mind was enlightened, liberal, and independent; that he was in advance of the times in which he lived.  When the bitter and violent persecution of the celebrated Anne Hutchinson, on account of her Antinomian sentiments, took place, Mr. Scruggs disapproved and denounced it.  He gave his whole influence, earnestly and openly, against such attempts to suppress freedom of inquiry and the rights of conscience.  He, with others in Salem, was proscribed, disarmed, and deprived of his public functions.  He appears to have been suffered to remain unmolested on his estate, and died there in 1654.  He had but one child, Rachel; and the name, as derived from him, became extinct.  The inventory of his property is dated on the 24th of June of that year.  The items mentioned in it amount to L244. 10_s._ 2_d._ Considering the rates of value at that time, it was a large property.  At the same date, an agreement is recorded by which his widow, Margery, conveys to her son-in-law, John Raymond, all her real estate, upon these conditions:  She to have the use of her house during her life, the bedding, and other “household stuff;” and he to pay her five pounds “in hand,” twenty pounds per annum, and five pounds “at the hour of her death.”  This was an ample provision, in those times, for her comfort while she lived, and for her funeral charges.  I do not remember to have found this last point arranged for, in such a form of expression, in any other instance.

William Alford was an early settler.  He was a member of the numerous and wealthy society, or guild, of Skinners, in the city of London, and probably came here with the view of establishing an extensive trade in furs.  He received accordingly, in 1636, a grant of two hundred acres, including what was for some time called Alford’s Hill, afterwards Long Hill, now known as Cherry Hill.  It is owned and occupied by R.P.  Waters, Esq.  Alford sympathized in religious views with his neighbor Scruggs, and with him was subjected to censure, and disarmed by order of the General Court.  He sold his lands to Henry Herrick, and left the jurisdiction.

One of the most enlightened, and perhaps most accomplished, men among the first inhabitants of Salem Village, was Townsend Bishop.  He was admitted a freeman in 1635.  The next year, he appears on the list of members of the Salem Church.  He was one of the judges of the local court, and, almost without intermission from his first coming here, a deputy to the General Court.  In 1645, as his attention had been led to the subject, he conceived doubts in reference to infant baptism; and it was noticed that he did not bring forward a child, recently born, to the rite.  Although himself on the bench, and ever before the object of popular favor and public honors, he was at once brought up, and handed over for discipline.  The next year, he sold his estates, and probably removed elsewhere.  He appears no more in our annals.  Where he went, I have not been able to learn.  It is to be hoped that he found somewhere a more congenial and tolerant abode.  It is evident that he could not breathe in an atmosphere of bigotry; and it was difficult to find one free from the miasma in those days.