USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Concord > History of the town of Concord, Middlesex County, Massachusetts : from its earliest settlement to 1832; and of the adjoining towns, Bedford, Acton, Lincoln, and Carlisle; containing various notices of county and state history not before published. > Part 1
USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Concord > History of the town of Concord, Middlesex County, Massachusetts : from its earliest settlement to 1832 : and of the adjoining towns, Bedford, Acton, Lincoln, and Carlisle > Part 1
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IT
ITT
Memorial
Acton
CORPORA TE
Library
ACTON
1735
890 **
974.5
LIBRARY NO.
S533 4
ACCESSION NO
8077
DATE
9/30/1905
gift
PURCHASED
Luther Courant
not to be taken Library
ACTON MEMORIAL LIBRARY 3 2211 00010 0003
Closed Stacks NOT FOR CIRCULATION shattuck, Lemuel. History of the town of Concord.
REFERENCE BOOK ACTON MEMORIAL LIBRARY ACTON, MASSACHUSETTS 01720
ACTON MEMORIAL LIBRARY ACTON, MASS.
١
A
HISTORY
OF THE
TOWN OF CONCORD;
MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS,
FROM ITS EARLIEST SETTLEMENT TO 1832;
AND OF THE ADJOINING TOWNS,
BEDFORD, ACTON, LINCOLN, AND CARLISLE;
CONTAINING VARIOUS NOTICES OF COUNTY AND STATE HISTORY NOT BEFORE PUBLISHED.
BY LEMUEL SHATTUCK, MEMBER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
Nobler records of patriotism exist nowhere. - Nowhere can there be found higher proofs of a spirit that was ready to hazard all, to pledge all, to sacrifice all, in the cause of their country, than in the New England towns. WEBSTER.
The local historian is sure of obtaining the gratitude of posterity, if he perform his task with faithful diligence. - His work would have a great and increasing value within the narrow sphere of its subject, even if confined to that sphere ; but must be very imperfectly executed, if it does not contain some matter of illustration for the national annals, for the history of manners, for literature, philology, natural history, and various other departments of knowledge. QUARTERLY REVIEW.
BOSTON: RUSSELL, ODIORNE, AND COMPANY. CONCORD: JOHN STACY. 1835.
Geral Coll 974.44 C 744s
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1835, by LEMUEL SHATTUCK,
in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
CAMBRIDGE:
CHARLES FOLSOM, PRINTER.
66 6
PREFACE.
THE author of the following History, having had occasion several years since to consult some of the earlier town records in Concord, discovered many important facts and documents which were wholly unknown to the public, and very imperfectly to the inhabitants of the town itself; and it occurred to him that a series of communi- cations in a periodical work, embracing them, would be interesting and valuable, and he immediately began to collect materials for this purpose. But, in the progress of his investigation, the quantity of interesting matter increased so much, that it was thought best it should be published in some other form than that originally intend- ed. The result of his inquiries appears in the following volume. It has been compiled at such intervals of time as could be con- veniently abstracted from the almost constant engagements of business.
Those only, who have been engaged in similar works, can be aware of the great labor required to collect the materials for a volume like this, and arrange them for the press. And the diffi- culty and labor have been much increased in this instance by the imperfections of the town and church records. The first volume of the records of the town, containing its proceedings prior to 1696, about sixty years after its first settlement, is lost ; and likewise the proceedings of the church prior to 1738, more than one hundred years after its organization. There is however in the clerk's office an old volume, containing an imperfect record of several grants of land, and a few unconnected proceedings of the town; with an incomplete list of marriages, births, and deaths, prior to 1696. This renders the early history of the town, less perfect than it would have been, had the records been preserved, though from other sources much important information has been
iv
PREFACE.
obtained. The early records and documents in the offices of the Secretary of the Commonwealth and of the county of Middlesex, and the private papers of individuals, and various other scattered fragments of traditionary, manuscript, and printed history have, with great labor and no little expense, been consulted, which, though they do not furnish a complete history, have been found interesting and important, and in some respects supply the place of town records. Traditions, however, are often contradictory, tending to embarrass rather than to elucidate. They should be depended upon only as leading the investigator towards the truth, which, on further inquiry and comparison of different tra- ditions with records, may be discovered. I have seldom been willing to state a fact positively, unless verified in this way. A tradition has prevailed in Concord, that the early records of the town were burnt; and this is said to have taken place when part of the first settlers removed to Connecticut. If this were true, it could not apply to the town records from 1650 to 1696, nor to any part of the church records prior to 1738. This tradition is undoubt- edly incorrect. The town records were destroyed in some other way, and, if burnt, it must have occurred subsequently to 1696. The loss of the church records was probably occasioned by the difficulty in the church detailed in the following History.
