USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > South Yarmouth > Old Quaker Village, South Yarmouth, Massachusetts > Part 1
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Gc 974.402 So89j 1546647
M. L
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
GC
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00084 5443
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
http://www.archive.org/details/oldquakervillage00jenk
OLD QUAKER VILLAGE
South Yarmouth, Massachusetts
No land of beauty art thou, Old Cape, But a prouder name we crave, The home of the purest, bravest hearts, That traverse the dark blue wave. Then cherished for aye shall thy mem'ry be, For where'er through life I roam, My heart will turn, like a wearied bird, To my own, my Cape Cod home. -E. J. Dudley.
Reminiscences Gathered and Edited by
S. Lawrence Jenkins
1915
1546647
Copyright. 1915,
By Charles Warner Swift.
BASS RIVER.
There's a gently flowing river, Bordered by whispering trees, That ebbs and flows in Nobscussett, And winds through Mattacheese.
Surely the Indians loved it, In the ages so dim and gray, River beloved of the pale-face, Who dwell near its banks today!
They pass on,-the generations- Thou stayest, while men depart; They go with thy lovely changes Shrined in each failing heart.
Beautiful old Bass river! Girt round with thy murmuring trees; Long wilt thou flow through Nobscussett, And wander through Mattacheese. -Arethusa, South Dennis.
BASS RIVER.
At the sound of thy name, what fond mem'ries arise Of the scenes of my childhood, 'neath soft summer skies! At each sail on thy surface, or walk on thy shore, Thy quaint beauty impressed me as never before.
Of the Afton and Tiber the poets have sung; For the Avon and Danube their harps they have strung. May the the singer be blest, whosoc'er he may be, Who shall sing the just praises, dear river, of thee! -Daniel Wing.
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The idea of putting upon paper various items of information and interest that might be gathered of South Yarmouth, formerly known as "Quaker Village," was suggested by a former resident of the place who had been greatly interested in a conversation with the late Orlando F. Wood, then one of its oldest residents. Recog- nizing the fact that our old men are one by one passing away and much interesting and valuable information is being lost, I suggested to Mr. Wood that he describe the village as it was when he was a boy and I would write it down. So, seated in his big chair in the cozy quarters which he liked to designate as the "O. B. S. club," and surrounded by a few congenial listeners and good friends, he took each street and described its appearance at that early period.
I wish to state at this point, however, that I have not relied entirely upon Mr. Wood's account, but have had valuable assistance from Mr. Daniel Wing, who has for years made a study of the history of South Yarmouth.
One is apt to think that these country villages change but little, but he has only to let his mind wander back even so short a time as twenty-five years to see that many changes have taken place, and that the Quaker Village of that period was a far different place than that of today; fifty or seventy-five years have brought about great changes.
There is one thing that I cannot but remark, and that is the "youngness" of the present day residents. Even when I was a boy, a man or woman who had reached the age of fifty years was considered "old;" now, he or she is simply in the prime of life and best able to enjoy it. And still more strange, none of those whom I considered old in my boyhood days ever seemed to grow any older! In those days, a man who had reached the age of fifty no longer thought of mingling with the young in society. It was his duty to set the example of sedateness and propriety, as if it were a sin to grow young in heart as he grew older in years. My father was fifty years old when I was born, and he was con- sidered so old a man that his friends told him he would never live to see me grown up. And yet he did live to see me pass my thirtieth birthday. I remember that he was a much younger man at heart when he was eighty than he was at sixty, and grew far more liberal in his views during the last twenty years of his life. In these days it is rarely we find a man under seventy-five who cares to be thought "old."
Before taking up the appearance of the village, street by street,
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as described by Mr. Wood, it would be well to give a bit of the history of South Yarmouth, gathered from various sources, par- ticularly from a series of articles by Mr. Daniel Wing, a former resident, which were published in the Yarmouth Register.
