A History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, vol 2, Part 1

Author: Hutt, Frank Walcott, 1869- editor
Publication date: 1924
Publisher: New York, Chicago, Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 484

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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01101 1035

GENEALOGY 974.401 B77HUT v.2

Lewis Historical Pub. Co.

Ena by E & Williams & Bro NY

Samantha morton

A HISTORY OF

BRISTOL COUNTY

MASSACHUSETTS

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

FRANK WALCOTT HUTT

Secretary of the Old Colony Historical Society; member of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL

VOLUME II.

LEWIS HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC. NEW YORK and CHICAGO

1924

1128654

HISTORY OF BRISTOL COUNTY

PART IV.

HISTORY OF NEW BEDFORD

NEW BEDFORD IN 1810. (FROM AN OLD PAINTING BY WILLIAM A. WALL)

NEW BEDFORD-CORNER WATER AND WILLIAMS STREETS IN 1805

HISTORY OF NEW BEDFORD

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY

As the stranger enters the city of New Bedford today, he is impressed with the thought that he is now coming to one of America's busy, bustling manufacturing centers, where twentieth century machinery, backed by brains and muscle, are all in tune. And so he is, but there is nothing in the first appearance that suggests tradition, or a city of mature and won- derful charm. But when he walks about the town, he comes upon the greatest estates of a far-off day, when men of fortune and refinement could command room to indulge their spacious fancies-stately mansions of stone and wood, set back from the street, surrounded by extensive lawns and ancient trees, with old-fashioned gardens, the flower beds with over- hanging borders of roses-all calculated to enchant the passer-by. These old mansions were surrounded with great elms towering high above and over all, a joy forever; the grass was then green by the wayside, and all nature seemed at rest.

The sight of the manifestations of wealth and culture cause us to want to tell the stranger of today and future generations the story of the roman- tic age of New Bedford's history, when it led the world in the industry of whaling, and then to change and tell the transformation story of how the city came to be the site of its marvelous factory plants, the source of her present great wealth which is annually rapidly increasing in its magnitude. Passing over the long years which will be treated in the succeeding chap- ters, let us take a glimpse of what may be termed the golden age of whaling, when Herman Melville, whose story of "Moby Dick," the finest contribution to literature of whaling along our shores, gave his graphic description of New Bedford in the fifties. Some of his description we quote :

But think not that this town has only harpooners, cannibals and bumpkins, to show their visitors. Nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence came they; how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country? Go and gaze on the iron em- blematic harpoons 'round yonder lofty mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes, all the brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like this?

In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises apiece. You must go to New Bed- ford to see brilliant weddings; for, they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti candles.

In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples-long avenues of green and gold. And in April, high in air, the beautiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra- wise, proffer the passer-by their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is the art which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces of flowers upon barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation's final day.

And the women of New Bedford-they bloom like their own red roses. But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as

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sunlight in the seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young girls breathe such muck, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles from shore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands.

The visitor of New Bedford today (1923) will not see sights as these paragraphs describe. The city has come to make the land tributary to her wealth. The old ships that once crowded the wharves have gone forever. So have the industries allied to whaling-the oil refineries, the candle works, the cooper shops, the shops where harpoons and kindred instruments of whalecraft were made. Here a new and greater city has been builded on the twentieth century plan. Then, reader, listen to the story of how New Bedford was changed from a great whaling port to one of wonderful manufacturing industries of which the citizens are and have the right to be proud.

CHAPTER II. DISCOVERY AND EARLY HAPPENINGS

Bartholomew Gosnold discovered what he named Elizabeth Islands (in honor of his Queen), in 1602. He left his men to build a fort and storehouse upon one of the group, while he crossed the bay (Buzzards) and discovered the mouth of the river (Acushnet), on the west shore of which later arose the city of New Bedford. This was in the month of March, and June the same year he sailed for England with his ship loaded with sassafras root, furs, and other articles bought from the Indians, who had treated the strangers with "all courteous kindness." This is the first record of any commercial intercourse between Old and New England, showing the first impression we made on the tribes of Indians-we were their friends from the start. In 1620 came the immortal "Mayflower" with her body of men and women, who amid hardship and untold suffering founded a mighty nation here. Plymouth Colony became a positive fact.

