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7360
MIDDLESEX- COUNTY MANUAL
PUBLISHED BY THE PENHALLOW PRINTING COMPANY, 12 MIDDLE ST. LOWELL, MASS. 1878.
* COLUMBIA UNIV.
MIDDLESEX COUNTY MANUAL.
PUBLISHED BY THE PENHALLOW PRINTING COMPANY, 12 MIDDLE ST. LOWELL, MASS. 1878.
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THENEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY 213051 ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS 1901
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1878, by the Penhallow Printing Company, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
PREFACE.
We take pleasure in presenting to our readers the MIDDLESEX COUNTY MANUAL.
Judge Cowley's "Historical Sketch" traces the fortunes of the County from its incorpora- tion in 1643, when it extended to the "South Sea," and included large portions of New Hampshire and Connecticut, as well as of Massachusetts, until since the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the close of Shays' Rebellion. It is the first history of Middlesex County ever printed.
In it Judge Cowley has incorporated the principal and most valuable portions of both of General Gookin's works : namely, his Historical Collections relating to the New England Indi- ans generally ; and his History of the Christ- ian Indians during King Philip's War. Both of these narratives are dificult to obtain. We have known as much as ten dollars to be paid for
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PREFACE.
the volume containing the former of these works, and even a greater price for the volume con- taining the latter. One might watch the chances of the booksellers ] for many years to obtain, for twenty dollars, the narratives here supplied, in all their most desirable parts, for a single dollar.
In addition to all this Judge Cowley has en- riched his "Sketch" with much new matter, and with notes and references to original authorities.
Mr. Johnson's labors in the Committee on County Expenditures have enabled him to pre- sent a valuable summary of the frauds and abuses heretofore practiced in County affairs, and to show how they have been or may be reformed.
Since Mr. Johnson's article was prepared, the Legislative Committee on Prisons have made a report on the Middlesex House of Cor- rection, from which it appears that that establishment now actually yields a small income to the County, instead of being the public burden it was before the investigations of 1874 ; although Charles J. Adams has been per- mitted to remain in his place as Master.
This Committee say :- "In 1877 the receipt from the sale of brushes was $24,000; and for board of prisoners, sale of old materials, offal, &c.,
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PREFACE.
$4,893.84 ; total, $28,893.84. The total expen- ses of Jail and House of Correction were $28,- 521.70, leaving a balance of receipts over expenditures of $372,14."
Others besides Mr. Johnson would like to be informed why an establishment that can be so conducted as to yield an income to the County in the worst of times, could not yield an income, but was actually run at a heavy loss, when the times were the best ever known in the land.
It will be seen that the income above re- ported, when divided by the number of inmates (285) amounts to $1.30 apiece. Mr. Johnson thinks this much smaller than it should be. Ought not an able bodied prisoner to earn more than $1.30 in a year, besides his board and clothes ? Mr. Johnson says, he ought.
We had hoped to add another valuable contribution, on the "Old Families of Mid- dlesex," from the practiced pen of the late John Wingate Thornton, author of "Roger Conant and Cape Ann," and other works of acknowl- edged merit, and himself a noble scion of two of those families. But his recent lamented death, before preparing his article, compels us to omit those pages (111-116,) in which we
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PREFACE.
hoped to see the "Old Families of Middlesex" "live again."
County publications, in a great number and variety, are noticed by various writers, in a manner at once critical and interesting.
Lists of County officers have been com- piled with an amount of labor of which the average reader can form no adequate idea.
LOWELL, July 4th, 1878.
PENHALLOW PRINTING COMPANY.
CONTENTS.
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE COUNTY. -
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FINANCIAL REFORMS IN THE COUNTY. -
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RECONSTRUCTION OF THE COUNTY.
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CIVIL LIST OF THE COUNTY.
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. ADVERTISEMENTS.
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NEW COUNTY PUBLICATIONS.
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HISTORICAL SKETCH
OF THE
COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX.
