USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Topsfield > An address delivered at Topsfield in Massachusetts, August 28, 1850 : the two hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the town > Part 1
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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01145 9002
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https://archive.org/details/addressdelivered1850clea
BINDERY
55 ANS
D. L. Glover Sc.
trwa trusler to frue To: Endicott
AN
ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT
TOPSFIELD
IN MASSACHUSETTS,
AUGUST 28, 1850 :
THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
OF THE
INCORPORATION
OF THE TOWN.
BY NEHEMIAH CLEAVELAND.
"So many grateful altars I would rear Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone Of lustre from the brook, in memory, Or monument to ages."
MILTON. .
He 974.402 T62cl
NEW - YORK.
PUDNEY & RUSSELL, PRINTERS. .... 1851.
(* Aug. 29, 1850. itshould be
Certain portions of the Address here published, were, on account of its length, omitted in the delivery. The preparation of the appendix, and other causes, have delayed its appearance, but not, it is believed, without a compen- satory advantage. For the means of giving a likeness of GOVERNOR BRADSTREET, now for the first time copied and published, I am indebted to SOLOMON WILDES, EsQ., of Boston, and others of the Governor's descendants. I acknowledge simi- lar obligations to ASAHEL HUNTINGTON, EsQ., of Salem, and to JOHN CLEAVELAND, EsQ., of New-York. Mr. C. M. ENDICOTT lent the use of his engraved steel plate.
BROOKLYN, N. Y., Dec. 12th, 1850.
8- 1945
1429678
ADDRESS.
WELCOME ! thrice welcome, sweet summer-morning air, inhaled to-day upon the spot, where I first drew the vital breath ! Hail, holy light, and all pervading warmth of yon glorious orb-standing now, for the two hun- dredth time, just where it stood among the stars, two centuries ago ! Hail, thou green vale of my nativity, and ye, fair surrounding hills,-with every rock, and mound, and pond, and stream, and aged tree, and old cottage-home,-once so familiar, and still so grateful to my eye ! And you, whom I address-whether inhabit- ants of the town-or emigrants, revisiting your early home-or descendants of those who once dwelt here- or neighbors and spectators only, drawn hither by mo- tives merely curious or friendly ; I bid you all hail !
Citizens of Topsfield,-from my distant home, I have come, at your bidding. I am not insensible, that it is for you, as well as to you, that I am expected to speak. Had I regarded it as other than a filial duty,-had I not felt assured that you would make all due allowance
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for its difficulties and its short-comings, I should cer- tainly have been reluctant to attempt the task.
Should the fare which I place before you seem meagre and unsatisfying, let it not therefore be as- cribed to any deficiency of the original material, or to a want of inclination on my part, to collect and present it in proper form. I have had, let it be re- membered, but one short month to review the doings of six or seven generations, and to summon up the departed shades of more than two hundred years. No friendly committee of search,-no pioneering Felt, or Coffin, or Gage, accustomed to the woods, and wont "to dig and to delve," had traversed the ground before me, to clear away the dense under-growth, or to cull, here and there, a gem from the rubbish of ages.
We commemorate to-day the two hundredth return of that year, when our town became a corporate mem- ber of the commonwealth. The settlement, however, as is well known, dates considerably farther back than 1650. What hardy adventurer first crossed yonder hill, or pad- dling up as far as this, the river Agawam, planted him- self upon its banks, we have, so far as I am aware, no means of ascertaining. Neither is the time when Eng- lish settlers made a beginning here, exactly known,. though it may, doubtless, be determined very nearly. But before we proceed to this, there is an elder history, which claims, I think, a moment's consideration.
The track of European discovery, occupancy, and pro- gress on this continent, is so fresh, and so clearly marked, that we are prone, while dwelling upon it, to forget that
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there was anything beyond. It is not easy to feel that America is as old as Asia-still less to believe, with the geologist, that the White Mountains and the Alle- ghanies had lifted their summits to the sky, long before the Alps and the Himalaya emerged from the sea. We have always called this the New World, and are wont to think of it, I apprehend, as being about three hundred years old. And yet this wood-crowned knoll, upon which some of us used to play-that little plain, which we call "The Common"-the loftier swell beyond it, known as Great 'Hill-that scooped-out gorge by its side, so shady and green-those two rivulets below us, which steal along through meadows "never sere"-with the silver stream, into which they flow-were, doubt- less, all here, and probably much the same as now-in the far distant days of Agamemnon and of Abraham Beneath what successive dynasties of semi-civilized or savage men the region passed-or how often it was the battle-ground of contesting tribes-are points that we shall never know. Yet, may we not consider them un- questionable realities, just as much as if they had been immortalized in the narrative of Moses or the song of Homer ?
