dignified and influential men was appointed to assign irrevocably to each
person his or her place, according to rank and importance. Whittier wrote
of this custom:--

"In the goodly house of worship, where in order due and fit,
As by public vote directed, classed and ranked the people sit;
Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire before the clown,
From the brave coat, lace embroidered: to the gray frock shading down."

In many cases the members of the committee were changed each year or at
each fresh seating, in order to obviate any of the effects of partiality
through kinship, friendship, personal esteem, or debt. A second committee
was also appointed to seat the members of committee number one, in order
that, as Haverhill people phrased it, "there may be no Grumbling at them
for picking and placing themselves."

This seating committee sent to the church the list of all the attendants
and the seats assigned to them, and when the list had been twice or thrice
read to the congregation, and nailed on the meeting-house door, it became a
law. Then some such order as this of the church at Watertown, Connecticut,
was passed: "It is ordered that the next Sabbath Day every person shall
take his or her seat appointed to them, and not go to any other seat where
others are placed: And if any one of the inhabitants shall act contrary, he
shall for the first offence be reproved by the deacons, and for a second
pay a fine of two shillings, and a like fine for each offence ever
after." Or this of the Stratham church: "When the comety have Seatid the
meeting-house every person that is Seatid shall set in those Seats or pay
Five Shillings Pir Day for every day they set out of There seats in a
Disorderly Manner to advance themselves Higher in the meeting-house." These
two church-laws were very lenient. In many towns the punishments and fines