Through a swamp on the west, called Cat Bird Glen, ran a trout brook to the meadows below. Beyond this woodland glen lay an upland plain, held by the Indians as a camping ground, which the Richardsons concluded they might, through the persuasion of powder and bullets, be able to occupy and leave the parent church at Charlestown to mourn their departure.

Accordingly about twenty families, including the Richardsons, took possession of the site, dug their cellars, and built primitive homes together with a log church and named the town Woburn.

Joy mingled with pride encouraged the men to subdue the soil, hunt, snare and trap the game and fish, while the buxom dames hummed their spinning wheels as they cooed their frolicsome babies beneath the shadows of the great forest monarchs who seemed loath to give way to the encroaching steps of the white man.

Contrary to the general rule, that rats and ministers advance hand in hand with civilization, in this case the ministers failed to appear for the reason that the home church of England refused to recognize the seceders as children of God by turning down their supplication for a regular ordained preacher.

Here the true spirit and determination which seems to tinge the veins of the Richardsons made its first appearance. Ezekiel, by the grace of God, took upon himself the leadership in all the praying and singing of the independent church for about ten years. He officiated at all weddings and funerals, besides established the whipping post for those who did not appear in church, with clean shirts on, three Sundays each month to hear him preach two long sermons, when it is said he often preached so loud that he could be distinctly heard in the Charlestown church two miles away, to the annoyance of his old-time associates.

After Ezekiel's thrifty swarm had become greater than the parent hive at Charlestown and the hand of time began pressing heavily upon his shoulders, a regularly ordained preacher was sent in, which the parishioners did not like as well as they did Ezekiel, for he could not clothe and feed himself as Ezekiel had done, but he stayed until he died, and here is a sample of primitive piety in our grandfather's days:

"The Reverend Mr. Carter of the Woburn Episcopal Church died, and being a good man, our forefathers decided to turn out in mass, give him a Christian burial and charge the expenses to the town. Of the itemized bill—coffin, shroud, grave-digging, and stimulants,—the latter, the liquor bill, exceeded all the other expenses."

See Woburn Town Records, Volume 3, page 68.

Thus while we find traces of weakness in our ancestors, a principle seems to have been involved which made New England a hot-bed for vags and tramps. No wonder we sigh for the good old days when respectable citizens did not have to lock their doors on Sunday, for all the thieves were in church.