Few places have so many interesting incidents associated with their history as Concord. From its local situation, it has been the centre of many of the important operations in the county of Mid- dlesex, and of some of the most interesting in the Commonwealth. Being the first inland town settled above tide waters, it endured great hardships in the commencement of its history. The pro- gress of the settlement, the exertions to civilize the Indians, the warlike operations in the town as a military post during Philip's war, the distinguished part it took in the Revolution and in other peculiar eras in the history of Massachusetts, are but imperfectly, if at all, known; but fortunately many important facts have been preserved in manuscript. - The ecclesiastical history also has been considered of unusual importance, and especially during Whit-
.
V
PREFACE.
field's time. This work, besides the minute details of civil and ecclesiastical history, interesting to readers generally, as well as to the citizens of this town in particular, contains the Natural History, Topography, Statistics, Notices of Early Families and Distinguished Men, and other subjects of general or local interest, which may be appropriately embraced in such a history .- The towns of Bedford, Acton, Lincoln, and Carlisle were incorporated principally within the original limits of Concord; and, as their history is intimately blended with that of Concord, it was thought expedient to embrace within the work the history of each of those towns since its separate incorporation.
In arranging facts on such a great variety of subjects as are embraced in a town history, it is difficult to present them in such a manner as will be entirely satisfactory. I have adopted that mode which appeared most intelligible and interesting to my own mind. To present a work like this free from errors cannot be expected. Some may appear in this History ; yet the author is conscious of having taken unusual care to avoid them. Those who are competent to detect them will, it is hoped, make all due allowance, should they be found.
The volume is submitted to the public with diffidence. The author lays no claim to the qualifications, which such an undertaking would seem to require. His object has not been to make an at- tempt at fine writing, (had it been possible for him to have succeeded, or had he deemed it proper in a town history,) but to relate, in as plain, simple, and intelligible a manner as was within his power, such facts as he deemed most worthy of preservation. The object of local history is to furnish the first elements of general his- tory, to record facts rather than deductions from facts. In these municipalities, - these separate incorporations, - are to be found many of the first moving causes which operate on, and revolution- ize public opinion. Many facts, minute in themselves, are in this view important. The details, which it is the appropriate prov- ince of the local historian to spread before the public, are not so much history itself as materials for history. It is the work of the
vi
PREFACE.
general historian, who has before him all the particulars of each portion of the great natural and political landscape, to exhibit the connexion of the several parts, and to show how they depend, one upon another, in bringing about the great changes, which have been taking place and affecting the condition of society. Strong inducements to take such an enlarged and philosophical view of the facts which have been detailed, and to submit the ideas that arose in my own mind from such a view, have been often presented. But it would increase the size of a volume already enlarged far, very far, beyond its original design.
To trace the history of our ancesters, and transmit a record of their deeds to posterity, is a duty we owe to the past and the future. Such a record must be preserved as invaluable by the immediate descendants and kindred of those, who once lived and acted where they now do, and whose ashes repose beneath their soil. And it cannot be without interest to those who have gone out from their kindred to dwell in other parts of the country, nor to those who have come to dwell in the habitations made vacant by the removal or death of the original occupants. What this town once was, who originally occupied it, and by what means and by whom it has become what it now is, are questions which can be answered only by minute topographical history. If the work shall satisfy the public, and contribute to the gratification of those for whom it is more particularly designed, the author will feel himself compen- sated for the labor and expense, in preparing and publishing it.
To the Hon. Abiel Heywood, town clerk of Concord, to the town clerks of the several surrounding towns, to the Secretary of the Commonwealth, to John Farmer, Esq. of Concord, N. H., and to various others, who have aided by the use of manuscripts, by the communication of facts, and by various services rendered him, the author feels under special obligations.
Boston, August, 1835.
L. S.
CONTENTS.
Page.
