wife, Helen, being dead, he married his third wife, Mary; and in May was fined ten pounds for not publishing the marriage according to law, half of which fine was remitted in October."
Soon after this, Mr. Bachiler left the country and returned to England.
His wife in Hampton petitioned the court, in the following words, to free her from her husband:
"To the Honored Governor, Deputy Governor, with the Magistrates and Deputies
at the General Court at Boston:
"The humble petition of Mary Bachiler, Sheweth--Whereas your petitioner, having formerly lived with Mr. Stephen Bachiler, a minister of this Collany, as his lawful wife, and not unknown to divers of you, as I conceive, and the said Mr.
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Bachiler, upon some pretended ends of his owne, hath transported himself into ould England, for many years since, and betaken himself to another wife, as your petitioner hath often been credibly informed, and there continueth, whereby your petitioner is left destitute, not only of a guide to her and her children, but also made uncapable thereby of disposing of herselfe in the way of marriage to any other, without a lawful permission; and having now two children upon her hands, there are chargeable unto her, in regard to a disease God hath has been pleased to lay upon them both, which is not easily curable, and so weakening her estate in prosecuting the means of cure, that she is not able longer to subsist, without utter ruining her estate, or exposing herself to the common charity of other which your petitioner is loth to put herself upon, if it may be lawfully avoided, as is well known to all, or most part of her neighbors. And were she free from her engagement to Mr. Bachiler, might probable soe dispose of herselfe, as that she might obtain a meet-helpe to assist her to procure such means for her livelyhood and the recovery of her childrens health, as might keep them from perishing; which your petitioner, to her grief, is much afraid of, if not timely prevented.
"Your petitioner's humble request thereof is, that this Honored Court would be pleased seriously to consider her condition, for matter of her relief in her freedom from the said Mr. Bachiler, and that she may be at liberty to dispose of herselfe in respect of any engagement to him, as in your wisdome shall see most expedient; and your petitioner shall humble pray.--Mary Bachiler."
No record appears that the court took any order on this petition; nor are we informed whether the lady succeeded to "Dispose of herselfe," in the manner which she seems to have had so much at heart. It is to be hoped, however, that her request was granted, for the woman had undoubtedly suffered enough for her lapses, as the reader will probably agree when he shall have read the sentence, which may serve to clear up at least one of the mysteries in this strangest of all the lives of our early ministers. In the records of York, on the 15th of October, 1651, is the following entry.
"We do present George Rogers and Mary Batcheller, the wife of Mr. Stephen Bachiler, minister, for adultry. It is ordered that Mrs. Batcheller, for adultry, shall receive forty stripes, save one, at the first town meeting held at Kittery, 6 weeks after her delivery, and be branded with the letter A." In the horrible barbarity of this sentence we blush for the severity of the punishment, rather than for the crime. The husband and his erring wife have long since gone to their last account, and their errors and follies must be left to the adjustment of that tribunal which we hope is more merciful than the decisions of men. Mr. Bachiler had, undoubtedly, many virtues, or he would not have had many friends, and they would not have continued with him through all the changes of his varied life. Mr. Prince says that he was "a man of fame in his day, a gentleman of learning and ingenuity, and wrote a fine and curious hand." It was on his separation from the church at Lynn, with its subsequent misfortune, that Edward Johnson wrote.
(In Morgan's Sphere of Gentry, printed in 1661, may be found Mr. Bachiler's coat of arms. It consists of a plough, beneath which is a rising sun; or, to use the technical language of heraldry, vert a plough in fesse, and in base the sun rising, or. The author calls it the coat of "Cain, Adam's son," and says it "did appertain to Stephen Bachelor, the first pastor of the church of Ligonia, in New England; which bearing was answerable to his profession in plowing up fallow ground of their hearts, and the sun appearing in that part of the world, symbolically alluded to his motto, 'sol justiti' exoritur.'" Does not "the church of Ligonia," mean the church of Lynn--an attempt being made to Latinize the name of the town? Another work on heraldry gives the name Lavonia, but this is, no doubt, a misspelling. Where the witty old author speaks of the plow as answering to Mr. Bachiler's profession in breaking up the fallow grounds of their hearts, he might have passed on to the sun's office of warming and rendering fruitfully the broken ground. The author takes occasion to note, here and there, a comforting fact that seems to have become suddenly established in his mind, with or without connection with the matter in hand.