Salem was settled in 1628, and Massachusetts Bay in 1630. From these and subsequent settlements went forth the pioneers who invaded the in- terior and forced their way up and down the "stern and rock-bound coast." Communities were founded at Scituate, Middleboro, Taunton and Dart- mouth, all being known within a few years as good trading places and centers of local government, with schools and churches. It was not until 1652 that Dartmouth was purchased from the Indians, through old chief Massasoit and his son Wamsutta, the old Indian deed naming as the pur- chasers William Bradford, Captain Standish, Thomas Southworth, John Winslow, John Cooke, and the "rest of their associates or old comers." The entire township of Dartmouth was divided into thirty-four shares which were named and entered in Plymouth Colony records, Book 2, page 107, where the boundaries of the purchase are also set forth. Prior to 1652, there were other settlers whose names were later entered on record.

Incorporation .- The town of Dartmouth was incorporated in 1664, and sent its first representative, John Russell, to the General Court at Plymouth.

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John Cooke, one of the "boys of the Mayflower," an only son of one of the original grantees of the town, became a resident, locating his home at Ox- ford Village, Fairhaven. He was a Baptist preacher, was an important pub- lic-spirited man, and held local offices. He died in 1694, and was buried at Burial Hill, Fairhaven. The will of William Wood, when probated, was found to contain this bequest: "And whereas the bodies of some persons that were of good account in their day were buried on the little hummock or island in the meadow at the foot of my homestead commonly called 'Burial Hill,' and I not willing that their graves be anyway defaced do therefore in this my will hereby give the same hummock or island to and for a burying place forever." During King Philip's War the township of Dartmouth was laid waste by the Indians, and many settlers lost their lives, and those who did escape sought safety in the garrison houses located-one in Fairhaven, just north of the present site of Riverside Cemetery, at the home of John Cooke, and known as Cooke's Garrison; another on the north bank of the river Apponagansett, known as Russell's Garrison. An- other was located on Palmer's Island. The war so demoralized the town- ship that the settlers' taxes could not be paid for the next three years. The Indian wars that wrought such damage might have been avoided, but the difficulties that beset the Pilgrims must be considered; and now, with the world so recently in arms, no criticism is just that lays the blame for those years of suffering and loss upon either of the parties in question; both had provocation, both erred, and both suffered.

In 1685 the town was summoned to Plymouth Court to explain why they had failed to provide for their minister of the gospel. The out- come was that in 1686 it was ordered by a vote to build a meeting-house, which was to be "24 by 16 feet, with nine feet stud." Dartmouth Monthly Meeting was organized in 1699. The records of this church have been preserved until the present time.

During the first century of the town of Dartmouth, many settlers had located in the town, not attracted by its fertility of soil, but had made their homes there far away from the large centers that they might enjoy religious freedom. The growth was slow, and the events such as we would now call unimportant and without much general interest. Farming was the principal occupation. The land was taken up by both Puritan and Quaker stock. These pioneer settlers do not appear to have been guilty of any offense other than the want of obedience to the rigid requirements of the court in regard to the support of a minister and the observance of the Sabbath. There was a vast amount of friction between the Quakers and Puritans. In 1724 John Tucker and Peleg Slocum refused to pay a tax for building a Presbyterian church at Chilmark, and their property on Elizabeth Islands was seized. Yet to the Quakers of Dartmouth and Tiver- ton, aided by the Baptists, must be given the honor of the first successful appeal for justice to the English government.

In 1723, John Atkins and Philip Tabor of Dartmouth, Joseph Anthony and John Sissons of Tiverton, were assessors of their several towns. Being Quakers and Baptists, they refused to collect the taxes imposed by the General Court for the support of the ministry, and were thrown into prison at New Bristol. The case was tried in the courts and they were acquitted and the taxes levied were remitted.