The year 1643 was signalized by two im- portant events in the history of Massachusetts : -the formation of the famous confederacy between this Colony and the three other Colo- nies of New England ; and the creation of the four Counties of Middlesex, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. The tide of immigration from England to Massachusetts, which ran without interruption from 1630 to 1640, had substantially ceased to flow. About four thousand English families, including more than twenty thousand persons, were then domiciled on the rugged shores of New England. Since then, "more persons have removed out of New England to other parts of the world than have come from other parts to
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it."" The white population of the "Bay Colony," as Massachusetts was called, was then about fifteen thousand souls.
The chief cause of this discontinuance of immigration was undoutedly the English Civil War. So long as the contest between Charles the First and the champions of popular govern- ment was a war of words merely, every ship that entered Massachusetts Bay brought her quota of adventurous immigrants. But as soon as that struggle was transferred from the halls of Westminster and Oxford to the battle-fields of Newbury and Chalgrove, Marston Moor and Edgehill, no Englishman that had a heart could think of leaving the shores of his native land. Some of those who had settled in Massachusetts, returned to England to stay-such as the Rev. Hugh Peters and Sir Henry Vane-and bore an honorable part in the war which saved the Eng- lish Constitution from the fate which overthrew all the other Constitutions of Europe. Vane ana Peters both perished on the scaffold.
It is interesting to notice with what intense anxiety the first settlers of Middlesex and the other Colonial Counties watched from afar that
*So wrote Governor Hutchinson in his History of Massachusetts, vol. 1, p. 91; and from his time to ours the same fact has continued
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THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX.
sanguinary struggle. In turning over the second, third and fourth volumes of Massachusetts Colony Records, I find that between July 21, 1642, and May 31, 1660, no less than twenty separate days were set apart for fasting humilia- tion and prayer, in which "the distractions of our native land," "the present sad and deplora- ble condition of our dear native country," etc., were specially remembered. So, when the Parliamentary forces won any signal victory over those of the King, days were set apart in Massachusetts for thanksgiving and praise.
The act creating the County of Middlesex was passed by the General Court on the tenth day of May, 1643, and is a model of brevity and comprehensiveness. It simply says, "The whole plantation in this jurisdiction is divided into four shires ;" names them, as Middlesex, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk ; and then gives the names of the towns which they are to include.
The same page which contains this record, contains one of those orders to which I just now referred, for "a day of publique humiliation for the sad condition of our native country.""
Thus we see that while they were passing the most important measures of Colonial legis- lation, and creating Counties that might endure
*Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. 2, p. 38.
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF
as long as the Merrimack and the Blackstone flow singing to the sea, their hearts untravelled fondly turned to the land where Cromwell's Iron- sides were hurling back Prince Rupert's Cavalry, and filling Europe with the fame of soldiers who trusted in God and kept their powder dry.
The institutions and social condition of the Colonies had, as Dr. Palfrey remarks, taken a definite shape ; and at this point, accordingly, he pauses, and pictures to us in vivid colors that primitive system of society which has influ- enced so largely the character and fortunes of all the later generations of New England life."
The General Court, then composed of Assistants and Deputies as now it is composed of Senators and Representatives, had assumed the fixed character which it still retains. Originally it consisted of the Assistants and all Freemen of the Colony ; but it had then come to be a representative body, as now. At first all the members sat in one chamber, like the Parliament of Scotland, the City Council of London, and the Legislative Assembly of France; but in 1643 it had assumed the fixed form of a two-chamber body, as now.
The theory on which the government was established, was not Democratic, but Theocra-
*Palfrey's History of New England, vol. 2, chap. 1.
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tic. * The suffrage was limited to church members ; and the voters, or freemen, were "not more than one-fifth part of the grown men."" Thus was the suffrage restricted in 1631 ; and in 1660, when some of the inhabitants of Mid- dlesex brought this subject anew to the atten- of the General Court, it was ordered "that no man whosoever shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic but such as are members of some church of Christ ( i. e. some Congrega- tional Church) and in full communion."}
The Church, then, was rather the creator than the creature of the State. Excommunica- tion from the Church meant banishment from the Colony.
How complete was the control of the Church over the State and its members may be seen from the experiences of Captain John Underhill, as recorded by Governor Winthrop :-
"Capt. Underhill, being struck with horror and remorse for his offences, both against the church and civil state, could have no rest till he
*Hence Whittier applauds Samuel Sewall, one of the Judges who condemned the witches, and afterwards publicly confessed his error in the Old South Church :- "Green forever the memory be
Of the Judge of the old Theocracy."
