USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Gloucester > History of Annisquam, 1902 > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Property of Amfıquam Materiail Suci
History of Anniegram Written by n Pinnie Griffin Permette and read by her Defor the C. O. S. and L.a. March 11th- 1902. #18
HISTORY OF ANNISQUALI
WRITTEN BY
MRS. ATIE GRIFFEN JEWETT.
AND READ BY IGR
BEFORE THI C.A.S. & L.A.
MARCH 11, 1902.
ANN ISQUAM.
A tradition among the people at Annisquam affirms that the name by which their section of the town has always been known is derived from Squam, an Indian word descriptive of the harbor, and Ann, the name of the Cape within whose limits it is situated. The earliest mention is in 1635. It is then spelled Wonasquam and spoken of "as a dangerous place to sail by in stormy weather, by reason of the many rocks and foaming breakers."
The spots selected by most of the early settlers for their homes were chosen with reference to the fitness of the soil for agricultural purposes and such is the rugged and broken character of the territory that even the small number of people that then composed its population covered almost every acre of land that could be easily cultivated. Nearly all of the first settlers had land in several differ- ent places. Besides tlicir home lots, those who resided in the Harbor had grants at "Fisherman's Field" and those living on the neck had them on "Planters Neck" and land between Lobster Cove and the sea. Possessing these lots in widely separated places, without, in many instances, any mention of a house, the exact spot on which many settlers located,
can not be a certained.
Planters leck, where lots were early laid out, and numbered, was " Annisquam" the spot where tradition has always reported to have been the first to have received permanent occupants.
The whole section of Planter's Neck has very little of cultivable land and therefore presented inducements for settling to no other class than fishermen.
This proper y in 1656 came into possession of Edward Haraden who from the best information obtainable settled unon it and was the first permanent settler in Annisquam. Before the end of the century, Norwood, Davis, Day, Sargent, Yorke, Lane, Griffin, and others had taken up their residence tiere.
The " Old Castle", presumably the oldest house now standing in Annisquam was built by Joseph Yorke in 1717, making it nearly two hundred years old. He also built the first wharf with ware houses immediately in front of his dwelling. In these carly days all the wharves were built above the bridge and the building and launching of ships an" the fishing business carried on there.
In 1726 about forty of the families petitioned the town for liberty to set up a meeting house on some of the unappropriated land. The petition was granted in 1728 and
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Boston Public Library
https://archive.org/details/historyofannisqu00jewe
the new parish was known as the Third Society. Some disagreement existed among the people with reference as to the best location for their meeting house which by the decision of the majority was finally erected at the head of Lobster Cove. It was struck by lightning in 1755 and it shows how prosperous the people were in the village as they felt able to afford to build a new church. The old one was taken down in 1830 and a new one was built on the same site that year and dedicated in 1831, the one now standing. The religion of this society was then Orthodox,
but during the ministry of Mr.Ezra Lecnard, the second pastor ( of the society, a remarkable incident took place, the conversion of pastor and people to Universalism. The change of sentiment on the pastor's part, occired in 1311, and such was the unbounded influence of the minister on the people, that. when he made known to them publicly the new belief, the nearly all voted to retain his services and his creed.
The generosity of this good man is proverbial. On one occasion his wife missed her bellows and on making enquiries of the family, the minister exclaimed, " Oh, yes wife , I gave them to Widow Werring, for on calling there , I noticed her wood was green, and ours being dry, I thought she needed them more than we did".
Coming home from the Harbor with a new pair of shoes for his wife he met an old woran barefoot. The good man alimente" and approached the poor woman and pointing to fer bare feet, told her to take the shoes and put them on. Whether he replaced them with another pair for his good wife, we are not told.
