needed by an original settler.  The subduing of the wilderness; the breaking of the ground; the building of bridges, stone-walls, “palisadoes,” houses, and barns; the processes of planting; the introduction of all suitable articles of culture; the methods best adapted to the preparation of the rugged soil for production; the rearing of abundant orchards and bountiful crops; the smoothing and levelling of lands, and the laying-out of roads,—­these were all going at once, and it was quite desirable for young men to work on his farm, before going out deeper into the wilderness to make farms for themselves.  There were many besides Grover who availed themselves of the advantage.  John Putnam was a large landholder, and an original grantee; but we find his youngest son, John, attached to Endicott’s establishment, and working on his farm about the time of his maturity.  In a deposition in court, in a land case of disputed boundaries, August, 1705, “John Putnam, Sr., of full age, testifieth and saith that—­being a retainer in Governor Endicott’s family, about fifty years since, and being intimately acquainted with the governor himself and with his son, Mr. Zerubabel Endicott, late of Salem, deceased, who succeeded in his father’s right, and lived and died on the farm called Orchard Farm, in Salem—­the said Governor Endicott did oftentimes tell this deponent,” &c.  The same John Putnam, in a deposition dated 1678, says that he was then fifty years old, and that, thirty-five years before, he was at Mr. Endicott’s farm, and went out to a certain place called “Vine Cove,” where he found Mr. Endicott; and he testifies to a conversation that he heard between Mr. Endicott and one of his men, Walter Knight.  I mention these things to show that a lad of fifteen, a son of a neighbor of large estate in lands, was an intimate visitor at the Orchard Farm; and that, when he became of age, before entering upon the work of clearing lands of his own, given by his father, he went as “a retainer” to work on the governor’s farm.  He went as a voluntary laborer, as to a school of agricultural training.  This was done on other farms, first occupied by men who had the means and the enterprise to carry on large operations.  It gave a high character, in their particular employment, to the first settlers generally.

I cannot leave this subject of Endicott on his farm, without presenting another picture, drawn from a wilderness scene.  In 1678, Nathaniel Ingersol, then forty-five years of age, in a deposition sworn to in court, describes an incident that occurred on the eastern end of the Townsend Bishop farm as laid out on the map, when he was about eleven years of age.  His father, Richard Ingersol, had leased the farm.  It was contiguous to Endicott’s land, and controversies of boundary arose, which subsequently contributed to aggravate the feuds and passions that were let loose in the fury of the witchcraft proceedings.  Nathaniel Ingersol says,—­