According to Mr. Wing, the town of Yarmouth, in 1713, set off a tract of land "for ye Indian inhabitants to live upon," which included the land from Long pond to Bass river, and from the old Yarmouth road to the lands now owned by Joseph Chase; in fact, what is now the most populous section of the village. The Indians having been killed off by small pox, the town authorized the selectmen in 1778 to sell these lands, reserving a tract for Thomas Greenough, one of the survivors. Greenough afterwards sold more or less of this land, the first of which was to David Kelley, great- grandfather of the present David D. Kelley, in 1790, and was about two acres; on the southiwesterly corner of which the structure now known as the "cellar house" was erected.
In 1713, when the town of Yarmouth reserved for the native Indians 160 acres, the Indians, according to Mr. Alden in his "Memorabilia of Yarmouth," equalled the whites in population, but disease thinned their ranks and in 1767 there were but six wig- wams inhabited in the whole township. In 1787 but one wigwam was inhabited and that was on the grounds now owned by the Owl club.
Speaking of Indians reminds me that "Nauhaught, the Deacon," the subject of Whittier's poen of that title, lived in South
Yar- mouth on the south side of Long pond, near the Yarmouth road, and the swamp on the opposite side is today known as "Sarah's swamp," being named for the Deacon's daughter. All are familiar with the story of how he was attacked by several black
snakes that began to twine about his legs. One of them reaching his head, Nauhaught opened his mouth, and the snake putting his head inside, the Indian bit. it off, whereupon the blood streaming down from the decapitated
snake alarmed the rest and they fled. Even to this day traces of an old trail may be seen in the vicinity of Swan pond, where an Indian meeting house once stood. "It is probable," says a writer, "that it was on this path that Nauhaught had his encounter with the snakes." Mr. Alden visited him in his last days and asked him if he was resigned. "Oh yes, Mr. Alden," he replied, "I have always had a pretty good notion of death."
Upon the records of the town of Yarmouth may be found under date of November 17, 1778, "Voted, that the charge made by the
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Indians having the small pox, be paid out of the town treasury.
"5th. Then voted that all their effects be sold to pay their charge of having the small pox, and the land formerly belonging to the Indians to live upon be sold or leased.
"6th. Concerning the Indian land-Voted that the town impower the selectmen to lease or sell the Indian land or reserve a piece for Thomas Greenough as they shall think proper."
Some of the Indians of South Yarmouth were first buried on land afterwards owned by Robert Homer, but when it was proposed to use the land for salt works, it so grieved Cato, a negro, whose wife Lucy was an Indian, who occupied the last wigwam in South Yarmouth, that the bodies were disinterred and buried with the others on a hillside near Long pond, which spot is now marked by a monument of boulders bearing the inscription:
"On this slope lie buried the last native Indians of Yarmouth."
When the bank back of the monument was dug away for the pur- pose of making a cranberry bog, several skeletons were found, together with pieces of coffins, showing that the burial place was comparatively modern, although the general idea remains that it was also an ancient burial place as well. Certainly it must have been a part of their old hunting grounds, those old woods, border- ing upon the largest pond in the vicinity, which was full of fish and the resort of water fowl, and we can well imagine that it would be an ideal spot for the last resting place of the members of the tribe that once held possession of all these lands.
At the time of Orlando Wood's first recollections, there were but few trees in the village excepting wild cherry trees that bordered the streets, and here and there an apple orchard, evidences of which may now be seen in the yard of Captain Joseph Allen,
which trees, although at least one hundred years old, still bear fruit of excellent quality. The cherry trees in front of what is. known as the "Katy Kelley house" on Bridge street, I am informed by Seth Kelley, were old trees when his father was a boy, which would be very nearly if not quite a hundred years ago. Trees for ornamentation evidently were thought to be too worldly for those old Friends; to them, there was no place for a tree unless it bore fruit, and the idea of ornamenting streets or grounds with trees was something not to be thought of.
Beginning at Bridge street, Mr. Wood says there was no dwelling beyond it. The "rope-walk" extended to the Friends meeting
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house on the main road, but all below it, to the river, was given over to fields and gardens, large portions being used for corn-fields. The present street leading to the David Kelley house was not opened, nor were any of the present houses on that street built. The "toll-house" of course was not built, nor even thought of, and the first house on the street, from the river, was the house in which Mr. Wood was born, on the spot where now stands the paint shop of Manton H. Crowell. The garden of this house was the spot where the bank building now stands. This house was undoubtedly the residence of the first David Kelley, who died in 1816, an enterprising man who bought several acres of the Indian lands. It was a one-story house, with a large unfinished chamber on the second floor, in which were several beds, as was the custom in those days. Mr. Wood remembers that a storm blew out one side of the house and he saw some of the neighborly women standing in the breech admiring the view of the river.