In those early days the village school was usually taught by some old dame or spinster who was obliged to earn her living. She would gather the children at her home and thus save the expense of rent and fuel. "Schoolmarm Betty" was an old-time instructor and occupied a cottage near where the Leonard School-house now stands. This lady was a strict disciplinarian, and such was the reverence by which she por held by her pupils that every command was implicitly obeyed. When wearied with er labors on a warm afternoon, she would assume a reclining position in her arm-chair, dispose herself for a nap, close her eyes, hold up her forefinger and assur: those young pupils that she should know if they moved or looked from their spelling book, as she had eyes in her forefingers. Such wonderful obedience, she invariably rewarded by allowing them a long recess and for diversion from study she ordered them to rick upirpples for her pis. who occupied quarters near the house by the sweet apple tre".
In August, 1775, one of the sloops of war the "Falcon" which had aided the British at Bunker Hill made her appearance in Ipswich Bay, and came nearly to the mouth of 'Squan Harbor. A barge containing about fifty men came from the stranger and attempted to land on Coffin's Beach to get supply of sheep from the farm of Major Coffin. The major suspecting their intention repaired to the beach with five or six of his own men and from behind the sand hills kept up such a brisk firing upon the barge as led the officers in command to conclude that a whole company of soldiers were lying in ambush. He turned back to the ship without landing. In the same manner the people began privateen- ing on a small scale using their fishing vessels for that purpose. They took one prize, a brig from Canada bound to Boston with a deck-load of live-stock and coal and iron in the hold. She was taken to Wheeler's Point and there discharged. Before her ballast was all taken out, sie hauler off, and fell into the channel, where until a few years ago her hull could yet be seen.
30th at that period and since, the women of Annisquan have ever been up and doing. Loyal to their country and faithful to home duties. A story is told of two sisters, twins, Mary and Hartha Babson. Thesc sisters
being soon to be married were desitous of having now silk dresses for the occasion, but their father not being rich, could not, they knew, afford such luxuries. So these girls tried to plan some way by which. they might carn for themselves these coveted treasures. The result of their planning was that they to k their forks and went to the clam flats, just below their house, where every day at low tide they toiled until they had dug and cleaned enough clams to fill a barrel which they salted, and a sailor, about sailing for some foreign port, offered to take their venture and dispose of them at some foreign market. As good luck would have it, he arrived there when the article was in great demand and getting a good price he soon converted the money into yards of silk, therely making the girls both pleasant and happy. Many people in the United States were not in
smpathy with the second war with Great Britain. Business in our own and other seaport towns was badly interfered with. In 1813 armed barres from British en-of-war, that were stationed off and cruising round the Cape, used to come into 'Squam River occasionally and see what shipping they could destroy. During one of these raids, they burned a brig off Wheeler's Point, and a wood-coasting sloop that was in the river. The only other vessel to be seen by them
( all of the others having gone up by Pearce's Island) was a schooner owned by Capt. Lane called the "Federalist" lying at the first wharf beyond the bridge. When they were preparing to set her on fire, the wife of the owner pleaded with the commander not to destroy the vessel, but if he must burn her to take her out in the riverso the buildings on the wharf might be saved. As the vessel svung off he saw the name the "Federalist". The commander answered, "/I will save the vessel for her name. "
This was the last visit arned barges made in this river as the people get together and built a fort on Babson's Point in which were norte" two six-ponad cannon. That was considered quite a formidable battery in those days. They server, however, to keep armed boats from coming into the river.
The road from Gloucester to Annisquom in those days was a hard one to travel. One would come down Washington Street turning into the street( opposite the ald church that then stood on the "green", going over Fox Hill, where Tammy You", the witch, used to live, keeping on that mond to the le Riverdale schoolhouse, thence to Pilgrim Hill, which was a hard one to get up, round by Norwood's grist mill, at the head of Goose Cove, up what is now called Bennett street, which comes out by the house of
Mrs. Mary 0. Moore. You can see what a hard road it was to ret over from Gloucester and the reason people used to come from Boston by water in those days. There was no stage lin> from here to Gloucester, neither wa . there any post office, and when the first one was established at the head of the Cove, the mcil matter was small and was carried by Ir.E.W. Chard who had started a stage line to Gloucester. He used to say he often carried all letters he had for the mail in the crown of his beaver hat.
