to regret. A long "Retractation" written in 1637 was not published until 1641, when he was in America. A climax was reached in the fall of 1637 when Chauncy refused to read Archbishop Laud's book of "Lawful Sunday Sports" and he set sail for the land of the free, arriving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in January, 1638. How thankful we should be for these quarrels about religion, for they gave us trained scholars and scientists with which to start our institutions of learning in America. Very likely Chauncy missed the relatively advanced civilization of his mother country, for after living in Plymouth and Scituate for sixteen years, three years in Plymouth as an assistant to Mr. Raynor, and thirteen in Scituate as pastor of a church which developed a schism and was poorly supported, he was about to sail for England, tarrying for a while in Boston, the port of departure, when he was offered the presidency of Harvard College, made vacant by the death of the first president, Henry Dunster, October 24, 1654. This he accepted in November of that year and served the college until his death, February 19, 1672. That his scholarship was appreciated appears from the statement of Cotton Mather, who said that when Chauncy had been a year or two in town "the church kept a whole day of thanksgiving to God for the mercy which they had enjoyed in his being there."
The good man was industrious, rising at four in the morning winter and summer and spending the morning hours in study and devotion; he published numerous sermons and some Latin and Greek verses. It may have been due to the regretted recantation of his views early in his career that his opinions were not subject to change, for he remained set in opposing the baptism of the children of noncommunicants, and preached constantly against wearing of the hair long, calling it "a. heathenish practice." Toward the close of his life (1662) he published "Antisynodalia Scripta Americana," in opposition to the synod of 1662, which sanctioned the admission to the church of all batized persons, even if they had not professed a "change of heart." The utilitarianism of the day is sadly illustrated by the tradition that his writings passed into the hands of his stepdaughter, whose husband, being a pieman, used them to line his pastry.
He left six sons, all graduating from Harvard and all becoming preachers. Mather said they were physicians, also, like their father. Several physicians studied with Chauncy, notably Thomas Thacher (q. v.). Chauncy did much for Harvard College and for Massachusetts and he was an early instructor in medicine.
Cheever, Abijah (1760–1843)
Abijah Cheever was descended in the fifth generation from Ezekiel Cheever, master of the Latin School, Boston, who came to Boston from Canterbury, England in 1637, and taught Latin for seventy years, dying in 1708.
Abijah Cheever was born in Saugus, Massachusetts in 1760, his boyhood being passed in farm work. On the evening before the battle of Lexington he was employed in running bullets from a mould over a fire of hickory coals for the long Queen Anne muskets of his brothers who shared in the battle the following day. He graduated from Harvard College in 1779, then studied medicine and surgery as a profession, and obtained his M. D. in 1782. He was a student of Dr. John Warren.
In 1782 he was commissioned as surgeon in the Revolutionary War.
"By his Excellency John Hancock, Esq., governor and commander-in-chief in and over the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
"To Abijah Cheever, Gentleman, Greeting. Having heard of your skill in surgery and reposing confidence in your ability and good conduct, I do by these presents constitute and appoint you surgeon on board the ship Tartar fitted out by this commonwealth for the service thereof. . . .
"Dated at Boston this thirteenth day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, and in the sixth year of the Independence of the United States.
Signed, John Hancock."
In this privateer he made two voyages. In the first the Tartar captured four British merchant vessels. In the second voyage she was attacked by the British frigate Belisarius, and was herself captured. Dr. Cheever was sent to the old prison ship in New York harbor and confined some time. Exchanged later, after peace was proclaimed, he settled as physician and surgeon in Boston, at the then fashionable North End, married, and practised seventeen years. He then returned to Saugus, where he lived until his death at the age of eighty-three.
He was pensioned by John C. Calhoun, secretary of war, in 1818, as surgeon's mate in the army of the Revolution, and with the rank of captain of infantry of the continental line.