Witness the following, which appears as a marginal note: "Women have soules." And this seems to have been proved to his satisfaction by the first temptation, for he says, "Had she not had precious and rational soul the Devil would never have attempted her." This is plausible, but it might be argued that he only operated on her as an instrument for the destruction of her husband and he seems inclined to give the evil one more credit for his sagacity than Eve for her integrity, by asking, "Indeed, how could she withstand such temptation that did entice her to curiosity and pride, the common sin of all their sex to this day?"

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(The reader's attention is here solicited for a moment to the singular spectacle brought to view in the affairs of Mr. Bachiler. While pastor of the church at Hampton, he is charged with unbecoming conduct, yet the church at Exeter, knowing the fact, invite him to settle over them. Did they discredit the charges, or consider the offense not worth weighing? In 1650 he married a woman who proves to be an adulteress, leaves her, and petitions for a divorce. This the government refuses, and going further, orders that they "shall lye together as man and wife." Now what is to be thought of a government that compels a thing so revolting and so unnecessarily cruel? From all the circumstances I am led that the whole truth does not appear; that extenuating facts are concealed; that there was a settled determination to make his continuance here uncomfortable, to say the least. The truth is, he had ventured to question the right of the civil authorities' supremacy in spiritual affairs. And that was enough to excite their indignation. The proof of his delinquencies, however, seems sufficient. It would be a bold step to attempt to discredit Winthrop; though it may not be unreasonable to suggest that, considering his ire towards those who were inclined to anything like active opposition to the ruling powers, he might have been examined with sufficient severity the slanders which Mr. Bachiler's enemies put in circulation. Not only did Mr. Bachiler oppose the incipient union of church and state, but he also espoused the interests of New Hampshire, when they clashed with the assumptions of the Bay Colony. And that was enough to bring a heavy load of fuel to the fire. And, furthermore, as is well known, his colleague at Hampton, Mr. Dalton, was strongly set in the Massachusetts interest and virulently opposed to his associate. Mr. Bachiler was evidently an opponent not easily overcome, was well educated; an adept in controversy; strong will. He was greatly sinned against. And he probably had little more sympathy in the colonial councils than Williams, Hutchinson or Wheelwright.)
Thomas Newhall, the subject of this sketch, was born in 1630, and was baptized by Rev. Bachiler, the first minister of Lynn, on the first Sunday after his arrival, being June 8, 1632. A rather comical scene occurred at the baptism. Christopher Hussey, who was a son-in-law of Mr. Bachiler, and who probably induced the Rev. gentleman to come here, had a child, named Stephen, to be baptized at the same time; and Mr. Bachiler, as Thomas was first presented for the holy rite, unceremoniously put him aside, declaring that he should baptize Stephen, who appears to have been named for his Rev. grandfather, first. Mr. Lewis seems to have thought a sort of family pride induced this movement, which struck him as an indignity toward Thomas, but it should, perhaps, be viewed in the light of a compliment. It may have been that Stephen was noisy and turbulent, insomuch that the old gentleman was ashamed of him and anxious to hurry him out of sight, while Thomas was quiet and well behaved. But it is not important to pursue the inquiry.

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REV. STEPHEN BACHILER AT HAMPTON.
(History of Hampton, N. H.)
The ancient town of Hampton, New Hampshire, embraced a large territory lying along the coast between Salisbury, Massachusetts, on the south, and Portsmouth, or the lower Piscataqua settlement on the north; and extending from the Atlantic Ocean westward, about six miles to Squamscott Patent (Stratham) and Exeter, and along the southerly side of the latter town, ten or twelve miles farther; the westerly line running thence southerly to the boundary between Salisbury (now Amesbury) and Haverhill, Massachusetts. The whole area is not less than one hundred square miles.
