William Stoughton, 1631-1701, aged 70. Harvard class of 1650.
no. 23196
William Stoughton was born in 1631, the second son of Israel Stoughton and Elizabeth Knight Stoughton. Stoughton graduated from Harvard College in 1650 with a degree in theology. He intended to become a Puritan minister and traveled to England, where he continued his studies in New College, Oxford University. He graduated with an M.A. in theology in 1653. After the restoration of the monarchy, Stoughton returned to Massachusetts. He served on the colony’s council of assistants and represented the colony in the New England Confederation. He served as lieutenant governor after the overthrow of Sir Edmund Andros. He was chief justice at the time of Salem witch trials. In 1694, Stoughton took over as acting governor, continuing to serve as chief justice.
From John Langdon Sibley. Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvarad University. (Cambridge: Charles William Sever, 1873), vol. 1,194-208.
Note that footnotes and bibliography may not be fully reproduced here.
William Stoughton, M.A., of Dorchester, said to have been born in 1631 or 1632, and, what is not probable, at Dorchester, was second son of Israel Stoughton, who bequeathed to him “halfe” of his library “for his incouragt to apply himself to studies, especially to the holy Scriptures; vnto wch they are mostly helpful.”
[Note: Israel Stoughton, of Dorchester, admitted freeman in November, 1633, was Deputy in 1634. It appears that he wrote “a certain booke wch … occaconed much trouble & offence to the Court,” and, though he “did desire of the Court that the sd booke might forthwith be burnt, as being weake and offensiue,” it was nevertheless ordered, 4 March, 1634-5, that he “shalbe disenabled for beareing any publ office in the comonwealth, within this jurisdicon, for the space of three yeares, for affirmeing the Assistants were noe magistrates.”
In his Senior year in college he is credited “by 4 bush of rye 16 shillings, two bush on half of Indian 7 shillings 6 pence, on bush half of wheat 7 shillings 6 pence, 9 bush of rye malt att 4 shillings 6 pence, pr bush 2 pounds 6 pence, .. 30 pound of butter 15 shillings, 3 bush and 3 peckes of appelles 15 shillings,” etc., and is charged, besides other items, with “Commones & Sizinges,” tuition, study-rent, bedmaking, and “by want of measure of the Indians.” He remained at the College about a year after graduating.
Having studied divinity, he went to England, where he preached with much acceptance in Sussex. He received at Oxford the degree of Master of arts, and had a Fellowship, from which he was ejected at the Restoration, as appears by the following extract made by Savage from the New College records: “Gul. Stoughton A. Mr. antehac Acad. Nov. Angliae graduatus, hic positus auth. Parl. Rege reduci discessit 1660.”
In 1662 he returned to New England, and 3 May, 1665, was made freeman of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay.
It is stated, that, as early as the removal of Richard Mather’s “co-adjutor,” John Wilson, H.U. 1642, from Dorchester to Medfield, in 1651, Stoughton declined two invitations to become his successor. In December, 1665, he was again asked to settle in Dorchester, but he replied “that he had some objections within himself against the motion,” and, though the invitation was renewed on the last day of the same month, and was six times repeated, even down to the year 1670, and an appeal was made to the elders of other churches to influence him, he nevertheless remained inflexible.
In 1668, after the death of Mitchel, H.U. 1647, he also received an invitation to Cambridge.
In 1671 and the three following years he was annually chosen Selectman of Dorchester. In 1671, writes Hull, “Mr. William Stoughton, able preacher and very pious, but not yet persuadable to take any office charge in any church, was chosen into the magistracy, and accepted the same,” an office in which he was continued by annual election till Joseph Dudly, H.U. 1665, became President in 1686.
From 1674 to 1676, and from 1680 to 1686, he was Commissioner for the United Colonies, and for the years 1673 and 1677 he was Commissioner in reserve.
May 27, 1674, “In ansr to the motion & request of the deputjes for the county of Norfolke, it is ordered” by the General Court, “that Wm Staughton, Esq., shalbe and hereby is appointed to keepe the county Courts in that sheire wth the associates there for the yeare ensuing,” and 5 May, 1676, a similar order was passed for him : to keepe the County Courts in Portsmouth or Dover, and also at Wells, in Yorkshire, for this yeare.”
