Ezekiel Cheever and his wife, having thus become possessed of all her brother’s real estate, conveyed the lands belonging to it in Salem Village to their son, Ezekiel Cheever, Jr.  He had, for some years, been living in the town of Salem, carrying on the business of a tailor.  He was a member of the First Church, and appears to have been a respectable person.  His dwelling-house stood on the lot in Washington Street occupied by the late Robert Brookhouse.  He sold it to the Rev. Nicholas Noyes, on the 14th of April, 1684, removed to the village, took possession of the Lothrop farm, and was there in time to bear a share in the witchcraft delusion.

In 1636, a grant of land was made to Thomas Gardner of one hundred acres.  He came to this country as early as 1624, and resided at Cape Ann.  Subsequently he removed to Salem, and, with his wife, was admitted to the church.  He was deputy to the General Court in 1637.  His grant was in the western part of the township, and embraced land included within the limits of Salem Village.  The name still remains on the same territory.  His sons became proprietors of several additional tracts in the neighborhood.  One of them, Joseph, is connected, in the most conspicuous and interesting manner, with our military history.

The destruction of Captain Lothrop and his company, on the 18th of September, filled the country with grief and consternation; and, as the year 1675 drew towards a close, the conviction became general, that the crisis of the fate of the colonies was near at hand.  The Indians were carrying all before them.  Philip was spreading conflagration, devastation, and slaughter around the borders, and striking sudden and deadly blows into the heart of the country.  It was evident that he was consolidating the Indian power into irresistible strength.  Among papers on file in the State House is a letter addressed to the governor and council, dated at Mendon, Oct. 1, 1675, from Lieutenant Phinehas Upham, of Malden.  In command of a company, acting under Captain Gorham of Barnstable, who had also a company of his own, he had been on a scout for Indians beyond Mendon, which was a frontier town.  Their route had been over a sweep of territory then an almost unbroken wilderness, embracing the present sites of Grafton, Worcester, Oxford, and Dudley.  The result of the exploration is thus given:  “Now, seeing that in all our marches we find no Indians, we verily think that they are drawn together into great bodies far remote from these parts.”  From other scouting parties, it became evident that this opinion was correct, and that the Indians were collecting stores and assembling their warriors somewhere, to fall upon the colonies at the first opening of spring.  Further information made it certain, that their place of gathering was in the Narragansett country, in the south-westerly part of the colony of Rhode Island.  There was no alternative but, as a last effort, to strike the enemy at that point, with the utmost available force.