Mr. Wood's father was Zenas Wood and his mother was Mercy Hawes of Yarmouth. He tells a story of his grandmother Lydia, or "Liddy" as she was called, that shows that even in those early days "love laughed at locksmiths." It seems that her parents were strict Quakers, and Liddy, against their objections, had met and fallen in love with a young man of West Barnstable. There was evidently no objection to the young man except that he was not a Friend, and Liddy's parents could not be reconciled to her marry- ing "out of the meeting." But love will find a way, and when the old folks went to monthly meeting one day, Liddy quietly packed up some of her belongings in a bundle, mounted a horse and rode away to West Barnstable, hiding there in an old grist mill-which was standing up to a few years ago-where the young man met her and took her to the parson's. Her father refused for a long time to forgive her, but the mother finally brought about a reconcilia- tion and Liddy went back to her meeting. This old grist mill was the same that received a grant from the town of Barnstable in . 1689 of eight or ten acres at Goodspeed's river and the benefit of the stream forever on condition that the parties interested "should set up a fulling mill on the river and maintain the same for twenty years and full and dress the town's cloth on reasonable terms."- (D. Wing.) The story is told that Aunt Liddy dreamed one night, during her last years, that she saw the vessel on which had sailed a favorite grandson, coming up Boston harbor with the flag at half mast and that the boy was dead. A few days later brought tidings that her dream was but the forerunner of sad news.
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I remember, rather vaguely, Zenas Wood as a man of whom the school boys stood in awe, because they imagined that he possessed certain authority and power to arrest them for any misdemeanors of which they might be guilty. I also remember that he had a tall flag pole in his garden and a flag which he used to raise upon patriotic occasions, even as Mr. Wood delighted to do later. Mr. Wood informed me that he, Orlando, was born upon a day of general muster, and that upon that eventful occasion, Uncle George Baker shot off one of his arms by a careless handling of his musket. I can just remember the old man myself. The stump of his arm was a great curiosity to me, and the deft way in which he man- aged to saw wood, which he used to do for my father. In this old house on Bridge street the late David Kelley lived after he was first married, and later Zeno Baker and others. At the foot of Bridge street was a wharf, to which large vessels were often moored.
The next house on Bridge street was that owned by the late Thomas Collins, then belonging to Abiel Akin, blacksmith, grand- father of the late Peleg P. Akin, who came from New Bedford previous to 1800. He had formerly owned the "cellar house," where the late David K. Akin was born. Previously it was occu- pied by a potter named Purrington, and the second story was used as a sail-loft. After Abiel built the Collins house and moved into it, the "cellar house" was occupied by one of his children, and during a storm the good woman of the house used to take her children and go to her father's to stay, for fear that the house would blow over! However, the old house has weathered many a storm since those days and still stands as probably one of the most substantial dwellings in the village. Certainly it is one of the most interesting old landmarks of the place. The Collins house was also known as the "Amos Kelley house."
The only other house standing at that time on Bridge street, according to Mr. Wood, was that known as the "Kate Kelley house.". It was built by the father of the late David Kelley, and afterwards became the home of his daughter Catherine, of whom the older portion of the community have many pleasant memories.
As has been said, back of these houses, on the right hand side coming from the river, was nothing but open fields excepting upon the road leading to the Friends meeting house, where stood the "rope-walk," which extended from the head of Bridge street to the meeting house grounds. For a description of this old business enterprise I am indebted to the late Stephen Sears and to Mr. Wing,
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although Mr. Wood recalled the old building because he worked there when he was a boy. It was built in 1802 by David Kelley the first and Sylvanus Crowell, and the business of making rope was carried on for a number of years,-more than twenty-five at least. At that time there was a large fleet of coasting and fishing ves- sels that sailed from Bass river, and there was a great demand for the product of the rope-walk. The "walk" was, perhaps, twelve feet wide and seven feet high, with port holes that could be closed by inside shutters. At the north end was the power house, operated by horses to do the heavy work, such as the making of cables and standing rigging. At the opposite or south end was the store house for manufactured goods, etc. Mr. Sears recalled a visit to the place when a lad, and seeing two men and a boy spinning. The men had large wisps of hemp about their waists which they attached to the twisting machine, kept in motion by the hoy, and walking with their backs to the machine, paid out the material for some two or three hundred feet, and then re- turned to the wheel, hanging the newly spun thread to hooks. Mr.