It is possible that the larger part of my audience have never even heard of a place called She-ne-we-me-dy. Yet such a place there is-and long ago, it was well- known for hundreds of miles around, in the unwritten geography of the aborigines. This place, which after- wards took the name of Topsfield, was as definitely loca- ted as any township now is-though, I presume, they did not often trouble themselves to perambulate its
6
line. It was not, as since, divided into farms, but formed part of the large farm of one considerable clan. Its territory was owned as truly, as it is now-and by as good a title. It was the hunting-ground of Indians- one of their game-preserves-and here, they had their deer-reeves for a thousand years, perhaps, before the town of Topsfield began to choose them. Here, too, they fished :
" River and stiller waters paid Their tribute to the net and spear Of the red ruler of the shade."
There was no trouble about the alewives then. No envious dam obstructed their free passage to the sources of the stream ;- nor were committees. needed, as in later times, to transport that valuable fish into Prich- ard's Pond, for the purpose of spawning.
She-ne-we-me-dy belonged to the tribe of the Aga- wams. Their territory lay along the Atlantic coast, from Naumkeag River to the Merrimack,-and extended inland to Cochickawick, now Andover. In 1638, their sachem, Masconnomet, conveyed by deed to John Win- throp, son of the Governor of Massachusetts, all his right to the land then within the bounds of Ipswich. This included a part of what was afterwards Topsfield. The consideration of this deed was twenty pounds. The chieftain, who surrendered, for such a pittance, his princely domain, became a poor dependent on the colo- nists, and died, and was buried, about 1658, upon Sagamore Hill, in Hamilton. The first settlers of this town doubtless considered their title good, under the deed to Winthrop. And yet, more than fifty years
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after its incorporation, a claim was made upon them by a grandson of Masconnomet. There is no evidence that it was resisted. A committee was chosen to settle with the claimant, and the result was a quit-claim deed, made and executed with all due forms of law, by which, in consideration of the sum of three pounds, in money paid, Samuel English, heir to Masconnomet, re- linquished his entire rights to all the lands of Tops- field. This last statement may seem, in some degree, anticipatory. But I thought it best,-having once be- gun the search for our title, to make a finish of it- and the evidence is such, I think, as must satisfy, not only the most scrupulous conscience, but the most timid of land-buyers.
As a corporation, Topsfield is two hundred years old,- but as a settlement it is more ancient by several years. The first notice which we find of it, is contained in an order of the General Court, dated on the 4th of the 7th month, 1639. By this order, certain lands lying near Ipswich River were granted for a village, to in- habitants of Salem. Another order, in 1643, refers to this of 1639. It states that, though Salem alone was mentioned, a part of the original applicants belonged to Ipswich, and adds that the individuals last named, had then, for nearly two years, maintained preaching. The record proceeds as follows: "It is therefore or- dered that Mr. John Endicott, and the said inhabit- ants of Ipswich, viz .: Mr. Bradstreet, Mr. Symonds, Mr. Whittingham, Mr. William Paine, Mr. Robert Paine, with such others of Ipswich or Salem as they shall associate to themselves, shall have liberty to
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settle a village near the said river of Ipswich," &c. The facts thus incidentally stated, leave little room to doubt that there were some settlers within these lim- its as early, at least, as 1635, if not before. The level grounds which skirt the river were undoubtedly bare of trees,-not only constituting the first attraction to the spot, but suggesting the agreeable name of NEW MEADOWS, which for several years the village bore.