CHAPTER I. - Indian Tribes. - Musketaquid Indians. - Local Situation, - Settlement projected. - Act of Incorporation. - Purchase from the Indians. - Depositions. - First Settlers. - Johnson's Account. - Additional Grants. - Sufferings of the Inhabitants. - Wet Meadows. - Petition to the Gen- eral Court. - Condition of the Town. - Chronological Items. 1
CHAPTER II. - Efforts to civilize the Indians. - Eliot begins the Work. - Effects at Nonantum and at Concord. - Laws for the Indians. - Opposition. -Eliot's Labors and Petition. - Nashobah. - Notices of several Indians. - Account of the Praying Indians. - Nashobah sold. - 19
CHAPTER III. - Division of the Town. - Records. - Additional Grants. - Indian Deeds. - Iron Works built. - Town Farm. - Town of Stow granted. - Chronological Items. - - 33
CHAPTER IV. - PHILIP'S WAR. - State of the Country. - Garrison Houses. - Expedition to Brookfield. - Proceedings of Government; and of the Town. - Lancaster burnt. - Christian Indians in Concord. - Feelings to- wards the Indians. - Abraham and Isaac Shepherd killed. - Groton burnt. - People remove to Concord. - Proceedings of Government. - Sudbury. Fight. - Henchman's Letters. - Soldiers at Concord. - Christian Indian Soldiers. - War Taxes. - 46
CHAPTER V. - Year 1684 important. - Blood's farms annexed to Concord: - The Fifty subsequent Years. - Lovewell's fight. - Cuba Expedition. - French War. - Notices of various Services in the War. - Divisions in the Town and Incorporation of new Towns. - Emigration to other places. - 64
CHAPTER VI. - American Revolution. - Proceedings of the Town. - Act respecting Tea. - Non-consumption Covenant. - Sentiments of the People. - County Convention. - People march to Cambridge. - Courts stopped. - Treatment of the Tories. - Proceedings of the Town. - Provincial Con- gress meets. - Public Stores. - New Town Covenant. - Minute Compa- nies formed. - Mr. Emerson preaches. - Expedition of the British Spies. --- Provincial Congress. - Public Stores. - Excitement. - . 76
CHAPTER VII. - BATTLE OF CONCORD, April 19th, 1775. 100
CHAPTER VIII. - State of feeling on the 20th of April. - Tories. - College removed to Concord. - Committees of Correspondence. - Proceedings in Relation to the Monopoly Acts. - Revolutionary Soldiers, - Table of Dif- ferent Campaigns. - Public pecuniary Sacrifices. -- Taxes. -- Constitution adopted.
118
viii
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX. - State of Feeling subsequent to the Revolution. - Proceed- ings of the County and of the Town. -- Mr. Avery's Letter. - Armed Men assemble at Concord. -- Courts stopped. -- Notice of the Insurgents. -- Pro- ceedings of the Town. - The War of 1812. - County Courts and Shire Towns regulated. - Proceedings of the Town on this Subject. - - - 129
CHAPTER X. - ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. - Organization of the Church. - Installation of the Rev. Mr. Bulkeley and Mr. Jones. - Church Covenant. -- Proceedings of the Church. -- Notice of the Rev. Mr. Jones. -- Letters of the Rev. Mr. Bulkeley, and Notice of his life and Writings. - Rev. Ed- ward Bulkeley. -- Rev. Joseph Estabrook. -- Rev. John Whiting. - - 148
CHAPTER XI. - Ordination of Mr. Bliss. -- State of the Church. - Revivals. Proceedings of different Ecclesiastical Councils and of the Church. - Divis- ions in the Parish and Church. - Death of Mr. Bliss. - Ordination of Mr. Emerson. - Proceedings of the Church. - Notice of the Rev. Mr. Emerson. Ordination of Mr. Ripley. -- Proceedings of the Church. -- Covenants. - Funds. -- Ordination of Mr. Goodwin. - Succession of Deacons. - Trinita- rian Church. - 166 . CHAPTER XII. - NATURAL HISTORY. -- Climate. - Geology. -- Botany. -- Ponds. -- Rivers. - Brooks. - Fish. -- Quadrupeds. - Birds. - - 196
CHAPTER XIII. - TOPOGRAPHICAL HISTORY. -- Boundaries. - Roads. Bridges .- Stages. - Post-Office. - Public Buildings. - Printing Office. - Burying-grounds. - 204
CHAPTER XIV. -- STATISTICAL HISTORY. - Population. -- Valuation. -- Fi- nances. - Employment. - Maintenance of the Poor. -- Education. -- Bill of Mortality. - 210
CHAPTER XV. - SOCIAL AND OFFICIAL HISTORY. - Military Companies. - Various Associations. -- Concord Bank. -- Agricultural Society. - Insurance Company. - Official History. -- Town-Officers. - Representatives. - Sena- tors. -- County Officers. - Attorneys and Counsellors at Law. - Physicians. 227 CHAPTER XVI. - Biographical Notices of College Graduates and other Indi- viduals belonging to Concord. - - 240
CHAPTER XVII. - HISTORY OF BEDFORD. -- General History. -- Ecclesias- tical History. - Description. - Miscellaneous Notices. - 255
CHAPTER XVIII. -- HISTORY OF ACTON, -- General History. -- Ecclesiastical History. - Description. - Miscellaneous Notices. - - - 274
CHAPTER XIX. -- HISTORY OF LINCOLN. - General History. - Ecclesias-
tical History. - Description. -- Statistics. -- Biographical Notices. - - 294
CHAPTER XX. - HISTORY OF CARLISLE. - General History. - Miscellane- ous Notices. - Ecclesiastical History. - 320
APPENDIX. - No. I. Historical View of the Evidence relating to the Events of the 19th April, 1775. - 333 No. II. Notices of Military Services performed by the People of Concord in the Revolution. - 352
No. III. Notices of Early Families and Distinguished Men. - 360
No. IV. Old and New Style. - - 390
No. V. Notice of the Rev. Samuel Stearns. - 391
No. VI. Votes for Governor. - - 392
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
CHAPTER I.
