USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 1
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USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 1
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70
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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019
https://archive.org/details/historyofplymout01thom
oy S. Thompson .
HISTORY
OF
Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable Counties MASSACHUSETTS
Author ELROY S. THOMPSON
Special Correspondent for Metropolitan Newspapers; Ex-Secretary Brockton Chamber of Commerce; City Editor Brockton "Enterprise" for years.
VOLUME I
LEWIS HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC. NEW YORK 1928
COPYRIGHT LEWIS HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.
1928
CONTENTS
1146093
PART I PLYMOUTH COUNTY
Page
Chapter I-Region of Romance and Fable
3
Chapter II-Snorri or Peregrine ?. 15
Chapter III-From Scrooby to Plymouth 29
Chapter IV-Indian Names in Plymouth County 43
Chapter V-Confederation, Slavery and Philip's War. 59
Chapter VI-"Lo! The Poor Indian". 85
Chapter VII-Pioneers, Patriots and Practitioners. 107
Chapter VIII-Launching of Three Counties 153
Chapter IX-"Mayflower" Was Not Filled With Clocks 167
Chapter X-Interesting Records of "The Good Old Days" 177
Chapter XI-History Amusingly Related by McFingal 189
Chapter XII-Choice Between War and Slavery 197
Chapter XIII-Earthquakes, Comets, Thunder and Lightning 205
Chapter XIV-In the Beginning Was the Meeting-House 215
Chapter XV-Town Meetings, Town Criers and Curfews 221
Chapter XVI-Old Taverns, Turnpikes and Stagecoaches. 228
Chapter XVII-Rise of More Liberal Churches 23!
Chapter XVIII-From Colonial Period to the Civil War. 251
Chapter XIX-Becomes County of Abolitionists.
261
Chapter XX-New England Conscience Rampant. 285
Chapter XXI-Contributions by Latter Day Pilgrims 303
Chapter XXII-When the Cruel War Was Over. 317
Chapter XXIII-Agriculture in the Old Colony 325
Chapter XXIV-From Days of '49 to Civil War. 345
Chapter XXV-Legal Practice and Practitioners 365
Chapter XXVI-The Fourth Estate 400
Chapter XXVII-Home of the Shoe Industry 449
Chapter XXVIII-Fairs, Health and a Normal School 485
Chapter XXIX-Suburban Life at its Best. 507
Chapter XXX-Plymouth County Honor Roll 653
CONTENTS
PART II BARNSTABLE COUNTY
Page
Chapter XXXI-Aphrodite of American Jurisprudence. 691
Chapter XXXII-Gangplanks to Cape Cod .. 703
Chapter XXXIII-"A Small Chimney Easily Heated" 715
Chapter XXXIV-Characters in the Drama of Freedom 723
Chapter XXXV-When the Cape Cod Canal Was a Dream 735
Chapter XXXVI-Youth Took to the Sea and Education 745
Chapter XXXVII-Codfish the Totem of Massachusetts 767
Chapter XXXVIII-Customs in "The Good Old Days". 785
Chapter XXXIX-English Spoken by the Indians 807
Chapter XL-Paradise of Lakes and Streams 819
Chapter XLI-As Thoreau, Dwight and Webster Saw It. 835
Chapter XLII-Agriculture and Patriotic Sacrifices. 847
Chapter XLIII-Remember the S-4 and Its Martyred Crew 865
Chapter XLIV-Cape Cod as it is Today. 871
Chapter XLV-Fought on Land, Sea and in the Air 883
Chapter XLVI-Outposts of the Commonwealth 891
PART III NORFOLK COUNTY
Chapter XLVII-"Stern to Inflict; Stubborn to Endure" 901
Chapter XLVIII-Pilgrims' Good Will Visit to Squantum 915
Chapter XLIX-"Only Citizens Because Saints" 933
Chapter L-"The Three Learned Professions" 949
Chapter LI-Genesis of Norfolk County 971
Chapter LII-Industrial Rise and Development 995
Chapter LIII-Slavery and Public Welfare. 1019
Chapter LIV-Progress in Transportation 1033
Chapter LV-Defense and Learning Universally Guarded 1049
Chapter LVI-"Birthplace of American Liberty". 1071
INTRODUCTION
M ANY MEN and just as many women have written a history of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies-the landing of the Pilgrims on the shortest day in the year and the land- ing of the Puritans on the longest-and some have done it well. It seems as if someone was always writing such a history and it cannot be done without writing substantially the history of Plymouth, Barn- stable, Norfolk and the island counties of Massachusetts. Time has passed as the clock ticks, orthodoxy has changed to golf and skirts have had several ups and downs since anyone has seriously labored and brought forth a history of the counties mentioned, in a county- conscious way. Therefore, it is excusable, if not necessary, to permit local expansionists to build an addition to the traditional five-foot book shelf, or to ask some of the older volumes to move over. Every dog has his day, every autoist has his day in court and the public is always ready to receive a set of new books, even though they are volumes of history.