+Palfrey's History of New England, vol. 3, p. 135.
#Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. 4, p. 420.
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had obtained a safe conduct to come and give satisfaction ; and accordingly, at a lecture at Boston, (it being then the court time,) he made a public confession both of his living in adultery with Faber's wife, (upon suspicion whereof the church had before admonished him,) and at- tempting the like with another woman, and also the injury he had done to our state, &c. and acknowledged the justice of the court in their proceeding against him.
He came at the time of the court of assistants ; and upon the lecture day, after ser- mon, the pastor called him forth and declared the occasion, and then gave him leave to speak : and indeed it was a spectacle which caused many weeping eyes, though it offered matter of much rejoicing to behold the power of the Lord Jesus in his own ordinances, when they are dispensed in his own way, holding forth the authority of his regal sceptre in the simplicity of the gospel. He came in his worst clothes (being accustomed to take great pride in his bravery and neatness) without a band, in a foul linen cap pulled close to his eyes ; and standing upon a form, he did, with many deep sighs and abundance of tears, lay open his wicked course, his adultery, his hypocrisy, his persecution of God's people here, and especially his pride (as the root of all, which caused God to give him over to his other sinful courses) and contempt of magistrates. He justified God and the church and the court in all that had been inflicted on him. He declared what power Satan had of him since the casting out of the church ; how his pre-
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sumptuous laying hold of mercy and pardon, before God gave it, did then fail him when the terrors of God came upon him, so as he could have no rest, nor could see any issue but utter dispair, which had put him divers times upon resolutions of destroying himself, had not the Lord in mercy prevented him, even when his sword was ready to have done the execution. Many fearful temptations he met with beside, and in all these his heart shut up in hardness and impenitency as the bondslave of Satan, till the Lord, after a long time and great afflictions, had broken his heart, and brought him to hum- ble himself before him night and day with prayers and tears till his strength was wasted ; and indeed he appeared as a man worn out with sorrow, and yet he could find no peace, therefore he was now come to seek it in this ordinance of God. He spake well, save that his blubbering &c. interrupted him, and all along he discovered a broken and melting heart, and gave good ex- hortations to take heed of such vanities and beginnings of evil as had occasioned his fall; and in the end he earnestly and humbly besought the church to have compassion of him, and to deliver him out of the hands of Satan. So accordingly he was received into the church again ; and after he came into the court, (for the general court began soon after) and made confession of his sin against them &c. and de- sired pardon, which the court freely granted him so far as concerned their private judgment. But for his adultery they could not pardon that for example sake, nor would restore him to
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freedom, though they released his banishment, and declared the former law against adultery to be of no force ; so as there was no law now to touch his life, for the new law against adultery was made since his fact committed. He con- fessed also in the congregation that though he was very familiar with that woman, and had gained her affection &c. yet she withstood his solicitations six months (which he thought no woman could have resisted) before he could overcome her chastity, but being once overcome, she was wholly at his will. And to make his peace the more sound, he went to her husband (being a cooper) and fell upon his knees before him in the presence of some of the elders and others, and confessed the wrong he had done him, and besought him to forgive him, which he did very freely, and in testimony thereof he sent the captain's wife a token. * "
To such discipline did this old Puritan cap- tain submit, who had served in the English army in the Netherlands, in Spain, and in Ireland, and who had also borne a distinguished part in the Pequot War in Connecticut.
Did not Hawthorne, in this affair of Under- hill, find the germ of one of the most dramatic incidents in his "Scarlet Letter ?" Not in the
*Winthrop's History of New England, vol. 1, p. 326, vol. 2, pp. 13-15. See also Famous Divorces of All Ages, by Charles Cowley, of the Middlesex Bar, pp. 85-89. Pub- lished by the Penhallow Printing Company, Lowell.
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the Rev. John Cotton, but in Captain John Underhill, must we look, as I think, for the ori- ginal of the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale.
However this may be, Captain Underhill afterwards removed to the Dutch settlement on Long Island. There he "sobered down into a respectable Burgomaster," and died in peace at the last.
