375th anniversary of Malden’s incorporation as a town: Explorers and cofounders

By Inna Babitskaya

Only three men from those who came with Robert Gorges chose to remain in New England, while the others returned to England.

Rev. William Blackstone/Blaxton (1595–1675) was born in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England. He entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1614, at the age of 18. One of his university contemporaries and friends was Isaac Johnson (1601–1630) of Sempringham, Lincolnshire, who later became one of the prominent Puritan immigrants and the richest man of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1617, they completed their bachelor’s and were ordained at Peterborough; in 1621, they completed their master’s. In 1623, Isaac Johnson married Lady Arbella Clinton-Fiennes, the Earl of Lincoln’s younger sister.

The same year, William Blackstone left for America on the ship Katherine as a chaplain of the 120-person expedition of Robert Georges, Governor General of New England, to the Wessagusset Colony. He arrived in Weymouth. When the surviving members of the failed expedition left for England, he moved five miles north and became the first colonist on the western end of the Shawmut Peninsula, where he lived alone for five years. He had a farm and an orchard.

In 1629, arrived his friend Johnson and the Puritans. The rocky land was practically unusable for tapping wells. So, Blackstone wrote a letter to Johnson about the natural spring on the peninsula and inviting him to settle there. On September 7, 1630, the Puritans left Charlestown and began to settle on the peninsula. Unfortunately, on September 30, 1630, Johnson died, soon after his wife, Arbella, passed away. It was Johnson who named the new settlement across the river “Boston,” after his hometown in Lincolnshire.

Right after their arrival, the Puritans began to divide land between themselves and the “old planters” (the pioneers). Thus, Blackstone got a grant of 50 acres of land. But in 1634, due to the huge increase in Boston’s population – up to 4,000 people – and religious differences between him and the newcomers, he had to sell all but six acres for 30 pounds. Being an Anglican, Blackstone did not get along with the Puritans. As he said, “I left England to get from under the power of the lord bishop, but in America, I have fallen under the power of the lord brethren.” Governor John Winthrop bought Blackstone’s land, using for that purchase a one-time tax on Boston residents (six shillings per person). That land served as a town commons for public grazing (now it is Boston Common).

To be continued…

• Inna Babitskaya is a Malden Historian, a member of the Malden Historical Commission and the author of historical books “From Maldon to Malden” & “Time of Converse.”