Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with three
children into New England, about 1682. The conventicles having
been forbidden by law, and frequently disturbed, induced some
considerable men of his acquaintance to remove to that country,
and he was prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they expected
to enjoy their mode of religion with freedom. By the same wife he
had four children more born there, and by a second wife ten more,
in all seventeen; of which I remember thirteen sitting at one time
at his table, who all grew up to be men and women, and married;
I was the youngest son, and the youngest child but two, and was born
in Boston, New England. My mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger,
daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New England,
of whom honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather in his church
history of that country, entitled Magnalia Christi Americana,
as 'a godly, learned Englishman," if I remember the words rightly.
I have heard that he wrote sundry small occasional pieces,
but only one of them was printed, which I saw now many years since.
It was written in 1675, in the home-spun verse of that time and people,
and addressed to those then concerned in the government there.
It was in favor of liberty of conscience, and in behalf of the Baptists,
Quakers, and other sectaries that had been under persecution,
ascribing the Indian wars, and other distresses that had befallen
the country, to that persecution, as so many judgments of God
to punish so heinous an offense, and exhorting a repeal of those
uncharitable laws.
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