John Burton came early to Salem by way of Barbadoes.  He combined the pursuits of a farmer and a tanner.  He was a sturdy old Englishman, who, while probably holding the theological sentiments that prevailed in his day, abhorred the spirit of persecution, and was unwilling to live where it was allowed to bear sway.  He does not appear to have been a Quaker, but sympathized with all who suffered wrong.  In 1658, he went off in their company to Rhode Island, sharing their banishment.  But his conscience would not let him rest in voluntary flight.  He came back in 1661, to bear his testimony against oppression.  He was brought before the Court, as an abettor and shelterer of Quakers.  He told the justices that they were robbers and destroyers of the widows and fatherless, that their priests divined for money, and that their worship was not the worship of God.  They commanded him to keep silent.  He commanded them to keep silent.  They thought it best to bring the colloquy to a close by ordering him to the stocks.  They finally concluded, upon the whole, to let him alone; and he remained here the rest of his life.  His descendants are through a daughter (who married William Osborne) and his son Isaac.  They are numerous, under both names.  Isaac was an active and respectable citizen of the village, and a farmer of enterprise and energy.  He carried on, under a lease, Governor Endicott’s farm of over five hundred acres on Ipswich River, and had lands of his own.  In subsequent generations, this family branched off in various directions to Connecticut, Vermont, and elsewhere.  One detachment of them went to Wilton, N.H., where the family still remains on the original homestead.  The late Warren Burton, who was born in Wilton,—­a graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1821, and well known for his invaluable services in the cause of education, philanthropy, and letters,—­was a direct descendant of John Burton, and as true to the rights of conscience as the old tanner, who bearded the lion of persecution in the day of his utmost wrath, and in his very den.

Henry Herrick, who, as has been stated, purchased the Cherry-Hill farm of Alford, was the fifth son of Sir William Herrick, of Beau Manor Park, in the parish of Loughborough, in the county of Leicester, England.  He came first to Virginia, and then to Salem.  He was accompanied to America by another emigrant from Loughborough, named Cleaveland.  Herrick became a member of the First Church at Salem in 1629, and his wife Edith about the same time.  Their fifth son, Joseph, baptized Aug. 6, 1645, owned and occupied Cherry Hill in 1692.  He married Sarah, daughter of Richard Leach, Feb. 7, 1667.  He was a man of great firmness and dignity of character, and, in addition to the care and management of his large farm, was engaged in foreign commerce.  As he bore the title of Governor, he had probably been at some time in command of a military post or district, or perhaps of a West-India colony.  His descendants