In the autumn of 1638, Winnacunnet (Hampton) remaining still unsettled, and the time allowed to the inhabitants of Newbury for removal hither having nearly expired, a petition, signed by Stephen Bachiler and others, was presented to the General Court, asking leave to settle here. Their prayer was granted. The record stands thus:
"The Court grants that the petitioners, Mr. Steven Bachiler, Christo: Hussey, Mary Hussey, Vidua, Thom: Cromwell, Samuel Skullard, John Osgood, John Crosse, Samu: Greenfield, John Molton, Tho: Molton, Willi: Estow, Willi: Palmer, Willi: Sergant, Richrd Swayne, Willi: Sanders, Robrt Tucke, wth divers others, shall have liberty to begin a plantation at Winnacunnet and Mr. Bradstreete, Mr. Winthrop, Jr., and Mr. Rawson, or some two of them, are to assist in setting out

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not known. It is also doubtful where he was educated; very possibly at Cambridge, where many with whom he appears to have been intimate, were known to have been. If the historians of Lynn are correct, he was of (so called) gentle blood; for Newhall, in his edition of Lewis' history of that town, states that, in Morgan's "Sphere of Gentry" (1661) is figured the coat-of-arms of Rev. Stephen Bachiler, as follows: "Vert, a plough in fesse, and in base, the sun rising, or." This gives a possible clew to the interpretation of a letter written by him, in 1643, to the church in Boston, which will be noted presently.
Mr. Bachiler received orders in the established church, but being a reformer, and having the courage of his convictions, he refused to conform to some of the ceremonials of the church, and therefore "suffered much at the hands of the bishops." He became a Dissenter, and, as a Dissenter went, with friends and followers to Holland. Now, if the historian may be permitted to "read between the lines" of the letter above mentioned, this would be the story of what immediately followed: A company was formed, of which Mr. Bachiler was the acknowledged leader, called, in his honor, The Company of the Plough, intending to come to New England in 1630, and settle in New Town (Cambridge). Mr. Bachiler to "Sit down with them," "not as a planter only but as a Pastor also." The church was organized and began its existence in Holland; and plans were so far perfected, that a ship was chartered and freighted; but "upon the disaster which happened to the goods of the company, by the false dealing of those entrusted by us with the Plough's ship and our goods therein," perhaps instigated by the persecuting bishops, all was lost and the emigration delayed. And so it happened that the pastor's family returned to England, while his daughter, Theodate, and her husband, Christopher Hussey, both young and ardent, crossed the ocean to prepare a resting place for her aged father and his church. This they found, as they fondly hoped, in Saugus (Lynn).
The above narrative, though not infallible history, is highly probable; but what follows is matter of record. Accompanied by some of his family, Mr. Bachiler sailed from London on the 9th of March, 1632, in the William and Francis, and arrived at Boston on the 5th of June. He went immediately to Lynn, where his son-in-law, Christopher Hussey, was already resident. There he began his ministry in New England, his church, organized in Holland, uniting with others previously at Lynn, without asking permission, and without ceremony.
Now, it must be premised, that many of the Puritans, persecuted in England, fled to these western shores, where they became in turn persecutors, as intolerant as their enemies across the sea. The ministers and magistrates formed a religious aristocracy, bigoted and domineering. Mr. Bachiler, a liberal Puritan, zealous for popular rights, and possibly too independent in maintaining them, soon became odious to this persecuting power.
They sought a quarrel against him, and found it in the manner of establishing his church. And now the magistrates of the colony required him "to forbeare exercising his gifts as a pastor or teacher publiquely," in Massachusetts, "unless it be to those he brought with him; for his contempt of authority, & till some scandals be removed." The term scandal has been wrongly supposed to imply immoral conduct in Mr. Bachiler. It was probably nothing more than petty quarrels, growing partly out of his partiality, in baptizing his own grandson before another child, born a week earlier.