The County of Middlesex, when first estab- lished, contained eight towns-Charlestown, Cambridge, Watertown, Sudbury, Concord, Woburn, Medford and Reading. Each of these towns then covered a much larger area of ter- ritory than now ; and the magistrates of Mid- dlesex exercised jurisdiction as occasion required as far North as the White Mountains, and as far West as the Connecticut River.
Many will learn with surprise that so much of Lowell as lies on the right bank of the Merrimack, was once a part of Cambridge, but such is the fact. Ancient Cambridge included all the lands between the Charles and the Shaw- shine-between the Shawshine and the Concord -and between the Concord and the Merrimack.
Commissioners, appointed by the General Court, in 1639, explored the Merrimack River as far North as where Franklin now stands ; and Darby Field, an adventurous settler from the
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF
North of Ireland, made the first ascent of the White Mountains in 1642.
The first and by far the most important institutions in the new jurisdictions were the County Courts. These were held at first by the Assistants, so called, who combined the functions now performed by the Executive Council and the Senate, with the powers of Judges of the higher Courts, and the County Commissioners. But it was afterwards provided that they should be held by the Assistants who lived in the County, or any others "that would attend, together with such other persons as the freemen of the County, four times a year, should nominate, and the General Court approve of, so as to make five in all, any three to hold a Court. They had the power to determine all civil causes and all criminal, the penalty not extending to life, member, or banishment. Grand and petit juries were summoned to attend them. Appeals from them lay to the Court of Assistants, and from them to the General Court.""
*Hutchinson's History of Mass., vol. 1, p. 397; Mass. Col. Rec., vol. 3, p. 325. Dr. Palfrey says "these Courts had jurisdiction in cases of Divorce." History of New England, vol 2, p. 17. But I find no record of any decree of divorce either from bed and board or from the bond of matrimony, under the Colony Charter. The Court of Assistants however had the power of divorce.
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The County Courts were held four times a year-twice in Charlestown and twice in Cam- bridge. Among their many duties were those of granting licences te inn-keepers and common victualers, and of assessing negligent towns for the maintenence of ministers.
When it was proposed, some years ago, to amend the Constitution so as to make the Judges of our Courts elective by the people, many cried against it as a most dangerous in- novation. But the fact is, that the County Courts of Massachusetts were filled by popular election from the early days of the Colonial Charter until that Charter was vacated by a decree in Chancery in England, June 18, 1684. But if other states have followed the example of Massachusetts, by introducing elective Judges, it is to be hoped that they will also follow her example by adopting some better mode of filling the bench of Justice than the chance-medley of the caucus.
Middlesex County contained portions of two of the five leagues of Indians, whom De Monts found in New England in 1604. The valley of the Merrimack and its tributaries was sparsely peopled by the Pawtuckets or Penna- cooks, under Passaconaway. The Southern por- tion of the County was occupied by the
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF
Massachusetts tribe, which included the Nip- mucks of the West as far as Connecticut.
One of the first acts of the General Court touching the Counties, was an order, passed November 13, 1644, "that the County Courts in this jurisdiction shall take care that the Indians residing in the several shires shall be civilized, and they shall have power to take order from time to time to have them instructed in the knowledge and worship of God."
On the twenty-ninth of May, 1644, Passa- conaway appeared before the General Court at Boston, and formally submitted to the Colonial authorities.7 The terms of the act of sub- mission, to which, at different times, the various Indian chiefs of the Colony affixed their marks, were as follows :- "We have and by these presents do, voluntarily and without any con- straint or persuasion, but of our own free motion, put ourselves, our subjects, lands and estates under the government and jurisdiction of the Massachusetts, to be governed and pro-
*See Memories of the Indians and Pioneers of the Re- gion of Lowell, by Charles Cowley.
tThe date of this event is differently stated in Massa- chusetts Archives, vol. 30 ,p. 3, and in Winthrop's Histo- ry of New England, vol. 2, pp. 166, 214. But I follow Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. 2, p. 73.
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THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX.
tected by them, according to their just laws and orders, so far as we shall be made capable of understanding them : and we do promise for ourselves and our subjects, and all our posterity to be true and faithful to the said government, and aiding to the maintenance thereof to our best ability, and from time to time to give speedy notice of any conspiracy, attempt, or evil intention of any which we shall know or hear of against the same : and we do promise to be willing, from time to time, to be instructed in the knowledge and worship of God."
