The worst hurricane in New England history happened on this day

No, not the Hurricane of '38. The Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635, at least, based on a 2006 analysis for the National Hurricane Center, which features eyewitness accounts from William Bradford of Plymouth and John Winthrop (yes, that John Winthrop) of Boston:

The wind having blown hard at S. and S.W. a week before, about midnight it came up at N.E. and blew with such violence, with abundance of rain, that it blew down many hundreds of trees, near the towns, overthrew some houses, and drove the ships from their anchors. The Great Hope, of Ipswich, being about four hundred tons, was driven aground at Mr. Hoffe's Point, and brought back again presently by a N. W. wind, and ran on shore at Charlestown. About eight of the clock the wind came about to N.W. very strong, and it being then about high water, by nine the tide had fallen three feet. Then it began to flow again about one hour, and rose about two or three feet, which was conceived to be, that the sea was grown so high abroad with a N.E. wind, that, meeting with the ebb, it forced it back again.

This tempest was not so far as Cape Sable, but to the south more violent, and made a double tide all that coast. ... The tide rose at Narragansett fourteen feet higher than ordinary, and drowned eight Indians flying from their wigwams.

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The Great Hurricane of 1635.