This injunction was openly and strongly condemned by the liberal party, which was no inconsiderable one in the colony, and five months later the magistrates felt compelled to rescind it, though it does not appear that the victim had, in the meantime, made any acknowledgment of fault to prepare the way for such an act.
Mr. Bachiler remained pastor of the church at Lynn till about the close of 1635. The church at that time had been considerably enlarged, and a controversy had arisen between him and a majority of the members. The grounds of this controversy are not stated; but as Mr. Bachiler was an old man, it is possible that his church may have been desirous of obtaining a younger or a more popular minister. The account given by Governor Winthrop seems to afford some ground for this supposition. Mr. Bachiler asked a dismission for himself and his first members, six or seven in number, who had come from England with him; and the church granted it, supposing that they would leave the town, for so it was reported, Mr. Bachiler had intimated. On being dismissed, however, he and his brethren immediately renewed their old covenant, intending to raise another church there. At this "the most and chief of the town" were offended, for, as Governor Winthrop says, "it would cross their intentions of calling Mr. Peter, or some other minister." They
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He then complained to the magistrate, by whom he was forbidden "to proceed in any such church way until the cause were considered by the other ministers, etc."
But Mr. Bachiler refused to desist, probably regarding the course of the magistrates as an unjustifiable interference with his affairs; and this independence, both in thinking and acting, may give a clew to the difficulties that arose from time to time between him and the government. In this case, the magistrates "sent for him, and upon his delay, day after day, the marshall was sent" to convey him to Boston. Being thus taken into custody, he submitted to the civil authority and gave a "promise to remove out of the town within three months." He was thereupon discharged.
This account of Mr. Bachiler's connection with the church and people of Lynn is given, partly for the purpose of showing that some of the charges made against him may not have been well founded, having originated in the enmity of those who made them; and partly because here, in the renewal of the church covenant at Lynn, near the close of the year 1635, we find the organization of the Hampton church.
From Lynn, Mr. Bachiler removed to Ipswich. In 1637, he and his company undertook to form a settlement at Mattakeese (Yarmouth) on Cape Cod. Governor Winthrop says that he was then "about 76 years of age; yet he went thither on foot in a very hard season," the distance from Ipswich being nearly one hundred miles. This enterprise was relinquished on account of the poverty of the company, and the difficulties that they had to encounter.
In 1638, Mr. Bachiler and some or all of his company were at Newbury, and in the fall of that year settled at Winnacunnet.
According to tradition, a meeting house was built by those who formed the settlement, as soon as they had provided log cabins for themselves. Like their houses, it was undoubtedly made of logs, but of its form and dimensions we have no knowledge. It was built on the green--near where the Academy afterwards stood--a site occupied by a successions of meeting houses, till the early part of the present century. The people were called together for public worship by the ringing of a bell, as appears from the following vote, passed at the second town meeting, November 27, 1639: "Wm. Samborne (wth his consent) is appointed to ring the bell before the meetings on the Lord's dayes & other dayes, for which he is to have 6d pr lott of Evry one having a lott within the town." The bell, which was a present from the pastor, was probably hung on a frame in the open air, or suspended from some tree, till another house was built, which was furnished with a tower.
In the spring of 1639, Mr. Timothy Dalton was associated with Mr. Bachiler in the work of his ministry, the latter holding the office of pastor, and the former that of teacher. The great age of the pastor was probably the reason for employing another minister. But the connection was not an harmonious one. Both of the ministers were orthodox in sentiment, but they differed widely in practice, Mr. Bachiler being open and independent, and Mr. Dalton, in accord with the magistrates and elders. Mr. Bachiler was charged with a morality, but whether justly or unjustly is "not proven." He was excommunicated in 1641, and restored to the church in 1643, but not to the pastoral office.
That he committed some imprudences is admitted, but as to anything worse, it is likelier that the old persecutions followed him. He himself, in the letter before mentioned, to the church in Boston, complains bitterly of Mr. Dalton, in the following words: "I see not how I can depart hence till I have (or (I mean) God for me

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