Very fortunate are those who care to know about the pioneer days of America that the Bradford manuscript was so providentially pre- served and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts sufficiently wise to have it printed. Any reader of Bradford may live the atmosphere and collect the facts, set down by the wisest of all the Pilgrims, from the days of the Separatists in Holland until many years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Provincetown and Plymouth and the landing of the Puritans at Weymouth. It can truthfully be said of William Bradford, as Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale said of Dr. Cotton Mather: "He preserved many important facts from oblivion."
It would be easy to fill the introduction of this history with ex- pressions of gratitude and acknowledgments of assistance and some- where else, in the last volume, or elsewhere, to include a bibliography sufficiently lengthy to be absolutely insulated against danger of reading. If such were to be the case, in detail and extensively, it would be well to begin with the Bradford history or diary, sometimes erroneously called "the log of the 'Mayflower'," and include the "Magnalia" and the three hundred and eighty other books and manuscripts of Cotton Mather. Then only two of hundreds, or thousands, whose wisdom and, let us hope, conscientious accuracy, of the writings which helped furnish material for this history, would be mentioned. An attempt has
Southern Brake to- $22.50 (31015)
INTRODUCTION
been made to give credit where credit was due, in the locations in the volumes where the borrowed material was used. If there are sins of omission, they have been unintentional.
Glancing over our shoulder at Colonial days, and adding our mite, we feel that it is either too late or too early to get the right perspec- tive. It was just the other day that the Cape Cod Canal was turned over to the United States Government to finish. It was a dream of Governor William Bradford and Captain Myles Standish three hundred years ago. It is still in the making, or at least in the experimental stage.
We are still too much like the Pilgrims and Puritans to size them up with unprejudiced vision. It is too late to obtain first-hand informa- tion or indulge in personal recollections. On the other hand it was in this present year, 1928, that Thaddeus Faunce of Plymouth, hale and hearty, observed his ninetieth birthday, and it was his great-grandfather, Thomas Faunce, the last ruling elder of the original Plymouth church, who, in 1741, identified Plymouth Rock as the landing of the first party on board the "Mayflower" in Plymouth harbor. We are only a few generations from the "Mayflower." The ribs of that historic vessel are still doing duty, holding up the roof of the meeting-house of a congregation of Quakers in England.
The two cities and many towns of which these volumes treat are the most New Englandish of all New England. Of New England consid- erable has been said and written as though it were backward, decadent, run down at the heel and peopled with Yankees idle and effete. In contrast to this impolite type of criticism, Herbert Hoover has said: "New England is a reservoir of the most skilled labor, the most skilled direction, and the highest intelligence in the United States."
Someone else has said that the happiest people in the world live within a moderate distance of the Massachusetts seaboard, of which Plymouth, Barnstable and Norfolk counties are the tenderloin. With considerable earnestness and determination and without much ballyhoo, the typical descendants of first-comers or late-comers, have been doing business three centuries. As for those who descended from a few people who came over in a certain boat, they can be sure the Pilgrim father was a he-man, in the language of today, and the Pilgrim mother was not much of a flapper. The Pilgrim fathers endured much and the Pilgrim mothers, as some one has said, endured more, because they had to endure all that the Pilgrim fathers endured and, in addition, had to endure the Pilgrim fathers.
It was people from this section who helped colonize Kansas and took their pilgrimage in the covered wagon as bravely as the Separa- tists took theirs in the "Mayflower." The second generation from those who went over in the covered wagon became the native sons
INTRODUCTION
of somewhere farther West. After three hundred years of American occupation by white men it seems to have dawned upon some of them that it doesn't make so much difference what vehicle one came over in as where he is going and that he is on his way.
Recently one of my fellow descendants of John and Priscilla Alden said that a family tree was not everything; many family trees were in need of spraying. It were well that he waited about three hundred years after that worthy couple set up housekeeping and a long geneal- ogical line before making the statement, or the traditional type of historians would have changed his name from Alden to Anathema.