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The people were frequently under rebuke on account of the lack of interest they took in military matters. The chief military officer of the colony, writing in 1690 of Dartmouth, said: "They have not a man in the town that seems in the least concerned whether we have any military officers or no." In 1716 Dartmouth Monthly Meeting bore strong testi- mony against slavery, and a century and a half later New Bedford estab- lished a noble record as a city of refuge for the. runaway slave and as a station on the so called "Underground Railroad."

While Dartmouth was for the first century an agricultural town, it was but natural that a village should spring up along the coast line of its terri- tory. In 1760 the first tract was sold for village purposes to John Loudon; it was just south of the four corners (Union and Water streets), and upon this he erected a house in 1761. He was a calker by trade, and at one time conducted an inn which in the raid by the British was fired. In 1761 Benjamin Tabor bought land and established a structure suitable to carry on the boat-building and block-making business. In 1765 also came a new resident, Joseph Rotch, a merchant from Nantucket. Joseph Russell was also a pioneer merchant here and had to do with all the "beginnings" in New Bedford. Russell being the family name of the Duke of Bedford, hence the naming of New Bedford. It was first "Bedford," but when it was found that another Bedford was in the colony, the prefix "New" was added. A new order came about after Joseph Rotch located there. Houses and shops multiplied, population increased greatly, and soon the place had a name on the map of the world, and a coast fishery was soon estab- lished and lasted many years. The first ship built was in the yards owned by Francis Rotch, son of Joseph Rotch, near Hazzard's Wharf. The vessel, named "Dartmouth," launched in 1767, was the first to be built, and it had the distinction of being one of the vessels connected with the "Boston Tea Party." Another ship was built there about that time, the "Bedford," the ship which was the first to display the American flag in British waters. She was loaded with four hundred and eighty-seven butts of whale oil, was American built, manned wholly by American seamen. This was the vessel that first displayed the Stars and Stripes of America in any British port.

The population of New Bedford in 1775 was about five hundred souls. In 1795 it had about one thousand.

While the town of Dartmouth had been intensely loyal to the cause of Independence, the village of Bedford had taken little active part; in fact, had tried to curb her neighbor across the river, Fairhaven. There were no privateers fitted out or owned in New Bedford, but the harbor was an important rendezvous for privateers which were largely owned in Boston, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. However, many Dartmouth men were engaged in privateering, and the first naval exploit and capture recorded in the annals of the Revolution is placed to their credit-the date, May 13, 1775; place, Dartmouth Harbor. The war tied up the whaling fleet, and a host of daring, energetic men were without occupation. They naturally turned to privateering-the product of war, a strange mixture of good and evil prompting men to valiant deeds and noble sacrifices, and leading them to deeds of violence foreign to their nature. The records show that more than six hundred men sailed from Massachusetts ports alone; Boston

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NEW BEDFORD-CORNER UNION AND PURCHASE STREETS IN 1820 (STREET THROUGH CENTER IS PURCHASE)

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NEW BEDFORD-CORNER UNION AND PURCHASE STREETS IN 1918

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HISTORY OF NEW BEDFORD

had a list of three hundred and fifty. Certain ports having good harbors, easy of access, became very important centers, Dartmouth being among the best, from which privateers shot in and out to thread the coast in both directions, disappearing at the presence of an English man-of-war, only to pounce upon some unsuspicious merchantman who soon afterward would be lawful prize, anchored at Dartmouth or other convenient port.

One of the famous figures in American naval history is John Paul Jones, a Scotchman by birth. He served on the "Alfred" in 1776, himself unfurling the American flag the first time it was flung to the breeze on board that ship. Soon after, he was given command of the "Providence," a fast sailing vessel mounting twelve guns, one of the fleet of thirteen ves- sels authorized by the Continental Congress. His first cruise lasted forty- seven days, resulting in the capture of sixteen prizes. He frequently visited Dartmouth Harbor, and his crew was recruited frequently from Dartmouth men. The "Providence" was so successful that a British brig-of-war near double the gun power of the American vessel, was ordered to cruise for her. The two vessels met and a bloody contest ensued. The final broadside of the "Providence" was chiefly of old spikes, bolts, and pieces of hoop- iron. So near was the battle fought to New Bedford, that when the vessels anchored in the harbor, blood was yet running from the sides of the brig. The wounded of the crew who later died were brought on shore and buried in a small hillock a short distance north of the spot once occupied by Rotch's rope-walk. Finally these dead seamen were more properly buried in Oak Grove Cemetery.