Whittingham and the two Paines, named in the or- der of Court, soon parted with their interest here. "Mr. Symonds," who was unquestionably Samuel Sym- onds, afterwards a member of the Court of Assistants, and Deputy Governor, a man of high consideration in the colony, probably retained his lands-as one of his daughters was the wife of Thomas Baker, an early and a prominent settler in this place. The other individ- uals mentioned in the order were truly men of renown. "John Endicott, the leader of the colony of Massachu- setts Bay, its first Governor, and one of the greatest names in American history, received, by an order of Court, in 1639, a grant of five hundred and fifty acres in the village of New Meadows. This tract was bor- dered by the river, and was in the southern part of what is now Topsfield. Governor Endicott never re- sided here-but the farm just named, largely increased by a subsequent grant and by purchase, became, at length, the property of his son, Dr. Zerubbabel En- dicott, and from him descended to his sons Zerubba- bel and Benjamin, who were both inhabitants of Tops- field. Benjamin died without issue, as did also, in 1738,
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Zerubbabel the third, at which time this great Endi- cott estate passed out of the name. (1)
Of the same date and same source with the Endi- cott grant, was one of five hundred acres to Simon Bradstreet. The position of this tract on the eastern side of the town, is well known, and a considerable portion of it still remains in the possession of his de- scendants. I am unable to say, positively, whether du- ring the five years which elapsed between the recep- tion of the grant and his removal to Andover, Gov- ernor Bradstreet resided in New Meadows. Such a be- lief has been current in the family, and I know nothing that contradicts it. It is a tradition to which, in the absence of rebutting testimony, I choose to yield assent. In my view, it gives additional interest to that pleasant hill, to revive, with its leafy image of more than two hundred years ago, that of the honored ma- gistrate and future governor-to imagine him retiring thither from the cares of state-enjoying, in his rude forest shelter, a happiness which the luxurious homes and fair fields of England had not afforded-and re- calling, it may be, as he walked among the tall old trees, the cloistered shades of Cambridge and Emanuel; -recalling, but not regretting them. And does it not lend a poetic grace to the scenery there, to fancy, as we surely may, that the accomplished and celebrated Anne Bradstreet, once wooed the muse beneath its virgin bowers, and along the river side ? But, how- ever this may have been, the spot, as being the resi- dence of his son, was, doubtless, often visited by Mr.
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Bradstreet, in the course of his long and illustrious career. (2)
A third order of the Court in regard to New Mead- ows, was passed in 1645, making such an arrangement in regard to rates, as would enable the settlers here to support a Minister of the Gospel. An Act of In- corporation in those days was a very simple affair. The Charter of our town privileges reads thus : "At a third session of the General Court of Election, held at Boston, Oct. 15, 1650: In answer to the request of Zaccheus Gould and William Howard, in the behalf of Topsfield, the Court doth grant that Topsfield shall, from henceforth, be a town, and have power within themselves to order all civil affairs, as other towns have."
Obscurity has long rested upon the origin of the name, which was thus conferred upon this locality two hundred years since. With a strange forgetfulness of the unimaginative habits, and the almost invariable practice of our ancestors, in regard to names, it has commonly been regarded as a fanciful appellation, sug- gested by the fact, that there were some hills in the place. The theory is wholly untenable. Our fathers had abandoned England, but they had not forgotten it, or ceased to love it. The cities, the towns, and the little sequestered parishes, from which they came, were, in name at least, carefully perpetuated here.
In that shire of England, from which this county was named, there is, four miles W. N. W. from Castle Hedingham, a small parish called Topesfield. To this
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place, unquestionably, some of those who first occupied these farms, were wont to look back, with a feeling, fond and filial, like that which has brought to-day many an emigrant to this home-gathering of ours. This Topesfield, whose maternity, so far as we are con- cerned, I think none can doubt, is a Rectory in the Hundred of Hinckford. Its church is dedicated to St. Margaret, and its patron is the king. At the begin- ning of this century its population was 685. Topes- field, with various orthography, such as " Topsfelda, Topsfelde, Topsfeldam," occurs repeatedly in Doomsday Book, a work written in Latin, and made in the reign of Edward the Second. This is a respectable antiquity, -yet we are able to go considerably farther up. In the time of the Heptarchy, the whole place be- longed to a yellow-haired Saxon, whose name was Topa, or Toppa. From that time his ample field has con- tinued to bear his name. "Hill-tops," forsooth ! why our name is, at the very least, 800 years old.
