The New England Meetinghouse was the only municipal building in a town. Both worship and civil meetings were held there. It was customary for men and women to sit separately and the town chose a committee once a year to assign seats according to what was paid, age, and dignity.
In 1688, during theGlorious Revolution, the Protestant king and queen,William and Mary, took the English throne from Catholic King James II. The bloodless revolution profoundly impacted the American colonies.
Robert Kitchen was born in 1658 in Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts and was baptized at the First Church in Salem on February 2, 1658. He was the son of John Kitchen and Elizabeth Grafton.
He was a merchant, ship owner, and sea captain. He traded in London and Barbados.
Robert and Mary's children included:
John Kitchen (1683),
Elizabeth Kitchen (1683),
and Mary Kitchen Turner (1684, married John Turner).
His second wife was Bethia Weld. She was born in Cambridge, on January 24, 1667/8. She was the daughter of Dr. Daniel Weld.
Robert and Bethia's children included:
Robert Kitchen (1688) who died young,
Bethia Kitchen Lindall (1689, married Timothy Lindall),
Robert Kitchen (before 1699),
Richard Kitchen
(before 1699), and Edward Kitchen (1700).
When Robert Kitchen, Jr., died in 1716 at age 17, at Harvard, Cotton Mather wrote The Voice of the Dove: The Sweet Voice of Piety, and More Particularly that of Early Piety, Articulated. And Some Notes of it Exhibited, in Certain Memoirs of Mr. Robert Kitchen, a Desireable Youth, who Expired at Salem.
Robert, Sr. died in Salem on October 28, 1712. He was buried in the family tomb on Pickering Hill.
Here lyes inter'd ye body of
Mr. Robert Kitchen,
who departed this life
October ye 28, 1712,
aetatis 56.
The Great Swamp Fight was on November 2, 1675. Josiah Winslow led a force of over 1000 colonial militia and about 150 Pequot and Mohegan warriors against the Narragansett. Several abandoned Narragansett villages were burned and the tribe retreated to a five acre fort in the center of a swamp near Kingston, Rhode Island. The fort, which was occupied by over a thousand indigenous warriors, was taken after a fierce fight. It was burned and the inhabitants, including women and children, were killed or evicted. The winter stores were destroyed. The colonists lost about 70 men and nearly 150 were wounded.
Salem is in Essex County, Massachusetts and was a significant seaport in early America. John Endicott obtained a patent from England and arrived there in 1628. Salem originally included much of the North Shore, including Marblehead. Salem Village also included Peabody and parts of Beverly, Middleton, Topsfield, Wenham and Manchester-by-the-Sea.