August 9, 1676, he was put on a committee prepare a reply to a complaint coming through the King, from Mason and Gorges, that the Colony had usurped authority over territory of which they were the proprietors. September 6, he and Peter Bulkley, Speaker of the House of Representatives, were chosen agents to carry the reply to the King. The mission was important, perplexing, and delicate. Not only were the complaints of Mason and Gorges to be met, but likewise the representations of the “odious and rapacious” Edward Randolph respecting the opposition to the navigation laws, besides the complaints in relation to the persecution of the Quakers. A hearing was had before the Lords of Trade and Plantations and the Lords Chief Justices, subsequently before the Chief Justices alone, and finally before the Privy Council; but the government became so engrossed with the Popish Plot, that but little attention was given to plantation affairs, and, after repeated applications, the agents were allowed to return to Boston, where they arrived 23 December, 1679, having “obtained nothing but time, a further opportunity for the colony to comply with the requisitions made by the crown.” Though many persons were dissatisfied, especially with Stoughton, whom “they thought to have been too compliant,” the General Court, 4 Feburary, 1679-80, acknowledging their “long & faithfull service,” voted “to each of them,” in addition to former grants, “one hundred and fiuety pounds in money, … as a smale retribution for such their service, & and expression of” their “good affection.”
On the subject of this charter there were two parties in the Colony, who, while they agreed as to the importance of the charter privileges, differed as to their extent and the proper measures for preserving them. Stoughton belonged to the moderate party. “From the observations he made in his agency, he was convinced it was to no purpose tooppose the demands of king Charles; and from the example of the corporations in England, he was for surrendering the charter rather than to suffer a judgment or decree against it. In such case, a more favorable administration might be expected to succeed it, and in better times there would be a greater chance for re-assuming it.” Notwithstanding the dissatisfaction which had been expressed on his return from England, he was twice afterward, at intervals of a year, chosen colonial agent, but, though strongly and repeatedly urged, he positively declined the office.
June 1, 1677, he was appointed Captain “to the foot company in Dorchester,” and 3 October, 1680, “Major of” the “regiment” of troops of the Suffolk County towns except Boston.
February 18, 1681-2, Stoughton and Dudley made report of their transactions in the purchase of the Nipmuck territory, and “as an acknowledgment of” their “great card & pajnes,” the General Court granted to each of them one thousand acres of land in that country. It was laid out at a place called Marichouge, and the “platt” was accepted by the Legislature 4 June, 1685.
Stoughton and Dudley were warm friends, and commonly co-operated. When Dudley was “left out” of the magistracy, at the election, 12 May, 1686, the last which was held in Massachusetts according to the provisions of the charter, Stoughton, “from complaisance to him, refused to serve.” May 15, three days after Dudley’s defeat, a commission, dated 27 September, 1685, was received and published 25 May, making Dudley President of Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Maine, and the Narragansett country, and Stoughton Deputy President. July 26, 1686, Dudley, with the concurrence of the Council, placed Stoughton at the head of the courts, where he remained during the Presidency of the former. He was Dudley’s chief confidant. “He was not suspected, by the body of the people, of being unfriendly, or of want of strong attachment to the religious principles and to the ecclesiastical constitution of the country, and his compliance, in taking a share in the administration, was charitably supposed to be, at least in part, for the sake of keeping out oppressors and tyrants.”
In the commission to Andros, who landed in Boston 20 December , 1686, Stoughton was named as one of his Council. He consented to act, “in hopes, by that means, to render the new form of government more easy. By this step he lost the favour of the people , and yet did not obtain the confidence of the governor, who would willingly have been rid of him, seldom consulted him, and by the influence he had over the majority of the council, generally carried the votes against his mind.”
At the new organization of the courts, according to the order of 3 March, 1687, Stoughton was made Judge Assistant, Dudley being appointed Chief Justice. Notices of several of the trials, and of the mode of conducting them, while these persons were on the bench, may be found in Washburn’s Judicial History of Massachusetts, and are worthy of careful perusal.
In the rising of the people against the government of Andros, Stoughton took no part; but he joined the popular party in signing the message to Andros, 18 April, 1689, to deliver up the fort, in order to prevent the bloodshed which would attend an attempt to take it by storm; and he was the first person who spoke to Andros, when brought to the council house, “telling him, He might thank himself for the present disaster that had befallen him, &c.” His name, however, is not in the list of those who the next day assumed the government for the time being as “A Council for the Safety of the People, and Conservation of the Peace.” In “the election afterwards made by the people he did not obtain one vote,” nor does he appear to have had any office again till the arrival of the charter of William and Mary in 1692.
When Increase Mather was in England, his son Cotton Mather wrote to him: “Mr. Stoughton is a real friend to New-England, and willing to make any amendment for the miscarriages of the late government. I wish that you might be able to do anything to restore him to the favor of his country”; and it was through the elder Mather’s influence, that, when Sir William Phips, arrived in Boston, 14 May, 1692, with the commission of Governor, he was enabled to bring one for Stoughton as Lieutenant-Governor.
The witchcraft excitement was then raging. Phips did not wait for the assembling of the Legislature, to whom the charter gave the exclusive power of constitution courts; but, 2 June, 1692, less than twenty days after his arrival, appointed Stoughton Chief Justice of a special tribunal to try cases of witchcraft, and by virtue of this illegal authority he acted.