Hear me a little farther. Fifty years ago, there was dug up in this same Topesfield a skeleton, with various Roman antiquities. There were a metal vase or urn, with a handle; a metallic patera, bossed in the centre ; three elegant little cups of red Samian ware; a Roman coin, much defaced ; and a corroded sword blade, which lay across the breast of the warrior. Thus is it proved that our mother Topesfield was an inhabited place, a home blessed by civilization and the arts, in the time of the Cæsars. This is as far back in the ages as I shall attempt to go to-day. (3)
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Having now reached the period when this place, no longer a portion of other towns, had become a dis- tinct community, authorized by law to have its own government and manage its own affairs, we might na- turally expect to find an authentic history of its or- ganization and early proceedings. Some record of the kind was undoubtedly kept. The probability is, that a small and insufficient book was first used, and that in the course of five-and-twenty years, it had become full. Another book was then procured, which has come down to us. The first town meeting recorded in this volume, was held March 7, 1676. At that meeting the selectmen were directed to transcribe the old book into the new, and especially, to record the division of lots which had been made on the south side of the river. Either the first records of the town were im- perfect, or its agents must have regarded their com- mission as highly discretionary. Their excerpts are ex- ceedingly meagre and unsatisfactory-entered, it would seem, as leisure permitted, on blank leaves ahead, and without regard to date. As all the pages were sub- sequently filled by the current record of the time, there is a portion of the book which is admirably con- fused. After all that was deemed important was trans- ferred, the old book was, perhaps, destroyed ;- it cer- tainly was not preserved. Could those excellent men have heard, by some sort of anticipation, the groans and sighs which their negligence has drawn, and will continue to draw, from baffled antiquarians, disappointed genealogists, and, once an age, from groping centennial
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orators, they surely would have been less indolent or less careless.
I have read with such thoroughness, as the difficul- ties of ancient chirography, and the shortness of my time allowed, these annals of Topsfield, from their ear- liest recorded transaction in 1658, down to the close of the revolutionary war. I shall make no unavail- ing endeavor to interest you by long extracts from town votes, or by lists of names and details of busi- ness. These belong to the future historian of the place. Let me attempt rather a brief summary-a con- densed picture-the resulting impression left upon my mind, by this perusal of the names and doings of de- parted generations.
New settlements, in the early days of New-England, were not left to spring up by chance, nor were they determined, as often in later times, by the lawless pro- ceedings of squatters and pre-emptioners. The Puritan colonists came to this land for a very special purpose- and to that purpose they accommodated their plans. Did a number of individuals desire to plant a new town? They obtained an order to that effect from the General Court. To these, with such other freemen as they saw fit to admit, was consigned the govern- ment of the place. These granted the land in farms, of various sizes, until the population was deemed suf- ficient for the territory. At first the position of the houses was, to a certain extent, determined by law. None could be more than a half-mile from the meeting-house. If the homesteads were thus made in-
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sufficient for the support of their occupants, out-lands more remote were added. In addition to this, exten- sive tracts were reserved in every township, which long continued as common property. In process of time, the amount of right pertaining to the several proprietors of these commons was determined under some equi- table rule of apportionment. To arrange and settle these rights,-to regulate the cutting of wood and tim- ber, or to restrain it in regard to those who were not commoners,-and to prevent encroachment by adjoining farms upon the territory,-were for a long time among the most considerable items of municipal business. The first important entry in the Topsfield Records is the history of a town meeting in 1661. At that meeting "it was ordered," that the Selectmen should "lay out 500 acres of land on the other side of the river, to remain common to perpetuity for the use of the in- habitants." The names of thirty commoners are ap- pended-and it is the earliest list of Topsfield men on record. Four of the number were sufficiently dignified in station, to wear the honorary prefix of Mr. These were Mr. Bradstreet, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Baker, and Mr. Endicott. In the same list occur the following names, which are still represented here by some of their de- scendants : Zaccheus Gould, Francis Pabody, William Towne, Daniel Clark, Isaac Comings, John Wilds, Thomas Perkins, and Robert Andrews. The names of Estey, Dorman, Howlet, Smith, Bates, Redington, Brown- ing, Stanley, Caroll, How, Bridges, and Nichols, are no longer to be found in the town. If any of you feel curious to know in what way the common lands
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of Topsfield were divided, apportioned, trespassed upon, managed, and gradually disposed of, until no part re- mained but the training-field,-you will find the whole matter in the Records of the town, and in the Proprie- tors' Book, long supposed to be lost, but lately recov- ered from its thirty years' repose in an old chest.