Ship-building was an important industry in our village and the mon here found plenty of work and many families were i: duced to move hore from other homes. In 1827 and further on, this village was the flourishing part of Gloucester. At the head of Lobster Cove two small pinkeys were built in the front yard where Mr. Partridge now lives. Two more were built at the foot of the street and a larger vessel was built upon the wharf where Irs. A.M. Lane's barn now stands. In 1831, in the yard of Capt. Oliver Lane's home, was built a ship of 343 tons, called the "Gloucester". Capt. Oliver Lane took com and of her and went to New Orleans where he took on board a cargo of cotton for Havre France. Capt. Charles Babson of this city went as a boy on his first voyage to sea. After that trip the vessel passed
into other hands and no more was heard of her for a long time. Some years afterward a 'Squam captain bound to Sidney, Australia, when passing an island, aw a ship on shore, high and dry upon the rocks. When arriving at Sidney he learned it was the "Gloucester.
The old "fish-house", called by many the "old custom- house was used during the war of 1812 for storing smuggled goods. The vessels would come into Ipswich. Bay loaded with valuable carroes and the wives would give the simal, if everything was allright, and there was no custom-house officer in sight. They would then come in and unlors their woods in the old ware-house.
Querrine of ranite was also carried on here for many years; this business brought some families to live here who are among the best of the population. Then the fishing business was in its prime and where the grass now grows on the wharves, busy feet were wont to hurry to and fro rolling up barrels and barrels of mackeral and loading vessels with dry fish etc., for Boston and other markets. At one time in 1831, there was a fleet of 65 vessels, 6 coasters, two small vessels and two or three that went trading "down east".
Even the sand on the beaches was converted into
money by enterprising men who shipped it into Boston to be used at the glass manufactories in this and other states.
The change has been gradual from a busy thriving villige to such as you see it now. The first cause of the decline was during the money panic of 1837. At that time all those in business here were using considerable money in their enterprises and depended upon the banks for discounting notes etc. President Jackson vetold the rechartering of the U.S. Bank, and in consequence of that veto, a money panic was caused throughout the country. It deeply affected the business men here and they never recovered, but gradually wound up their affairs here and started business in some other locality.
Now the summer life goes on here, and 'Squam is a veritable summer paradise, a natural sanitarium, where salt breezes, sweeping clear from one bay to the other, carry with them all harmful re me and deadly bacteria, and in whose porous soil lurks neither typhoid nor molaria. Here is every variety of scenery: winding river and sheltered coves with shelving banks creen with dense and tangled underbrush and may with piled ur boulders which are marvels of coloring and @low with all the prismatic hues. Cliffs of saamed and shattered granite make a well- defined back round for the little village where the homes are set auch in its own grassy yard. While over the ridge sweep down and back to the shores of Ipswich Bay the sloping pastures, rough with
out-cropping ledges and massive rocks, verdure springing from every rock and crusted with lichen growth of hundreds of slow moving years.
These uplands are rich in other than natural beauties and possibilities, for here, it is said, is one of the primi- tive banks of deposit of that wild bucaneer, Robert Kidd, and his roystering crew and that somewhere under this innocent looking turf ( so runs the legend) north by west so many paces from a strangely marked rock in the little beach are buried pots of Spanish Doubloons and glittering jewels fit for the ransom of a king. Many have sourit, but none have found as yet; the brown earth guards her secret well. This is a grand camping ground for artists and they are well nich omnopresent. They tranquilly seat them- ' selves in our back yards, day after day, and sketch our tumbledown and delapidated buildings, and mildly expostulate when we make tidy and prim the waste places of our domain, or modernize our quaint oldtine belongings. Without quible or question, by the divine right of discovery, they preempt; their claims, wherever nature spreads her fairest scenes, " "her spots of sully openings, her greenest coronals of leaves, and brightest splendors of the grass. "
'Squam, with its many attractions, its forests dense and dark with its great pines rustling and bending and whispering unutterable secrets to the hearing car, the open sea, which has a never-failin~ chami, changing its phases every day and hour, the beautiful river, the seamed and scarred rocks and ledres, is a quaint and beautiful village.
-
1
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.