Stoughton, “upon whose judgment,” says Hutchinson, “great stress was laid, had taken up this notion, that although the devil might appear in the shape of a guilty person, yet he would never be permitted to assume the shape of an innocent person.” He went upon the bench with a bigoted zeal akin to animosity, and proceeded with such alacrity that the first victim was executed on the tenth of June, only eight days after the tribunal was constituted; and before the ensuing October there was a series of judicial murders which has no parallel in American history. Notwithstanding the excitement of the time, there can be no doubt, that, if Stoughton had been as zealous to procure the acquittal as he was to bring about the conviction of the accused, this black page in the history of New England and of humanity could never have been written. His conduct during the trials, if conscientious, was heartless, unjust, atrocious.
[There is a long footnote about the conduct of the trials:
Upham goes so far as to say: “The Judges made no concealment of a foregone conclusion against the Prisoners at the Bar. No Counsel was allowed them…. The Chief-justice absolutely absorbed into his own person the whole Government. His rulings swayed the Court, in which he acted the part of prosecutor of the Prisoners, and overbore the Jury. He sat in judgment upon the sentences of his own Court; and heard and refused, applications and supplications for pardon or reprieve. The three grand divisions of all constitutional or well-ordered Governments were, for the time, obliterated in Massachusetts. In the absence of Phips, the Executive functions were exercised by Stoughton. While presiding over the council, he also held a seat as an elected ordinary member, thus participating in, as well as directing, its proceedings, sharing, as a leader, in legislation, acting on Committees, and framing laws. As Chief-justice he was at the head of the Judicial department. He was Commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces and forts within the Province proper. All administrative, legislative, judicial, and military powers were concentrated in his person and wielded by his hand. No more shameful tyranny or shocking despotism was ever endured in America, than in “the dark and awful day,” as it was called, while the special Commission of Oyer and Terminer was scattering destruction, ruin, terror, misery and death over the country. It is a disgrace to that generation, that it was so long suffered; and, instead of trying to invent excuses, it becomes all subsequent generations to feel—as was deeply felt by enlightened and candid men, as soon as the storm had blown over and a prostrate people again stood erect, in possession of their senses—that all ought, by humble and heart-felt prayer, to implore the divine forgiveness.”
“Chief-justice Stoughton appears to have kept his mind chained to his dogma to the last…. During a session of the Court at Charlestown, in January, 1692-3, ‘word was brought in, that a reprieve was sent to Salem, and had prevented the execution of seven of those that were there condemned, which so moved the chief judge that he said to this effect: We were in a way to have cleared the land of them; who it is that obstructs the cause of justice, I know not: the Lord be merciful to the country!’ and so went off the bench and came no more into that Court.”
According to Hutchinson, when Stoughton was informed of Judge Sewall’s public confession of his error, “it is said,” he “observed for himself that, when he sat in judgment he had the fear of God before his eyes and gave his opinion according to the best of his understanding; and although it may appear afterwards, that he had been in error, yet he saw no necessity of a public acknowledgment of it.”
End of footnote.]
Upon the reorganizations of the Superior Court, Stoughton was nominated, and unanimously confirmed by the Council, as Chief Justice. His commission, dated 22 December, 1692, was renewed in 1695, and he held the office until a short time before his death.
Hutchinson says, “The government falling into Mr. Stoughton’s hands upon Sir William’s leaving the province [in 1694], seems to have been administered by him to good acceptance in England, and to the general satisfaction of the people of the province.” In 1698 he “had held the reins four years, and had kept free from controversy with the other branches of the legislature.” He “now stood so well in the esteem of the people, that they chose him, at every election, one of the council; although, at the same time, he was commander in chief. Before the year expired a new governor might arrive, in which case he would take his place as a concellor.”
Lord Bellomont, after being detained more than a year in New York, arrived at Boston 26 May, 1699, to assume the government. Dudley’s conduct in regard to Leisler, “together with the interest which had been made for” him “in England in opposition to his lordship, seems to have prejudiced him in favor of all Dudley’ enemies in New-England. Whilst he was at New-York, he kept a constant correspondence with Mr. Cooke, one of the council for the Massachusetts, who was a principal man of that party; and seems to have place more confidence in him than in Mr. Stoughton, who ever remained, in his heart, attached to the Dudley party.”
Bellomont returned to New York “soon after the session of the general court” of Massachusetts “in May, 1700….Stoughton took the chair again, with reluctance. His advanced age and declining state of health made him fond of ease and retirement.”
Stoughton died, a bachelor, 7 July, 1701, at his house, the site of which was on the northeast corner of Pleasant Street and Savin Hill Avenue, in Dorchester. He was entombed on the 15th, “with great honor and solemnity, and with him much of New England’s glory.” The funeral sermon was preached at the lecture in Boston, 17 July, 1701, by Samuel Willard, afterward President of the College.