The activity on the part of Dartmouth privateers marked them for future vengeance. The severe conflict between the British and our vessels in that memorable fight is found well told in all American histories, also in the recent "History of Bristol County," pages 17 to 27. When the British retired, the condition of the town was pitiful. Warehouses, shipyards, rope- walks and stores that had given employment to the people; dwellings and barns; the fleet of seventy ships-all gone up in flame and smoke, New Bedford's contribution to the price paid for American Independence. The price paid by other communities was equally great, but when the news reached the individual members of the eight companies of soldiers who served from Dartmouth, a spirit was aroused that boded no good to the enemy they were to meet later. Dartmouth sent at least five hundred men into the army, besides a large number of seamen in our navy. All over the land there were men who remained loyal to the Crown, and it would have been strange if Dartmouth had been without such. The non-resistance of the members of the Society of Friends does not prove them opposed to Liberty's cause; on the contrary, just so far as their religious principles would permit, they were friendly and helpful.

CHAPTER III. THE BRAVE INDUSTRY OF WHALING.

The story of New Bedford's fascinating industry-the whale fishing --- is so interwoven with the history of New Bedford that it cannot be separ- ated from it, yet the story is so full of romance and adventure, as well as

Bristol-33

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BRISTOL COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS

of commercial importance, that it deserves special volumes where we can give chapters only.

The water front of New Bedford was once conspicuous by a forest of whaleship masts. Now the tall chimneys of the cotton mills have assumed the place they occupied in the picture, telling of the decline of the whaling business and the progress of the cotton industry which is now on the top wave of success.

Along the water front one still encounters a few old buildings of stone which were occupied by whaling agents in the palmy days of whaling, when a great race of merchants and captains frequented them. The mer- chants were a type of men such as this generation produces not,-portly nabobs who wore broadcloth and beaver hats and jeweled watch fobs, looking the part of men of large affairs, others in the garb of the Quaker, while the captain of those old days was the embodiment of affluence. The boys of that early day all aspired to command whaleships, and the captain of a whaler was looked upon by youth with the awe with which Mark Twain used to look upon the captains of the Mississippi steamboats.

In these buildings were the counting rooms of the whaling merchants. The first floors were often the ship chandlery shops and rooms where whaling outfits were stored between voyages. The counting rooms were on the second floors, and there were sail lofts and rigging lofts in the upper stories. These counting rooms had a character all their own. There were counters and iron railings behind which were desks of mahogany. The bookkeepers stood up, or sat on high stools. There were few desks in the old counting rooms at which the office help might sit in a chair. About the office walls were models of whaleships and whaling prints reproduced from the paintings of Benjamin Russell. There were boxes on the shelves, lettered with the names of the whale ships, in which the vessel's bills and papers were kept. One of these great buildings of stone and brick, un- adorned by architectural ornament and reflecting the tendencies of the business men of the period, is still standing at the foot of Union street, and is now occupied in part by the offices of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad.

The late Jonathan Bourne, the most successful of all the whaling mer- chants in New Bedford's rich history, who owned at one time more ships than any man in New England, carried on business in the old stone block at the head of Merrill's wharf throughout his career, and his counting rooms are now exactly as he left them, the sole survivor of all the counting rooms which are visualized in the minds of those who remember the fascinating industry, no less than the quaint old ships strongly character- ized by their clumsy wooden davits and masthead perches from which the lookouts watched for whales.

