26 THE GRANITE MONTHLY.
of Hopkinton, Mass., in 1736, and settlements began as early as 1738. By a concourse of facts, Putney's hill became the social center of the new civilized locality. Here were the meeting-house spot, the parsonage, the training-field, and the burying-place. A cemetery is an inevitable adjunct of society. Physically speaking, it is appointed unto all men once to die, and after death the burying. In the earliest career of this township, a burying-ground seems to have been selected by general consent. When, in 1765, the town of Hopkinton became incorporate, the ownership of lands devoted to public uses became very properly of important moment. In the following year, as attests the record of the town-clerk, the following act was passed:
Voted that Half a Nacre of Land Be Procured for a Buring Place where they have Be gun to Bury on the top of the Hill.
The ownership of the above plot of land immediately vested, by virtue of an act proceeding apparently from a disinterested public spirit. On the same page recording the formal determination of the town to purchase the burying-lot the following gratuity is expressed:
The half acre of Land which is voted to be procured for a Burying Plac on the top of the Hill I give and Bestow on the Town John Putney.
John Putney, the donor of this burying-lot, was an early settler in Hopkinton, and came from the vicinity of Amesbury, Mass., in company with Samuel Putney. He built what was known as Putney's fort, a place of defence against hostile Indians, which stood a few rods from the burying-lot, in a northerly direction, though the exact location is not fully settled in the writer's mind. Both these Putneys were prominent men in local public matters, a military precedence probably allowing the mention of "Lieut. John Putney" in the early records of the township.
A FORGOTTEN GRAVE.
The early histories of many New England towns exhibit the first clergy-men, or ministers, as they were called, in degrees of prominence not to be mistaken. The history of Hopkinton presents no exception to the general rule. In this town the first minister figured prominently in all the affairs of the local public. A summary sketch of the first clergyman settled in Hopkinton is found in volume v, page 222, of the New Hampshire Provincial Papers, as follows:
James Scales was a graduate of Harvard College in 1733. He came from Boxford, Mass., with a recommendation from the church in that place, dated July 3, 1737, and was received into the church in Rumford, July 17, 1737. He became a resident of Canterbury, was town-clerk, and in the records is called esquire. He is also spoken of as a physician. He was licensed to preach, and in 1743 received ₤20 for preaching to the people in Canterbury. He was ordained the first minister in Hopkinton, N. H., November 23, 1757; was dismissed July 4, 1770, and died July 26, 1776.
There is a further account of James Scales that asserts that he eventually laid aside his clerical gown and adopted the practice of the law. He was without doubt a person of unusual versatility of genius, though the circumstances of his time gave freer course to faculties of lesser training than do conditions of society in the same locality to-day.
James Scales was a champion of the public interests of Hopkinton, and, like most men of his class, was doubtless the agent of many unpaid labors. He barely escaped the neglect which is more humiliating than silent unthankfulness. When the town of Hopkinton had secured her charter of incorporation, she deliberately decided, in open town meeting, that she would pay the Rev. James Scales nothing for the public service he had rendered in obtaining the legal instrument. Let it be set down to the credit of the
