Memorandum that Persis Shaw ye other witness made oath before Wm. Bradford, Esq., Judge of Probate, that she also was present and saw and heard ye within named Elder Cushman sign, seal and declare this within written codicill as an addition to his will, and that he was of sound mind and memory when he did ye same to ye best of her judgment.

SAM'L SPRAGUE, Register.

An Inventory of the estate of Mr. Thomas Cushman, Sen'r, of Plymouth, deceased, taken and appraised by us, whose names are hereunto subscribed, on ye 17th day of December, 1691:

Imprimis, his wearing apparel, both linen and woolen,
Item-his books,

Item-in cash,

Item-in 2 beds and bedding to them

Item-in pewter and brass,

Item-in iron pots and kettles and other iron vessels',

Item-in tables and chests and chairs,

Item-in cotton and sheep's wool and linen yarn and flax,

Item-in saddle, bridle and pillion,

Item-in linnen wheel and old lumber,

Item-in iron wedges and glass bottles
Item-in cart tacklin,

Item-in Indian and English corn,
Item-in neat cattle,

Item in a Loom,

Item-in debts due from ye estate,

01 05 00

00 08 00

THOMAS CUSHMAN,
ISAAC CUSHMAN,
THOMAS FAunce.

Mrs. Mary Cushman relict widdow of Elder Thomas Cushman late of Plimouth deceased made oath before ye County Court at Plimouth March 16th 169; that ye above written is a true inventory of the goods and chattels of her said late husband, so far as she yet knoweth, and that if more shall be discovered to her she will make it known.

Attest,

SAM'L SPRAGUE, Clericus.

Such was the life and such the death of Elder Thomas CushBut few men, comparatively, live so long and still fewer

man.

1 A SPOON is now in the Museum of the Pilgrim Society at Plymouth, which belonged to Elder Cushman, and is kept as a memento of him.

live so well as he did. In early life, having had the training and example of Gov. Bradford, than whom few men's history stands as high and as pure, we may reasonably conclude that he was taught "the law and the prophets," and constantly "walked in wisdom's ways."

At the mature age of about twenty-eight, he married Mary Allerton, who had sat under the teachings of Rev. John Robinson, a leader of the Puritans, and had joined the Church under the instructions of the pious Elder Brewster.

Thus trained in the school of Puritan theology, and practising daily the most rigid morals, formed after the model of Christ himself; and with an organization in which benevolence and veneration largely predominated, we can judge something of the character of the man and of his works. His antecedents had well prepared him for the high duties of Ruling Elder of a Puritan Church. In that office, the records of the Church he served so long and so faithfully, as well as all other contemporaneous evidence, give him the highest commendation. For upwards of forty-three years he "ruled and governed" the Church at Plymouth, and ever proved himself to be the worthy successor of the discreet and devoted Brewster. For a portion of that time he was the only preacher. After the dismissal of Rev. Mr. Rayner, in 1654, and before the settlement of Rev. Mr. Cotton, in 1657, he continued the religious services of the Sabbath, so that no Sunday passed without having two meetings as usual. То а poorly educated layman, this must have been a task of no small magnitude. But having the "gifts and graces " of a true, zealous and devoted christian, he taught as well as governed, in the absence of the minister.

It was during that period that the Quakers, possessing something of a fanatical spirit, and pushed on by opposition and persecution, were a source of much trouble to the Plymouth Church. The oppressions of the Anglican Church, in their native land, had not learned the Puritans the somewhat difficult lesson of charity and toleration to others of a different faith. Like most other professing christians, the Puritans had their defects, their short comings, their errors. But we may fairly and truly say they were the defects of the age; the errors of the head, not of the heart.

When will men learn that the fullest toleration is essentially consistent with the soundest faith, the purest walk, the highest devotion, the nearest approach to God and to Heaven?

That Elder Cushman partook of the characteristics of the age and of his brethren in the Lord, we cannot doubt. Still we have no evidence that he ever violated that highest of moral principles, "Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you,' in his government of the Plymouth Church and in his treatment of heretics and heresy. The uniform meekness and humility of his life would lead us to an opposite conclusion.

He continued in his office till death; he died with his armor on; and so deeply was he lamented that the church records say, somewhat figuratively, we may suppose, that "much of God's presence went away from the Church when that blessed Pillar was removed."