In a note to Governor Winthrop's History, Mr. Savage says :- "We may rejoice in the benevolence, which attempted the civilization and conversion to Christianity of these Indians, and certainly must honour the government, whose liberal treaty with their confederates is so diverse from the usual terms of stipulation with the natives ; but it may be feared, that there was too much human policy at work in obtain- ing their subjection."
The County of Middlesex was but three years old when the Rev. John Eliot commenced those Christ-like labors among the ruins of the red men, which have won for him the name of the Apostle to the Indians. It has often been stated that he began this missionary work at
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Newton on the twenty-eighth of October 1646; but others date it from a visit, six weeks earlier, to the wigwam of the sachem, Cutshamekin, at Dorchester Mill, now, I believe, in Milton. As early as 1647, Eliot reported the work of civil- izing the Indians, (which he regarded as in- separable from the work of converting them to Christianity,) as successfully begun at Newton, Concord and Lowell.
On the twenty-sixth day of May, 1647, the General Court established monthly courts in those villages which were visited by Eliot or the other Indian missionaries ; and the chiefs were constituted judges, for the trial of petty causes, both civil and criminal ; their powers being sub- stantially the same as those of justices of the peace. An Indian constabulary was also estab- lished, to serve warrants and summonses, and execute the orders and judgments of these Indian courts. Once in three months, one of the magistrates of the Colony and the Indian chiefs held a County Court for the Indians."
In 1656, Daniel Gookin, one of the Assist- ants, was appointed Superintendent of all those Indians who had submitted to the English jurisdiction. This office, filled for many years by Gookin, and by others, was continued until the number of Massachusetts Indians had dwindled into insignificance.
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. 27
Middlesex County having been one of the principal theatres of these attempts to civilize the Indians, it is proper to introduce here the following portions of the seventh chapter of Gookin's Historical Collections of the Indians, which, though printed in 1792, have had but little circulation among the great body of the people. General Gookin wrote in 1674, when the work of Eliot and himself had attained all the success which was vouchsafed to it. There were then under Eliot's supervision fourteen "praying Indian towns," including eleven hun- dred souls, and two Indian churches, as General Gookin's narrative will now show. It will be seen that the style of this Puritan Saint was one of peculiar felicity, reminding the reader of the grace with which Blackstone, nearly a cen- utry later, wrote his celebrated Commentaries.
§. 1. The first town of praying Indians in Massachusetts is Natick. The name signifieth a place of hills. It lieth upon the Charles River, eigh- teen miles south-west from Boston, and ten miles north-west from Dedham. It hath twenty-nine fam- ilies, which, computing five persons to a family, amount to one hundred and forty-five persons. The town contains about six thousand acres. The soil is good and well watered, and produceth plenty of grain and fruit. The land was granted to the Indians, at the motion of Mr. Eliot, by the General Court of
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF
Massachusetts ; and in the year 1651, a number of them combined together, and formed a town, which is the place of the greatest name among the Indians,* and where their principal courts are held.
As soon as the Indians had fixed their settlement, they applied to Mr. Eliot for a form of civil govern- ment; and he advised them to adopt that which Jethro proposed to Moses for the Israelites in the wilderness, Exod. xviii. 21. Accordingly, on the sixth of August, about one hundred of them met to- gether, and chose one ruler of a hundred, two rulers of fifties, and ten rulers of tens. After this they entered into the following covenant.
"We are the sons of Adam. We and our fore- fathers have a long time been lost in our sins; but now the mercy of the Lord beginneth to find us out again. Therefore, the grace of Christ helping us, we do give ourselves and our children to God, to be his people. He shall rule us in all our affairs, not only in our religion and affairs of the church, but also in all our works and affairs in this world. God shall rule over us. The Lord is our judge ; the Lord is our lawgiver ; the Lord is our king; he will save us. The wisdom which God hath taught us in his book, that shall guide us, and direct us in the way. O Jehovah, teach us wisdom to find out thy wisdom in the Scriptures. Let the grace of Christ help us, because Christ is the wisdom of God. Send thy spirit into our hearts, and let it teach us. Lord, take us to be thy people, and let us take thee to be our God."
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