When, in the year 1700, this honored
position was forbidden him, in his chagrin and mortification he committed
suicide by hanging.
The young men sat together in rows, and the young women in corresponding
seats on the other side of the house. In 1677 the selectmen of Newbury
gave permission to a few young women to build a pew in the gallery. It is
impossible to understand why this should have roused the indignation of the
bachelors of the town, but they were excited and angered to such a pitch
that they broke a window, invaded the meeting-house, and "broke the pue in
pessis." For this sacrilegious act they were fined L10 each, and sentenced
to be whipped or pilloried. In consideration, however, of the fact that
many of them had been brave soldiers, the punishment was omitted when they
confessed and asked forgiveness. This episode is very comical; it exhibits
the Puritan youth in such an ungallant and absurd light. When, ten years
later, liberty was given to ten young men, who had sat in the "foure backer
seats in the gallery," to build a pew in "the hindermost seat in the
gallery behind the pulpit," it is not recorded that the Salem young women
made any objection. In the Woburn church, the four daughters of one of the
most respected families in the place received permission to build a pew in
which to sit. Here also such indignant and violent protests were made by
the young men that the selectmen were obliged to revoke the permission.
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