Sears thought that the men received two cents a thread for
spinning and the boy forty cents a day. The tarring plant was outside the main building. When the business of rope making became no longer profitable, the building was occupied for the making of oil cloth, a man by the name of Jacob Vining being the manager, and Stephen Wing the designer and pattern maker. He (Wing) had always a taste for artistic work of a like nature, which showed itself in the painting of signs, lettering and design- ing. When this business was given up the structure was taken down and the land gradually sold for building purposes, and on the site of the old rope-walk stand today the dwellings built or occupied by Morris Cole, James F. Kelley, William Haffards, Joseph Crowell, Bartlett White, Charles Farris. Nelson Crowell, the dry goods store of E. D. Kelley and the grocery store of David D. Kel -- ley. In those early days the rope-walk was a convenient passage- way to the meeting house in stormy weather and as the owners were themselves Friends, they allowed the worshippers to pass through it, a favor I fear no one of the present day would offer if the building still stood and was owned by other parties.
In looking back to those days I am struck with the fact that there were many opportunities offered to keep the young men at work and at home. The Quakers were not a sea-going people as a rule, but they were full of business ideas and promoters
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of many industries. In addition to rope making, there
was the salt industry, the fishing
business was excel-
lent on our coast, shoe making establishments
employed many young men, as did a tailoring shop, a magnesia factory, a tannery, and other opportunities were not wanting; while on the other hand, today there is hardly anything for a young man to do who wishes to live in his native place.
On the opposite side of the road from the rope-walk was a "stretch" of pine woods; tall large trees such as one rarely sees now. These woods extended down to the "flatiron" in front of the house known as the "David Chubbs house."
When the old David Kelley house on Bridge street was torn down a portion of it was used in building that now owned by Frank Crosby, and about the same time the house of Charles Bax- ter was built, and here he lived and died as did his wife, Aunt Betsey. At present it is occupied by Mrs. Hathaway. Next to it was the house in which Mr. Tripp, one of the earlier school teachers lived, now occupied by Mrs. Crowell, the mother of our postmaster, who at this date is ninety-four years old, and in ex- cellent health.
And now, while we are in the vicinity, it is well to speak of the Friends meeting house, which was then the principal place of wor- ship, and to within a few years of the birth of Mr. Wood, the only place of worship in South Yarmouth. It was built in 1809. Nearly one hundred years before, the society built a meeting house in
what is now South Dennis, on a hill overlooking the river. Dennis then being a part of Yarmouth, the old meeting house was that of the Yarmouth Quakers, and more
particularly those of
South Yarmouth. All the Quakers from the country round, says Mr. Wing, used to attend services there, those from Harwich coming on what is still known as "Quaker path," while those from the vicinity of "Indian town," now known as "Friends village," came on the road leading by "Dinah's pond" and crossing at the "second narrows" in a boat kept there for the purpose. When the present structure was built the old meeting house was sold and floated down the river to its mouth and converted into a dwelling house. It is now standing and is known as the "Waterman Baker house." Its age of nearly two hundred years makes it an object of interest to all.
In those early days the Friends meeting was largely attended, both sides of the house being filled at every service, on Sundays and Thursdays, for it was considered an inexcusable neglect of
,
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duty not to be present. On Fifth day, or Thursday, the children in the schools were excused for the purpose of attending meeting, and the young men left their work to attend.