There is to-day an odor of whale oil about Merrill's wharf, contributed by a few hundred casks of oil that happen to be stored there at this time, which brings back memories of departed days to the old citizen who gets a whiff of oil and seaweed once so familiar. The power of smells to evoke pictures was recently emphasized by Mr. Kipling. "Have you noticed," he wrote the other day, "wherever a few travelers gather together, one or the other is sure to say, 'Do you remember the smell of such and such a place?' Then he may go to speak of camel-pure camel-one whiff of which is all

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Arabia; or of the smell of rotten eggs at Hitt, on the Euphrates, where Noah got the pitch for the ark; or the flavor of drying fish in Burma." Mr. Kipling's allusion brought out a swarm of letters from people who tried to assign the characteristic smell of great cities. One man tells that the odor of Paris is a mingling of the fragrance of burnt coffee, of caporal and of burning peat. Berlin, we are told, has the clean, ashphalty, disinfectant smell of all new towns; while Vienna the windy reeks of dust. The Lon- don "Times," coming in here, is stirred to a pitch of poetical enlargement by the topic: "The subject of smells in their relation to the traveler is an old and favorite topic with Mr. Kipling. Has he not said somewhere that the smell of the Himalayas always calls a man back? And does not his time-expired soldier sing of the 'spicy garlic smells' of Burma? The smells of travel are indeed innumerable. The voyager gets his first real whiff of the east when he lands at Aden, and drives along a dusty road to the bazaar within the crater. It lingers in his nostrils for evermore. On the coast of Burma and down the straits the air is redolent of rotten fish and overripe fruit. Tropical jungles have been olfactory memories of decaying vegeta- tion. The smell of Chinese villages is like nothing else in the world, but the odd thing is that to the true traveler it ceases to be disagreeable."

So much for smells, apropos of those which linger on Merrill's wharf. In the old days casks of oil coated with seaweed covered every wharf along the water front of New Bedford. The leakage saturated the soil, and the air was redolent with the heavy odor. After a century in which it was the distinctive New Bedford smell it has vanished excepting for this little spot where, in the only place on earth, is exhaled the odor of the industry which produced great fortunes and made the New Bedford of old the richest city in the country in proportion to its population.

The records of Plymouth and Nantucket as far back as 1676 and 1690, respectively, tell of the business of killing whales, which was carried on in boats from the shore. In 1751 there were two or three vessels from Ap- ponagansett river engaged in this fishery. These vessels were owned by John Wady and Daniel Wood. There were at this date one or two vessels in this business from the Acushnet river owned by Joseph and Caleb Rus- sell. Up to this time whales were principally taken between George's Bank and the Capes of Virginia; and the voyages continued from four to six weeks. Soon after, the whalemen extended their cruising grounds to the eastward of the Newfoundland coast, and the voyages were lengthened to three months. At first more vessels were fitted from Apponagansett river than from the Acushnet; but soon the superior advantages of our harbor became apparent, and the Apponagansett vessels were fitted here.

"Consider for a moment the aspect of our town when these two or three little sloops were fitting for their whaling voyages," wrote William W. Crapo: "The present site of the city was a forest. There was a 'try-house' near the shore (at the foot of Centre street), and a rough cartway led through the woods to the few farm houses on the County road." The Rev. Paul Coffin, who ten years later (July 21, 1761) visited the place, thus describes it in his journal: "This day rode to Dartmouth, a spacious town; twenty miles will carry you through it. Rocks and oaks are over the whole town. Whortle bushes and rocks in this and the two former towns are the sad comfort of the weary traveler. At sunset arrived at Rev. West's."

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New Bedford is very rich in old manuscripts, which are continually coming to light. A few sheets of great interest are preserved, giving an account of the Russell family. Joseph Russell was the founder of the whale fishery, and the record from which quotation is made was prepared by William T. Russell, sixty or seventy years ago. Joseph Russell was a son of John Russell, one of the original proprietors of the town of Dart- mouth. He was born in 1719, and died in 1804. His house stood on the country road between the court house and the Charles W. Morgan estate. The old manuscript recites as follows :

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A History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, vol 2, Part 1

Author: Hutt, Frank Walcott, 1869- editor Publication date: 1924 Publisher: New York, Chicago, Lewis historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 484

Author: Hutt, Frank Walcott, 1869- editor
Publication date: 1924
Publisher: New York, Chicago, Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 484