Mary Allerton, wife of Elder Cushman, came over in the Mayflower in 1620. She was then about eleven years of age. With her husband she was a member of the Church at Plymouth, and as we may well suppose, she was a worthy companion of her excellent, pious and useful husband, during his long ministry as Ruling Elder of the Church. She survived him seven or eight years, and died at the advanced age of ninety. Her name has become quite famous from the fact that she was the last survivor of the one hundred persons who came over in the Mayflower. She was probably buried by the side of her husband, in the Burying Hill Cemetery at Plymouth, though no monument has ever been erected to her memory.1

In contemplating the long life of Elder Thomas Cushman, which extended through a period of more than four score years, two circumstances are most observable,

1st, The peculiarly interesting period during which he lived ;for a large part of the seventeenth century, which was crowded with great events, he was on the stage of active life. When he landed at Plymouth, the entire Colony consisted of only fifty persons; and seventy years afterwards, the time of his decease,

1 We trust her numerous descendants will not allow this to continue so much longer. Let the marble or granite perpetuate her memory and commemorate her virtues,

there were more than that number of thousands of the AngloSaxon race in New England. He lived to see the sister Colonies. of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire, spring up,-establish their governments, and extending far and wide the area of civilization and christianity. He was a participator of the first treaty with Massasoit and Samoset, which continued unviolated by both parties for more than fifty years; and afterwards was a spectator of the bloody and exterminating war of King Philip and the Indian tribes of New England.

He had seen, also, during his protracted life, in his native country, old England, a weak and dishonest King brought to the block and executed as a malefactor; and the government, passing into the hands of Cromwell, established on the basis of a Commonwealth. Almost as transient as the morning dew, he saw that pass away with the death of its great progenitor; another King in power and another fleeing for his life, and finally monarchy again firmly established under the dynasty of William and Mary in 1688.

In his own community and Church he had experienced equally great changes. The wise and discreet Bradford, the zealous and devout Brewster, the chivalrous and fearless Standish, the active and enterprising Allerton, and the shrewd and intelligent Winslow, had all passed away and gone to their long rest. But few of his contemporaries were then living. The Church that he had loved, and for which he had labored and prayed, had been blessed by the labors of a Rayner and a Cotton, and had spread out its branches all around.

In his social relations, too, great changes had occurred. He had raised up a family of seven children, all of whom had married and settled around him; and grandchildren were rejoicing in his arms. His father-in-law (Isaac Allerton), being more liberal and wiser than the age, had refused to take part against the Quakers, and thus lost the confidence of the Colony and the Church. He had left for a home in the then, far-off Dutch settlement at New Netherland, now New York City, and years before had

"Gone to that bourne from which no traveller returns."

Such are some of the incidents that had been enacted and had passed away during the long pilgrimage of the subject of this memoir.

The 2d noticeable point in the career of Elder Cushman, was the perfect consistency of his character, and his entire and unchanging devotion to the Church, of which he was for more than forty years the Ruling Elder. During all the mutations of that period, the changes of Pastors, the colonization of other Churches, the coming on of a new generation, less intelligent, we may suppose, and less devout than their fathers; the controversy with the Quakers, which seemed to stir up the community to its lowest depths; and in his own family, the conviction, by the judicial tribunals of the Colony, of his oldest son, of the sin of unchastity, all these must have been most severe trials of his christian principles.

But we find him ever the same prayerful, practical, true-hearted christian. The Plymouth Church was his first love, his beaconlight, his undying hope. And, but for him, we may safely conclude, at some trying periods of its existence, it must have languished, perhaps died.

The last act of that Church, so far as he was concerned, was the crowning event of all. A quarter of a century after his death, the Plymouth Church erected a monument to his memory, now standing conspicuous on the southern brow of the old Burying Ground in Plymouth, on which they inscribed his character as" that precious Servant of God."

In the beautiful language of Montgomery, we may conclude this memoir of Elder Cushman:

"Servant of God, well done!

Rest from thy loved employ,
And while eternal ages run,
Be in thy Saviour's joy."

Note. Sara Cushman m. William Hodgekin, 2 Nov. 1636, say the Old Colony Records. Who she was, we know not. From her age (being marriageable sixteen years after the first landing at Plymouth) she must have emigrated from England. But her name is nowhere mentioned in the lists of passengers. She might have been a sister of Elder Thomas, though there is no evidence to that effect. From the fact that her husband, William Hodgekin, m. the second time to Ann Haynes, 21 Dec. 1638, it is evident she must have d. before that time, or in about two years after her marriage; and so far as we know left no issue.