It is told of the late David Kelley, that when a young man and working in the rope-walk, one Fifth day he did not attend meeting as usual. There was much whispering and smiling among the others, and it turned out that on that particular day his pro- posed marriage to Phoebe Dudley was announced. She was a niece of Robert and Daniel Wing, senior, and came from Maine to teach school in South Yarmouth, and it was here he first met her. If I am not mistaken, the last marriage ceremony performed in the old meeting house was that of the oldest daughter of the late Henry G. Crowell. A visitor to the old cemetery is struck with the simplicity and neatness of the enclosure, the care taken of the grounds and graves, and above all with the fact that there all are equal; there are no costly monuments proclaiming to the world the wealth of him who sleeps beneath, no carved eulogies recit- ing the worldly deeds of the sleeper; only a simple stone with the name and date of birth and death, and each stone is like every other in size; the richest man in the place-when he was living-having no more costly stone than his neighbor who had to toil early and late to support his family. I think there are few more impressive resting places for the dead than this little cem- etery of the South Yarmouth Quakers.
My own memories of Quaker meeting are very tender. My father did not belong to the meeting, although he always attended, and in his later years sat upon the second seat facing the congregation, an honor accorded him because of his life-long attendance and because of the great respect with which he was held by the mein- bers of that meeting. As a boy, I was required to attend on First day, and I remember well how long that hour of quiet seemed to me, and how the sighing of the pines back of the meeting house would often lull me to an inclination to sleep, and with what in -- terest I watched Uncle David Akin and Aunt Ruth Baker to see if they showed any signs of shaking hands, which was the closing ceremony.
The old meeting house is closed; all the old Friends are sleeping in the little cemetery. Only a few of the younger members of the meeting remain, and they are so few that to hold services could only cause feelings of sadness as they sit there in solemn silence while their minds harken back to the years that are not, and to the faces of those who once filled the seats.
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Facing the "gridiron" was the house of David Chubb,
a portion of which was the tailor shop of Alexander Hill- man, attached to the house now occupied by Frank Collins, of
which I shall have more to say later on. The house has been added to from time to time until it reminds one now of the "house of the seven gables," although how many more gables than seven it has I am still at a loss to say. A large barn is near it, and when I was a boy there used to be a stencilled notice facing the door bearing this information:
"My will is good, My word is just, I would if I could, But I cannot trust."
David Chubb drove the stage coach for many years and was a well-known personage in the vicinity. And speaking of the stage coach, reminds me that within my recollection the stage coaches ran down the Cape from Hyannis on the south side, and from Yarmouth on the north, and I can see them now, lumbering through the village. I used to envy the driver holding the reins of his four horses and snapping his long whip as he dashed around the corner, with almost invariably a boy clinging to the trunk rack, while some less fortunate urchin sang out. "Whip be- hind!" To me it seemed like a bit of the circus outside the tent. There are men living in the village who can remember going all the way to Boston in the stage coach, a journey which consumed a whole day. Sometimes passengers went by vessel from Yarmouth, a ball on the top of a flag pole on one of the hills, which could be seen from the village, announcing the departure of such a ves- sel.
Daniel Wing in a recent article to the Register speaks of the great severity of the weather in those days and of hearing older people tell of walking to the roof of the rope-walk upon frozen snow drifts on the way to the schoolhouse, which stood on the left hand side of the road near the village of Georgetown. I remem- ber hearing similar stories of big snow drifts; one of which was near the foot of Bridge street, so high that an arch was cut into it, through which the stage coach passed. Even within my own recollection the winters were much more severe than those of the present time.
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Going back to Bridge street, we come to the street that runs past the house of Thomas Collins to that of the late Peleg P. Akin. There was no building opposite the Collins house, nothing but an open field; but on the corner of the next street leading to the river and to the "cellar house," or near the corner, stood the grocery store of Thomas Akin and the postoffice. There were but two mails a week and these came by the way of Yarmouth and were brought over by carrier. Postage was higher in those days and I have in my possession letters, without envelopes, with postage marked twelve and a half cents. Mr. Wing writes me, "I remember very well the Thomas Akin store when it was on the site here described. The stone wall was very much the same as now, except in front of the store it was removed so as to allow of passage under the store piazza and into the basement. I used to think, when a boy, that the incline leading up to the store on the other side, together with the stone wall and the stairs, was a very grand combination and looked upon it with greater wonderment than I experience now in viewing structures twenty times as high."
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