The writer of these volumes of local haps and mishaps has had the conviction that he has been keeping step all along the path of the years with unusual men and unusual women, who were moved to do whatever their environment and enlightenment might reasonably have prompted them to do under unusual circumstances. The circumstances were unusual most of the time and so were the people. The Pilgrims and Puritans were as hard on Quakers and Baptists as summers in Kansas are on women and horses. Superstition was rife in those days. The Separatists lost much of it coming over, but not all.
The Indians were the one hundred per cent Americans of their time and inclined to frown upon those of their breed who associated with the "foreigners," especially after the influence of the royal favor of Massasoit became non-existent by his exit to the happy hunting ground. The Indians had everything to lose and they lost it. The sentiment in the hymn "America,"
"Land where our fathers died, Land of the Pilgrim's pride"
was especially true of the Indians.
It has not been the purpose of the writer to make of this history a directory of clubs, churches or fraternal organizations or exhibit other features more adapted to a directory. There has been a departure from the usual method of writing county history-telling the story of each town, presenting them in group formation under a county label. On the other hand, each county has been written as a county unit, in mat- ters which had county or wider significance. Each town has its indi- vidual appearance only in those things which relate especially to its municipal and not its county or district life.
All the way from the days of the austere settlers with their funny hats who took their guns to church, to the present days of flaming youth with funny knickers who take their golf clubs afield, interesting lights and shadows have flickered on the screen until the fade-out. The distinctive emblem, once the cod fish, might now be changed to
INTRODUCTION
the bean pot, the shoe or the little red hen, as expressive of the in- dustrial and social life and commonweal, but as Daniel Webster said of Massachusetts, so we say of the district covered in this compila- tion of anecdotes and facts: "There she stands-behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history-the world knows it by heart ! And, sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit."
In a few instances biographical sketches of pioneers in the learned professions, so called, have been presented but in most cases the in- cident has been given predominance over the individual. The writer has not been associated in the preparation of the biographical sketches in the volume devoted to that interesting array of neighbors who are having a part in the present-day historic movements. The matter in- cluded in the historical sections has been obtained from hundreds of historical works, innumerable newspaper files, pamphlets, letters and clippings. The Honor Roll of the World War is a valuable feature and the assistance in its preparation is given grateful credit in its proper place.
If, in some instances, vibrations of two hundred or three hundred years ago have been detected by the funny bone, rather than the bump of reverence, no flippancy, enmity nor lack of appreciation of worthy ancestry or pioneer service has been intended. Presumably none will be suspected. The author does not anticipate any nomination to mem- bership in the ranks of those considered undesirable by a great an- cestry-perpetuation organization. Surely no harm will result to past, present or future generations by recognition of all three as composed of men and women of qualities, not peculiar to demi-gods, but to "even as you or I."
ELROY S. THOMPSON.
PLYMOUTH, NORFOLK AND BARNSTABLE
Plym-1
CHAPTER I REGION OF ROMANCE AND FABLE.
Birth of Freedom and Its Initial Footsteps-The Natural Setting, To- pography and Geology-Climate-Waterways-Harbors-Early In- dustries Came About Naturally-Some Providential Indications- First Encounter With the Indians on Cape Cod-The Camp of "Yankee Doodle."
There is considerable truth in the statement credited to Saltonstall : "We have an advantage over all nations in being able to trace our history from the beginning. We have no fabulous age, but it has more romance than any which has ever been written."
Birth of Freedom and Its Initial Footsteps-Some might question whether we have a "fabulous age," in considering the sagas of the Norsemen, which contribute not a little to the romance which may or may not have been mixed up with the vicinity which we called Plym- outh County, in the days before the landing of the Pilgrims and be- fore Captain John Smith sailed past these coasts and drew maps which were remarkably accurate, all things considered. But, laying aside all disputations, historic Plymouth County and adjacent waters figured in the birth of freedom and from this beginning the history. of all the elsewheres in this country took initial footsteps.
