the 24th of June. It must be remembered that the only authority, so far as we know, that Governor Hutchinson had for any of these statements was the diary of Goffe. 'They continued there' (says Hutchinson), 'sometimes venturing to a house near the cave, until the 19th of August, when the search being pretty well over, they ventured to the house of one Tompkins, near Milford meeting-house, where they remained two years, without so much as going into the orchard.'
"Tradition points to several places where they are claimed to have stayed
The Dixwell Monument
while the diary says they were at the cave in the woods. President Stiles spent much time in looking up these traditions, accepting almost everything that credulity could invent or neighborhood pride suggest. It appears that when it became known that the regicides lived in a cave, every hole for miles around that was large enough to admit a man's body was claimed to have been one of their hiding places.
"After spending two years in the Tompkins house in Milford, 'without so much as going into the orchard,' they gradually became bolder, and took a few safe friends into their confidence. They remained in this place until 1664, when commissioners from Charles the Second arrived at Boston, directed, among other things, to apprehend and arrest any persons attainted for high treason. On the arrival of this intelligence, the two judges quietly left Milford, and again sought the cave, where they tarried eight or ten days. It was during this time that some Indians, while hunting, had discovered the cave 'with the bed,' and 'the report being spread abroad, it was not safe to remain near it.'
"Away on the remotest frontier of the English plantations was the little settlement of Hadley, Mass. This had been founded a few years before by the Rev. John Russell, of Wethersfield, Conn., who had removed into this clearing in the wilderness with a portion of his congregation. Through some arrangement which does not appear, Mr. Russell agreed to receive the two judges into his family at Hadley, and on the 13th of October they bade their New Haven friends farewell and started on their journey, travelling by night and resting days, usually giving their stations or 'harbors' some particular name. About a week later they arrived at Hadley, where one of them was to end his days. For ten or twelve years they lived in the family of Mr. Russell, never making themselves known to the villagers; and finally, his mind having gradually failed and gone, Whalley died about the year 1675, at an advanced age, and was buried in the cellar of the house where he had spent his declining years. His son-in-law, Goffe, cared for him tenderly to the end. Years afterward, when the Russell house was being repaired, the bones of a man, supposed to be Whalley, were discovered behind a slab in the cellar wall.
"While at Hadley both Whalley and Goffe kept up a correspondence with their families in England, always using assumed names. Goffe usually looked after these matters, owing to the age and infirmities of Whalley. Many of his letters are still in existence, as are those of Mrs. Goffe. The chirography is quite legible, and would be more so but for the originality in the matter of spelling, which would
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