lanters, and perhaps through the
prejudice of those in authority unfavorably affected for several years
the progress of the settlement on the Nashaway. Certainly such
prejudices found expression in all action or record of the government
respecting the proprietors and their petitions. The ecclesiastical
figure head--without which no body corporate could have grace within the
colony--was Nathaniel Norcross. Of him, if we can surmise aught from his
early return to England, it may be said, he was not imbued with the
martyr's spirit, and his defection was, some time later, more than made
good by the accession of the beloved Rowlandson. But far more important
to the enterprise than these two graduates from the English
University--Child the radical, and Norcross the preacher,--were two
mechanics, the restless planners and busy promoters of the company, both
workers in iron--Steven Day the locksmith and John Prescott the
blacksmith. Steven Day was the first in America, north of Mexico, to set
up a printing-press. The Colony had wisely recognized in him a public
benefactor, and sealed this recognition by substantial grant of lands.
He entered upon the Nashaway scheme with characteristic zeal and energy,
if we may believe his own manuscript testimony: but Day's zeal outran
his discretion, and his energy devoured his limited means, for in 1644
we find him in jail for debt remonstrating piteously against the
injustice of a hard hearted creditor. He parted with all rights at
Nashaway before many years and finally delved as a journey man at the
press he had founded.

John Prescott deserted of all his original co-partners was sufficient
for the emergency, a host in himself. He sells his one hundred and
twenty six acres and house at Watertown, puts his all into the venture,
prepares a rude dwelling in the wilderness, moves thither his cattle,
and chattels, and finally, mounting wife and children and his few
remaining goods upon horses' backs, bids his old neighbors good bye, and
threads the narrow Indian trail through the forest westward. The scorn
of men high in authority is to follow him, but now the most formidable
enemy in his path is the swollen Sudbury River and its bordering marsh.
We find the aristocratic scorn mingling with the story of Prescott's
dearly bought victory over this natural obstacle, told in Winthrop's
History of New England among what the author classes as remarkable
"special providences."

"Prescot another fav