The Natural Setting, Topography and Geology-The southern part of Plymouth County, particularly the town of Plymouth, geologically considered, consists of sand, gravel, and clay of the drift formation, with peculiarities no better developed anywhere in the country. Un- derneath this drift formation, from forty to two hundred feet from the surface, are the ledges, except in Kingston, where there is a won- derful exhibit of granite, intersected by narrow trapdykes, exposed in the cutting of the Old Colony Railroad. This granite formation ex- tends further south, beneath the drift, but there are no ledges on the surface through the Plymouth woods and on down Cape Cod. The class of drift deposits known as lenticular hills or drumlins is prac- tically wanting in the southeastern portion of Massachusetts. The Cretaceous and Tertiary deposits so extensively developed in the southern portion of the Atlantic States are continued in an interrupted belt lying to the east of the more ancient rocks as far north as south- eastern Massachusetts, the Cretaceous extending up to deposits on Martha's Vineyard and the Miocene Tertiary reaching to Marshfield in Plymouth County.
4
PLYMOUTH, NORFOLK AND BARNSTABLE
The true character of the underlying deposits is effectively masked all through this section by a surface covering, either by the ex- tensive moraines or by the deposits of sand and gravel, noticeably ex- posed at Truro in Barnstable County. North of Plymouth the curious table land known as Egypt Heights, in Scituate, is composed of beds much like those at Truro. In Plymouth County are to be found a number of pre-Glacial channels which evidently were at the time of their excavation the beds of streams discharging into the sea.
The appearance of the "floor" of Plymouth County indicates that it was fashioned by surface powers rather than deep-seated action, and the hills and valleys are picturesque, the depressions being filled with attractive lakes and ponds, upon the shores of which the multiplicity of summer residences and camps testifies to the growing appreciation of the beauties of this pleasant land. There are numerous streams of various sizes, some of them turning water wheels which make their contributions to the industry of this section, and most of them valuable in the early history and, indeed, today as the natural course taken by alewives to seek their spawning shelters.
Dr. Hitchcock, in his survey of Massachusetts, said: "The most ele- gant variety of porphyritic sienite that I have met with in the State occurs in North Bridgewater (now Brockton) and Abington, and in other parts of Plymouth County. Its base consists of quartz and feldspar, with an abundance of epidote, disseminated and in veins. This rock, if polished, would form, it seems to me, the most orna- mental stone in the State. The feldspar and crystal, that constitute it a porphyry, are of a flesh color. There is a dark colored mineral diffused throughout the mass, which may be hornblende or mica."
Where mica is found plentiful in the compound it is called seinite granite.
In past days considerable peat was cut in the swamps and meadows and used for fuel. A generation ago there was quite a flurry of ex- citement when it was announced that peat was to be harvested in large quantities in the Halifax and Hanson swamps and, by means of a process which was unrevealed, made into fuel to rival the anthracite coal which had become, compared with prices in former years, de- cidedly expensive. This rumor, however, was never substantiated by successful manifestations, although considerable money was spent in experimental work.
Climate-The soil of Plymouth County, generally considered, has not greatly encouraged agriculture. The predominant growth of forest trees is Pinus Taeda, designating a soil of third rate quality. Around many of the lakes are pitch pine and scrubby oak woods.
5
REGION OF ROMANCE AND FABLE
Some sections of Plymouth County are, however, well adapted to agriculture, and not long ago it was estimated that 2,400 small farms were being profitably tilled within its borders. Some of the most pro- ductive soil is in West Bridgewater. This town is level and well watered. The farms have a clayey substratum in some localities.
Waterways - There are numerous fresh water ponds in the county and it was early discovered that these ponds and bogs yielded an abundant supply of iron ore. As early as 1628 special encourage- ment was given from England for searching for mineral wealth. Furnaces and forges for smelting and working up the iron ore were profitably utilized, and, especially in Bridgewater, Abington and Middleboro iron working was an important industry. Early history of the town of Halifax shows that the taking of iron ore from the Monponsett ponds was an important matter frequently before the town meetings, when various guardians were appointed to see that the taking of the ore was encouraged on one hand and the proper share from its sale for the town was safeguarded on the other hand.
While the rivers in Plymouth County are not large they have been useful in years past in the shipbuilding industry, important in the earlier days of the Old Colony, and concerning which much will be printed in the more intimate history of the various towns as this work proceeds.
One of the ponds in Pembroke, Furnace Pond, gets its name from the fact that it is supposed to have been the location for the first furnace in this country. About 1700 a furnace was built at the outlet of this pond and traces of it can still be found. It was run by the early Barker and Little families. In 1701 the town of Pembroke gave Lambert Despard consent to purchase about fourteen acres of land from an Indian named Jeremiah. Mr. Despard sold a portion of it to Robert Barker, Samuel Barker, Francis Barker, Joshua Barker, and Josiah Barker, all of Duxbury; and Robert Barker, Jr., and William Wanton of Scituate, with the privilege of erecting iron works.