Indian Tribes. - Musketaquid. Indians. - Local Situation, - Settlement project- ed. - Act of Incorporation. - Purchase from the Indians. - Depositions. - First Settlers. - Johnson's Account. - Additional Grants. - Sufferings of the Inhabitants. - Wet Meadows .- Petition to the General Court. - Condition of the Town. - Chronological Items.
WHEN the English settlements first commenced in New Eng- land, that part of its territory, which lies south of New Hamp- shire, was inhabited by five principal nations of Indians : - the Pequots, who lived in Connecticut ; the Narragansets, in Rhode Island ; the Pawkunnawkuts, or Womponoags, east of the Nar- ragansets and to the north as far as Charles river ;1 the Massa- chusetts, north of Charles river and west of Massachusetts Bay ; and the Pawtuckets, north of the Massachusetts. The bounda- ries and rights of these nations appear not to have been sufficiently definite to be now clearly known. They had within their juris- diction many subordinate tribes, governed by sachems, or saga-
1 I have supposed that the Indians living south of Charles river did not be- long to the Massachusetts tribe. Chickatabot, sachem of Neponset, and Oba- tinuat acknowledged submission to Massasoit in 1621, and were at enmity with Squaw' Sachem. No instance within my knowledge is recorded of a petty sachem going to war with his own tribe. It is also worthy of remark, that these sachems and their descendants executed deeds of lands within Massasoit's territories, but never in the Massachusetts territories. As the country became settled by the English, and the jealousies between different tribes were forgotten, all the Indians living within the Massachu- setts patent were rather erroneously classed among the Massachusetts In- dians. Hence the statements of Winthrop, Gookin, and other historians, See Prince, Annals, 1621.
1
2
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
[1635.
mores, subject, in some respects, to the principal sachem. At the commencement of the seventeenth century, they were able to bring into the field more than 18,000 warriors ; but about the year 1612, they were visited with a pestilential disease, whose horrible ravages reduced their number to about 1800.1 Some of their vil- lages were entirely depopulated. This great mortality was viewed by the first Pilgrims, as the accomplishment of one of the purposes of Divine Providence, by making room for the settlement of civ- ilized man, and by preparing a peaceful asylum for the persecuted Christians of the old world. In what light soever the event may be viewed, it no doubt greatly facilitated the settlements, and ren- dered them less hazardous.
Musketaquid, the original Indian name of Concord and Con- cord River, for a long time before it was settled by our fathers, had been one of the principal villages of the Massachusetts tribe. Nanepashemet was the great king or sachem of these Indians. His principal place of residence was in Medford, near Mystic pond. " His house was built on a large scaffold six feet high, and on the top of a hill. Not far off, he built a fort with palisa- does 30 or 40 feet high, having but one entrance, over a bridge. This also served as the place of his burial, he having been killed about the year 1619, by the Tarrantines, a warlike tribe of eastern Indians, at another fort which he had built about a mile off." He left a widow - Squaw Sachem, and five children. Squaw Sachem succeeded to all the power and influence of her husband, as the great queen of the tribe. Her power was so much dreaded, when she was first visited by the Plymouth people in 1621, that her enemies, the sachems of Boston and Neponset, desired protection against her, as one condition of submission to the English. She married Wibbacowitts, " the powwaw, priest, witch, sorcerer, or chirurgeon " of the tribe. This officer was highest in esteem next to the sachem ; and he claimed as a right the hand of a widowed sachem in marriage ; and by this connexion became a king in the right of his wife, clothed with such authority as was possessed by her squawship.2 Both assented to the sale of Mus- ' ketaquid, though Tahattawan, hereafter to be noticed, was the principal sachem of the place. This tribe was once powerful. Before the great sickness already mentioned, it could number
1 Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. i.
