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Book . 1
THE
HISTORY OF REHOBOTH,
BRISTOL COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS;
COMPRISING 372
A HISTORY OF THE PRESENT TOWNS
OF
REHOBOTH, SEEKONK, AND PAWTUCKET,
FROM THEIR SETTLEMENT TO THE PRESENT TIME;
TOGETHER WITH SKETCHES OF
ATTLEBOROUGH, CUMBERLAND, AND A PART OF SWANSEY AND BARRINGTON,
TO THE TIME THAT THEY WERE SEVERALLY SEPARATED FROM THE ORIGINAL TOWN.
BY LEONARD BLISS, JR.
" Colligite fragmenta, ut non quid pereat."
BOSTON: OTIS, BROADERS, AND COMPANY. 1836.
F74
(
.
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1836, by LEONARD BLISS, JR. in the Clerk's office of the District Court of Massachusetts.
POSTON: Samuel N. Dickinson, Printer, 52 Washington Street.
1
PREFACE.
THE compilation of the materials for the following pages was commenced at the suggestion of an antiquarian friend, with the design of furnishing a brief sketch of the history of the old town of Rehoboth, for the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. But finding the field I had chosen, more fertile in historical materials than my most sanguine expectations had at first anticipated, I pushed my enquiries with considerable zeal ; and, encouraged by the example of several town histories which had recently made their appearance, determined, if I found suffi- cient patronage to warrant the expense of publication, to extend my sketch to a more complete history, and publish it in a sep- arate volume. With this intention, after I had collected pretty copious materials, I issued a prospectus, and commenced pro- curing subscribers, promising them the work within a few months. There has been, however, a delay of more than a year beyond the time first specified ; but it will, it is hoped, be received as a sufficient apology, that, besides having underrated, at the time, the labor of throwing the materials into form for the press, I have been constantly endeavoring to add to their stock ; and so successfully, too, as to be able to present to the reader more than fifty pages beyond the number promised in the prospectus.
In introducing this volume, a few words are requisite respect- ing the principles adopted, and the method pursued, in writing it, and the sources whence the materials have been drawn.
iv
PREFACE.
In the first place, I designed the volume to be a collection of well authenticated facts respecting the towns of which I wrote. Nothing has been inserted, which did not bear the stamp of truth. Tradition has been relied on, only so far as its authority was strengthened by collateral evidence ; and always, when ad- mitted, has been distinguished from fact.
The method I have pursued in arrangement, is to give the history of the old town of Rehoboth, in its greatest extent, from the earliest period that it was inhabited by white men, to the present time ; dropping, however, that of those parts which have been since separated from the original town, at the time of their separation. I then give the history of Seekonk and Pawtucket separately, commencing at the period of their incorporation as independent towns. The events have been related, so far as practicable, in the order in which they occurred. The civil and ecclesiastical affairs of each town have been given in separate divisions ; but in the early history of the old town, when the support of the clergy was provided for by the town, as such, the constant mingling of civil and ecclesiastical transactions made it necessary, in order to give the events in the relations to each other in which they occurred, to state them in that connection. Succeeding the histories of the three towns of Rehoboth, Seekonk, and Pawtucket, are biographical sketches of individuals, not connected particularly with either the civil or ecclesiastical his- tory of either of those towns, who were yet natives of them, or have at some time made a permanent residence there. The few sketches that occur of Attleborough, Cumberland, Swansey, and Barrington, are interspersed throughout the earlier part of the history of Rehoboth.
The sources from which the materials for this history have been drawn, are faithfully referred to throughout the whole work. It should here be remarked, that the records of the old town of Rehoboth, commencing in 1643, are still extant ; and, though in a hand writing, very difficult to decipher, and sometimes almost illegible, they afforded very abundant materials for the
V
PREFACE.
earlier part of our history. From these very copious extracts have been made, which are marked with quotations. In all of these the exact language of the original has been preserved, and in some cases the orthography ; that the events of olden time might be presented to the reader in their own native costume.
As a partial extenuation of faults and inaccuracies of style, that will doubtless be detected by the reader, the author should be permitted to say, that circumstances obliged him to complete his work in great haste ; and that often, when the compositor has been putting into type one page, he has been penning the next. The materials were principally collected during vacations at college ; and the whole has been written in the few short in- tervals of relaxation afforded by a profession, which, if we may credit the testimony of worthy " Peter Pattieson," in " Old Mortality," may be supposed to allow to the mind few moments suited to the business of composition. But as a book of facts, this history, it is hoped, may be relied upon ; and the writer's only ambition, so far as regards style, has been to make those facts intelligible to the reader, trusting to the assertion of Pliny the Younger, that " historia quoquo modo seripta delectat."