In all ages, and especially in all new countries, the adjustment of boundaries between contiguous commu- nities has been a frequent and a serious source of dif- ficulty. From this trouble, the founders of Topsfield, and their immediate successors, were not exempt. With Rowley there appears to have been no disagreement, for the separating line was early and permanently fixed. With Wenham also the limits were easily set- tled, but the duty of the perambulators on that side of the town was rather severe. The course which they were compelled to take, as from year to year they went round to renew or identify the landmarks, carried them through a sort of Serbonian bog, in which they often got sadly mired. To prevent this calamity, the line was finally altered by an amicable arrange- ment. The Ipswich line was established after a short quarrel, but with Salem and with Boxford there was a long contention. Town meetings were held, com- mittees and attorneys were appointed, prosecutions were entered before the law-tribunals, and the action even of the General Court was repeatedly invoked and ob- tained. In the management of these controversies, Topsfield evinced no want of spirit, or of pertinacity. With Boxford the contest was particularly obstinate,
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and may have been tinged with that bitterness which characterizes civil strife. While Boxford was a part of Rowley, and known as Rowley Village, many of its inhabitants attended meeting here-being parochi- ally and ecclesiastically connected with Topsfield. It so happened that some of these persons requested a dismission from this church to that of Boxford, at a time when these difficulties were at their height. The answer, in substance, was, that the letters of dismis- sion would be granted whenever Boxford should show a Christian spirit, and behave properly in regard to the boundary. I need not say that, in both these cases, peace and amity were at length fully restored. Would you like to know exactly when these wars be- gan-how long they raged-and in what years they ended ? Go search the chronicles which contain them.
The laying out, and the making of private ways and of highways, must, of necessity, be among the earliest and most important objects of attention in a new settlement. The history of these in Topsfield, as they advanced from foot-paths to horse-paths,-from these to cart-ways,-and from the last, to carriage- roads ;-- the slow, but certain progress which was made, from sloughs to causeways, and from fords to bridges, - might, perhaps, in many instances, be distinctly traced. I leave the interesting task to some patient Dryasdust, or indefatigable Oldbuck.
By the bounty occasionally offered for the destruc- tion of wolves, we perceive that it was long before the wilderness, here, ceased to be a howling one. The
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widow Eastey, who died in 1805, having, only a month before, just rounded out her century, had seen bears pass by her own door. Deer were abundant in the woods to a much later period. These were deemed sufficiently valuable to be protected by law, and offi- cers were annually chosen by the town to enforce its execution. From numerous facts contained in the re- cords, I have been led to the opinion, which I advance, however, with some diffidence, that the people of Tops- field in those days, thought more highly of fish than they did of game. I allude, as you will understand, to the. solicitude and vigilance, which was long mani- fested by this town, in regard to the annual migra- tion of alewives. This process was obstructed, as they thought, by mill-dams. To enforce and preserve unim- paired the rights of the fish and the fish-eaters,-orders were obtained from the General Court, and countless votes were passed by the town. Agents were sent to confer with, or to prosecute the trespassers. Delegates were appointed to convene and consult with delegates from other fish-eating towns on the river, in regard to the threatening danger. To aid Nature in replen- ishing her diminished stock, men were occasionally ap- pointed to convey some of the young fry into Prichard's Pond. But it was all in vain. The Topsfield fisheries gradually declined, and are now, alas ! extinct. Seldom, if at all, are the present dwellers on Ipswich River permitted to regale themselves with that piscatory de- licacy, which their fathers prized so highly.
I should do injustice to those men, as well as to a valuable member of the Pachydermatous Family, were
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I to omit another fact, which I have learned from these records of the past. Of all the domestic animals, I find mention of one only, on which the freedom of the town was, in due form, conferred, by annual vote. I am bound to add, that this honorable distinction was coupled with the singular condition, that each individ- ual thus enfranchised, should wear a small yoke, and be adorned with a ring.
But there were higher matters than these. That dis- tinctive and very important feature of Puritan New- England, the Board of Selectmen :- chosen, according to the phraseology of our earliest records, "to order the prudential affairs of the town," has, of course, always existed here. It is impossible not to mark, as we follow on, from year to year, the entries of the clerk, how closely this honor and other important town offices were confined to a small number of influential men. For several generations, the Peabodys, the Goulds, the Redingtons, the Perkinses, the Townes, the Bakers, the Cummingses, and the Clarks, seem to have held them, as by prescriptive right. The officers annually chosen, and the mode of conducting town business, appear to have differed very little from what they are now. Jurymen, during the first century, were not drawn by lot, but were regularly elected. Tything-men, in those days, constituted a prominent part of the body politic. Each of them was a censor morum for the time being, and had his allotted district. The powers of inspec- tion and superintendence which were committed to these officers, are such, evidently, as could be exerted
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