Early Industries Came About Naturally-The making of nails, tacks and rivets has been an important industry in the county from early times and still continues. In the earliest days nails were hand-forged and some of those specimens are still holding together the honest-to- goodness buildings erected in the morning days of the Old Colony, which have continued to resist the devastating hand of time. In 1818, Jesse Reed of Marshfield invented a machine for making nails, and among other towns in which the making of cut nails by this process became a substantial town industry was Wareham, where it con- tinued to be the leading industry more than one hundred years. John
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PLYMOUTH, NORFOLK AND BARNSTABLE
Washburn of Kingston invented cut nails and tacks, but the blanks were cut in one machine, and a workman picked them up and placed them in another machine to be headed. Jesse Reed made the in- vention a commercial success by making an improvement upon the Washburn invention.
The making of salt by evaporation, by boiling sea water, was an industry of no small mention, in several of the county towns border- ing on the coast, until a few years previous to the Civil War. Several towns had coopers who were kept busy making buckets and tubs. Anchor-making, together with shipbuilding, was an important industry in Kingston. That town, East Bridgewater, Bridgewater, and others furnished employment for many in iron working. Lemuel Bonney who died in 1803 has it stated on his gravestone in Hanson that he was "One of the greatest iron founders in America."
The change from water power to steam still has its monuments in the county. On the Indian Head River in Hanover the remains of a stack can be pointed out to those familiar with the territory, showing that Curtis Forge, as it was known for a century or more, which was erected in 1704 as an iron works by a Mr. Bardin, used both motive powers while it engaged in manufacturing anchors, and other useful products.
The Camp of "Yankee Doodle"-Carver was the town in which was located the "Federal furnace" erected in 1794 by Dr. Thatcher and Dr. Hayward of Plymouth. Soon the firm was increased by the addition of Major-General Nathaniel Goodwin, also of Plymouth. He served as an officer in the patriot army in the Revolution, and is the one re- ferred to in the lines of the famous song "Yankee Doodle" as follows:
Father and I went down to camp Along with Captain Goodwin, Where we see the boys and girls As thick as hasty pudding.
The first iron tea kettle ever cast in America was made in Carver.
There was a time when hats and caps were made in several Plymouth County towns. Cotton mills furnished employment for a large num- ber and were noted for the excellence of their product. Brockton, formerly North Bridgewater, has long been engaged in the manufac- ture of shoes to such an extent that it has been referred to as a city of one industry, but it has manufactured many things besides shoes, and does at present, although shoemaking very largely predominates. A generation ago many musical instruments were made in Brockton, also brushes, chairs, and cabinet ware.
7
REGION OF ROMANCE AND FABLE
The first paper manufacturing plant in Plymouth County was estab- lished at Bridgewater, in 1823, by Joseph Hooper. He manufactured a superior quality of paper of all grades of finish. The site of the paper mill has been used for manufacturing by water power and steam since 1792. There was a grist-mill built there two years after building the original dam. In 1798 there was a fulling mill and a dressing and dye house.
Piano frames were for many years manufactured at the Perkins Foundry in Bridgewater, which was established some seventy years ago by Henry Perkins.
Perhaps one of the most noted manufacturing plants in the county ' is the Carver Cotton Gin Works at East Bridgewater, and the question is often asked how it came about that cotton gins were manufactured for so many years so far from the cotton fields, and in East Bridge- water in particular.
Eleazer Carver was a native of Bridgewater and learned the trade of millwright. When a young man he was employed in Natchez in repairing sugar mills, cotton gins and presses and became greatly in- terested in cotton gins, as he believed he could make important im- provements. He studied the machines painstakingly and, in 1838, ob- tained a patent on a device which prevented the machines from clog- ging. He had made less important improvements in the machines in- vented by Eli Whitney, a native of Westborough, Massachusetts, since 1807. The making of cotton gins in East Bridgewater by Mr. Carver dates from 1843. Two years later he secured another patent for another important improvement, a cylinder brush with fans, by means of which the cotton ginned became greatly enhanced in value. In 1853 the government of India awarded a prize of two thousand, five hundred rupees and a gold medal to Mr. Carver's company for their excellent machine for cleansing cotton from the seed.
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