To all who have in any way aided him in his undertaking, the author would tender his thanks ; and would especially ac- knowledge his obligations to ALBERT G. GREENE and WILLIAM R. STAPLES, ESQRS., of Providence, and to the HON. NAHUM MITCHELL, HON. JAMES SAVAGE, and SAMUEL G. DRAKE, EsQ. of Boston, for the kindness and readiness with which they have afforded every assistance in their power.
With this introduction the following pages are now submitted to the public ; and should the author be found to have rescued from the past but a fragment of his country's history, he will feel himself amply compensated for labors, which none but those who have had experience in similar undertakings can fully realize.
June, 1836.
LEONARD BLISS, JR.
HISTORY OF REHOBOTH.
THE old town of Rehoboth comprised, in its greatest extent, the present town, together with Seekonk, Pawtucket, Attle- borough, Cumberland, R. I., and that part of Swansey and Barrington, which was called by the Indians Wannamoiset .* The first purchase of land for the settlement of the town was made of Massassoit, in 1641 ; and was, according to the measure- ment of those times, " a tract eight miles square,"t and embra- ced what now constitutes the towns of Rehoboth, Seekonk, and Pawtucket. The second purchase was the tract called by the Indians, and after them by the English, Wannamoiset, and forms a part of Swansey and Barrington. The third and last purchase was the " North Purchase," forming now Attleborough, Mass. and Cumberland, R. I. The last was formerly called " Attleborough Gore." In 1667, Wannamoiset was included in the town of Swansey, which was then incorporated, inclu- ding, besides the present town, Somersett, Mass., and Barring- ton, and the greater part of Warren, R. I. The "North Purchase " was incorporated into a separate town, by the name of Attleborough, in 1694; and this was subdivided, in 1746, the " Gore" becoming Cumberland. The rest of the ancient town continued together till 1812, when Seekonk became a separate township, assuming its original Indian name}; and in 1828
* The name " Mollywasset," which I take to be a strange corruption of the word Wannamoiset, is now given to that part of Barrington called the "Viall Neighbourhood."
t This tract of land measures ten miles square.
# Scekonk is composed of two Indian words, seaki, meaning black, and honk, goose,-black goose, the Indian name for the wild goose, which is partly black. The adjective seaki always loses the i when combined with other words, and sometimes becomes sek .- Williams s Key to the Indian Language.
This spot received this name, probably, from the circumstance, that great numbers of wild geese used frequently, in their semi-annual migrations, to alight in Seekonk river and cove. They frequently alight there now.
1
2
HISTORY OF REHOBOTH.
Pawtucket* followed the example and was separated from Seekonk.
The first white settler within the original limits of Rehoboth was William Blackstone. He lived in what is now Cumber- land, R. I., on the river which bears his name, and about three miles above the village of Pawtucket.
How or when he came to this country is not known. When Governour Winthrop and his company arrived at Charlestown, in 1630, they found Blackstone in quiet possession of Shaw- mut, the peninsula where the city of Boston now stands. The year 1628 is the earliest date at which his name appears on the pages of our history. All we know of him previously to this is, that he was a non-conformist minister of the Episcopal church in England; and that, not willing to endure "the tyranny of the Lord-Bishops," he left the mother country, and sought an asylum in the wilds of North America. The precise time when he landed on our shores, where he first settled, or when he es- tablished himself at Shawmut, are problems in his history which will, probably, never be solved. Lechford, who wrote in 1641, and who, says Mr. Savage [ Winthrop, vol. I. 45] visited Blackstone in his new habitation above Pawtucket, thus speaks of him : "One Master Blackstone, a minister, went from Bos- ton, having lived there nine or ten yeares, because he would not joyne with the church ; he lives neere master Williams, but is far from his opinions."+ Having, with this, the date of his leav- ing Boston, an approximation to the time of his coming there may be made. He sold his lands on the peninsula, in 1634, and his removal may probably be placed in the spring of 1635 .¿ This would fix the time of his first settling at Shaw- mut in 1625 or 1626. " That Blackstone had occupied our peninsula several years, and with no slight advantage," says Mr. Savage in his admirable edition of Winthrop, "we may pre- sume from the expenses assessed on the several plantations, from Plymouth northward, for the campaign against Morton at Merry Mount, in 1628; his proportion, though the least, being more than one third of that to be paid by the settlers of Salem,
* Pawtucket is an Indian name, and was applied by the Indians to several places where there were streams, or rather falls of water.