Hutchinson says, Stoughton “was nine years lieutenant governor, and six of them commander in chief; had experienced the two extremes of popular and absolute government; and not only himself approved of a mean between both, but was better qualified to recommend it, by a discreet administration, to the people of the province.” Washburn says, he “seems to have been a sort of ‘Vicar of Bray’ politician, whereby, ‘whoever the King might be,’ he contrived to be in office.”
He was an extensive landholder by inheritance and by purchase, and left an estate which was large for the time. He bequeathed to the church in Dorchester 50 pounds, and two pieces of plate of 6 pounds value each, and to the selectmen of the town 50 pounds, of which the income was to be given to the poor. He also left, with a conditional reversion to Harvard College, 150 pounds “towards the advancement of the salary of the schoolmaster” at Dorchester; and so well has it been taken care of that the Stoughton school fund now amounts to about four thousand dollars.
To the church in Milton he left a piece of communion plate of 6 pounds value, and to the town a wood-lot of forty acres for the benefit of the poor.
He was a zealous friend of education, and especially of the College. He had great influence in the Corporation. When he was in England, they voted, 30 June, 1679, “that ye Worshll Mr. Stoughton bee desired & Empowered, to Provide a President.”
His benefactions to this Institution exceeded those of any other person during the century. At a cost of 1000 pounds, he erected the brick edifice, called, in honor of him, Stoughton Hall. It was situated at a right angle with the present Massachusetts Hall, a little back of its northeast corner, and facing to the west. The foundation was laid 9 May, 1698, and the building was completed in 1699. It was one hundred feet long and twenty broad, and “contained sixteen chambers for students, but no public apartments.” On it was placed the inscription:–
“Deo Opt. Max. Bonisq. Literis S.
Gulielmus Stoughton Armiger Provinciae
Massachuset. Nov-Anglorum Vice-Gubernator
Collegii Harvardini Olim alumnus
Semper Patronus Fecit
Anno Domini 1699.”
In his will he ordered that for five years 20 pounds of the income from this building should be annually appropriated for the support of Elijah Danforth, H.U. 1703, at college; after which, “a minister’s son to have the preference to others,” 10 pounds of the income was annually to go to “some poor scholar,” – his own relatives to be preferred, “and next to them any poor scholar that shall come from the town of Dorchester.” But no one to receive it who did not “actually reside at the college, nor for any longer than that he shall receive the degree of A.M.”
“Being originally an unsubstantial piece of masonry, it grew weak by age,” and having been injured, it is said, by the earthquake of 1755, after undergoing many repairs it was finally taken down in 1780. In 1804-1805, by the addition of $5,300 of the College funds to the sum of $18,400 derived from lotteries, another edifice was erected, which was likewise called Stoughton Hall, as a “suitable acknowledgment” for Stoughton’s “bounty and proved affection for the institution.”
He also bequeathed to the College a “pasture in Dorchester,” and a “parcel of salt meadow,” “willing and appointing the clear profits and income of both to be exhibited in the first place to a scholar of the town of Dorchester, and if there be none such, then to a scholar of the town of Milton, and in want of such, to any Indian student, and in want of such, to any other well-deserving scholar that may be most needy.”
[A footnote explains that the pasture land “known by the name of Stoughton or College-pasture,” “elevated and dry, excellent for building purposes,” is situated between Norfolk and Washington Streets, about a quarter mile southwest from the town hall in Dorchester. April 1, 1997, it was leased for one hundred years, “in consideration of the sum of eight hundred and thirty-five dollars.” In 1870, land contiguous to it was sold for $1,500 and $2,000 an acre. It is estimated, that, when the lease expires, the “twenty acres and three quarters and twenty-two rods” belonging to the College will be worth at least $100,000, and not improbably $140,000.]
Stoughton likewise gave to the College a silver bowl with a cover weighing 48 ½ ounces, and Eliot thinks he probably gave also “a goblet, 21 oz.”
The College Picture-Gallery contains a portrait of him with a view of the first Stoughton Hall in the background.
The monument over Stoughton’s grave in the Dorchester burial ground having fallen, the Corporation of the College, in 1828, caused it to be repaired, and the tablet, which was “cracked in two,” to be cemented. The elegant epitaph on it, adapted, it is said, by Mather, corresponds nearly word for word with the one by Aimonius Proust de Chambourg, Professor of Law in the University of Orleans, which is inscribed on the tomb of Blaise Pascal, who died in 1662.
The Reverend John Danforth, minister of First Church, and his wife are also buried in Stoughton’s tomb. William Tailer, Stoughton’s nephew and Lieutenant Governor of the Colony, died in 1732 and is also buried in the tomb.
Works by Stoughton
- New-Englands True Interest. 1668.
- A Narrative of the Proceedings of Sir Edmond Androsse and his Complices. 1691.