2 Letchford.
3
1635.]
GENERAL HISTORY.
3,000 warriors. That calamity, and the small-pox, which prevailed among them with great mortality in 1633, reduced it to nearly one tenth of that number. The Musketaquid Indians suffered in common with the brethren of their tribe elsewhere. When first visited by the English, their number was comparatively very small. Their manners, customs, and character form a subject for general rather than town history. Such notices, as are par- ticularly applicable to this place or vicinity, will be given in a separate chapter. The place where the principal sachem lived was near Nahshawtuck (Lee's) hill. Other lodges were south of the Great Meadows, above the South Bridge, and in various places along the borders of the rivers, where planting, hunting, or fishing ground was most easily obtained. From these sources the Indians derived their subsistence ; and few places produced a supply more easily than Musketaquid. South of Mr. Samuel Dennis's are now seen large quantities of clam- shells, which are supposed to have been collected by the Indi- ans, as they feasted on that then much frequented spot. Across the vale, south of Capt. Anthony Wright's, a long mound, or breast-work, is now visible, which might have been built to aid the hunter, though its object is unknown. Many hatchets, pipes, chisels, arrow-heads, and other rude specimens of their art, curi- ously wrought from stone, are still frequently discovered near these spots, an evidence of the existence and skill of the origi- nal inhabitants.
The situation of the place, though then considered far in the interior and accessible only with great difficulty, held out strong inducements to form an English settlement, and early attracted the attention of the adventurous Pilgrims. Extensive meadows, bordering on rivers and lying adjacent to upland plains, have ever been favorite spots to new settlers ; and this was peculiarly the character of Musketaquid. The Great Fields, extending from the Great Meadows on the north to the Boston road south, and down the river considerably into the present limits of Bedford, and up the river beyond Deacon Hubbard's, and the extensive tract between the two rivers, contained large quantities of open land, which bore some resemblance to the prairies of the western country. These plains were annually burned or dug over, for the purposes of hunting or the rude culture of corn. Forest
4
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
[1635.
trees or small shrubbery rarely opposed the immediate and easy culture of the soil. And the open meadows, scattered along the borders of the small streams, as well as the great rivers, and in the solitary glens, then producing, it is said, even larger crops and of better quality, than they now do, promised abundant sup- port for all the necessary stock of the farm-yard. These advan- tages were early made known to the English emigrants.
Traditionary authority asserts that the settlement was first projected in England. It is not improbable that this may have been partially true, and that William Wood, the author of " New England's Prospect," and the first who 'mentions the original name of the river or place, might have come here in 1633, and pro- moted its settlement by his representations after his return to England. It must have been effected, however, in conjunction with others who were residents in the colony. The plan of the settlement was formed on a large scale, and under the most san- guine anticipations of success. Nearly all the first settlers were emigrants directly from England ; and a greater number of origi- nal inhabitants removed, during the first fifteen years after the settlement, to other towns in the colony, than permanently re- mained here. This sufficiently characterizes it as one of the " mother towns." It was the first town settled in New England above tide waters; and was in fact, as it was then represented to be, "away up in the woods," being bounded on all sides by Indian lands, and having the then remote towns of Cambridge and Watertown for its nearest neighbours.
The uniform custom of the early settlers of the Massachusetts colony was first to obtain liberty of the government to commence a new settlement, and afterwards to acquire a full title to the soil by purchase of the Indians. This title was never obtained by conquest. The first undertakers, as a preliminary step to- wards the settlement, had this town granted to them by the General Court, at its session at New-Town (Cambridge) Sept. 2, 1635, under the following Act of Incorporation :
" It is ordered that there shall be a plantation att Musketaquid, and that there shall be 6 myles of land square to belonge to it ; and that the inhabitants thereof shall have three yeares imunities from all public charges except trainings. Further that, when any that shall plant there, shall have occasion of carrying of goods
5
GENERAL HISTORY,
1635.]
thither, they shall repair to two of the nexte majistrates, where the teams are, whoe shall have power for a yeare to press draughts att reasonable rates, to be paid by the owners of the goods, to transport their goods thither at seasonable tymes ; and the name of the place is changed and here after to be called Concord." 1
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