+ Lechford, page 42 .- Mass. Hist. Coll. iii. 97, Third Series .- Lechford visit- ed America in 1637 .- Mass. Hist. Coll. iii. 399, Third Series.
# See Memoir of William Blackstone, communicated by the late Samuel Davis, Esq. of Plymouth, in the Mass. Hist. Coll. x. 170-3, 2d Series.
3
HISTORY OF REHOBOTH.
before the coming of Endicott," [vol. I. p. 44.] The following is the assessment referred to, giving the sums paid severally by towns and individuals :
Plymouth, £2 10s. Mrs. Thompson, £0 15s.
Naumkeag, [Salem] 1 10 [Squantum neck] 5
Piscataquack, 2 10 Mr. Blackstone [Boston] 0 12
Jeffrey and Burslem, 2 00 Ed'w Hilton, [Dover] 1 00
Natascot, 1 10
Total £12 7s. [Mass. Hist. Coll. iii. 63.]
Governor Hopkins, in his "History of Providence," pub- lished in the Providence Gazette, 1765,-only ninety years after Blackstone's death, says, that Blackstone had been at Boston " so long" (when the Massachusetts colony came,) " as to have raised apple trees and planted an orchard." 'Thus we have an amount of concurrent testimony sufficient to estab- lish, beyond a doubt, the fact, that Blackstone pitched his tent at Shawinut (Boston), at an early period,-as early, certainly, as 1625 or 1626.
This is corroborated, too, by the circumstance of the right of original proprietor having been allowed, to some extent, at least, to Blackstone by the Massachusetts colony, by virtue of pre- occupancy. There is, however, extant a tradition, that Governour Winthrop and his company, on their arrival, finding Blackstone in possession of the land they intended to occupy, were at first disposed to oust him, under pretence that they had received a grant of that tract from the king ; and a speech is put into his mouth on this occasion, comporting well with his proud inde- pendence of spirit, which would not allow his rights to be wrested from him, even by the hand that grasped the sceptre. " The king," answered Blackstone, in reply to their claim, " asserteth sovereignty over this New Virginia, (as New England was then sometimes called), in respect that Jolin and Sebastian Cabot sailed along the coast, without even landing at any place ; and if the quality of sovereignty can subsist upon the substratum of mere inspection, surely the quality of property can subsist upon that of actual occupancy, which is the foundation of my claim."* This ingenious logic seems, as the tradition will have it, to have puzzled his antagonists ; for they agreed to purchase
* This tradition is current in the neighbourhood where Blackstone last resid- ed ; and has been incorporated into a novel, in which a fancied daughter of Blackstone figures as the heroine. See " Humours of Eutopia," vol. I.
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HISTORY OF REHOBOTH.
his lands, reserving for him six acres on the peninsula of Shaw- mut. This is given but as a tradition : how far it is worthy of credence is submitted. The speech, it must be allowed, is bonû fide, in the character of Blackstone.
How far the settlers of Boston allowed Blackstone's claim as original proprietor, it is impossible fully to determine. But even a disposition to dispossess him would have been greater ingratitude,-to say nothing of the courtesies of gentlemen, of which our forefathers were certainly not destitute,-than their descendants would be willing to have charged upon Winthrop and his Puritan associates. For it is stated by Prince, in his Chronology, page 313, that the settlers of Charlestown having become sickly by reason of bad water, Mr. Blackstone went and invited them to come over and settle on the peninsula, tel- ling the Governour that he had found there an excellent spring of water, and urging him with pressing invitations to remove thither.
Blackstone's cottage stood near a spring, on the south end of the peninsula .* Here he cultivated a garden, and had planted an orchard,-the first planted in Massachusetts. Snow, [Hist. of Boston, p. 52, 2d Edition] places the spot of his residence in the neighbourhood where the Alms House at that time stood ; and says, that the point, at which Craigie's bridge commences, is called, on the ancient plans of the town, "Barton's Point," and is the same formerly called " Blackstone's Point."
He took the freeman's oath, May 18, 1631, being the first who took it, and before the passing of the order which restricted the privileges of freemen to church members. For Mr. Black- stone, though an ordained minister of the Church of England, was yet not only a non-conformist among conformists, but a non-conformist among non-conformists,-a sort of Ishmaelite in religion. He left England through a dislike to "the Lord- Bishops," and soon avowed himself equally displeased with " the Lord-Bretheren."
His right to the soil by pre-occupancy, was recognized to a certain extent, at least, by the Massachusetts Colony ; and a portion of land at Boston was set off to him, as appears from their records [vol. I. p. 97]. At a Court, holden April 1, 1633, "It is agreed that William Blackstone shall have fifty
* " On the south side of Charles river mouth, on a point of land, called " Blaxton's Point," lives Mr. Blaxton, where he only has a cottage ; the neck of land from which the point runs being in Indian named Shawmut, after- wards Boston."-Prince's Chron. 309, new ed. Boston, 1826.
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HISTORY OF REHOBOTH.
acres of ground set off for him near to his house in Boston, to enjoy forever." This was, at least, one fourteenth of the whole peninsula. November 10, 1634, at a general meeting upon public notice, it was agreed that Edmund Quincy, Samuel Wil- bore, William Balstone, Edward Hutchinson, the elder, and William Cheeseborough, the constable, shall make and assess all these rates, viz. "a rate of £30 to Mr. Blackstone, a rate," &c. This rate was levied "for Mr. Blackstone," and paid to him in purchase for his lands at Boston, as will appear from the following
DEPOSITION.
" The deposition of John Odlin, aged about eighty-two yeares, Robert Walker, aged about seventy-eight yeares, Francis Hudson, aged about sixty-eight yeares, and William Lytherland, aged about seventy-six yeares. These Depo- nents being ancient dwellers and inhabitants of the town of Boston in New-England, from the first planting and settling thereof, and continuing so at this day, do jointly testify and depose that in or about the yeare of our Lord one thousand six hundred thirty-and-four the then present inhabitants of said town of Boston (of whome the Honourable John Winthrop, Esq. Governour of the Colony was chiefe) did treate and agree with Mr. William Blackstone for the purchase of his estate and right in any lands lying within the said neck of land called Bos- ton, and for said purchase agreed that every householder should pay six shillings, which was accordingly collected, none paying less, some considerably more than six shillings, and the said sume collected was delivered and paid to Mr. Blackstone to his . full content and satisfaction, in consideration whereof hee sold unto the then inhabitants of said town and their heirs and as- signs forever his whole right and interest in all and every of the lands lying within the said neck, reserving onely unto himselfe about six acres of land on the point commonally called Black- stone's Point, on part whereof his then dwelling house stood ; after which purchase the town laid out a place for a trayning field ; which ever since and now is used for that purpose, and for the feeding of cattell : Robert Walker and William Lyther- land farther testify that Mr. Blackstone bought a stock of cows with the money hee received as above, and removed and dwelt near Providence, where hee lived till the day of his death.
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HISTORY OF REHOBOTH.
" Deposed this 10th day of June, 1684, by John Odlin, Robert Walker, Francis Hudson, and William Lytherland, ac- cording to their respective testimonye.
" Before us " S. BRADSTREET, Governour, "SAM. SEWALL, Assist." [Snow's Hist of Boston, p. 50-1.]
Having disposed of all, or the greater part, of his lands in Boston, and finding the bigotry and intolerance of his new neighbours averse to that freedom of spirit, and liberty of con- science which he fled from England to enjoy, he again bade adieu to the abodes of civilization, and penetrated once inore the gloomy forest, in search of an asylum ; preferring the untutored rude- ness of the savage to the civilized bigotry and intolerance of the Christian.
The place he now selected, and which proved to be his last re- treat, was the Attleborough Gore, of history, on the banks of the river that perpetuates his name. His house he named "Study Hall." It stood near the east bank of the river, a few rods east of a knoll, which, from its being his favourite place of retirement and study, he called "Study Hill."* This spot is about three miles above Pawtucket, and a mile and a half above Valley Falls, on the west side of the stage road from Pawtucket to Worcester. This knoll or hilloek, which appears to be wholly of alluvial earth, rises abruptly from the meadow like a pyra- mid, on the very brink of the river, to the height of sixty or seventy feet. It is now covered with beautiful young wood,
* It has been stated by all who have undertaken to describe this retreat of Blackstone, -. Davis [Mass. Hist. Coll. x. 70-3, 2d Series.] Snow, [Hist. of Boston, p. 52, 2d ed.] Baylies, [Memoirs of Plymouth Colony, ii. 194.] Dagget, [ Hist. of Attleborough, p. 26.] that he built his house on ' Study Hill.' But a single glance, to a person on the spot, would be sufficient to convince him that this must be an errour ; for the ascent of the hill, or knoll, as it is sometimes called, is so steep, that to have procured wood and water, or water alone, would have been a thing next to impossible. Besides reductio ad absurdum, the Whipple family, in whose possession the land has ever remained since it was sold to them by Blackstone's son, John Blackstone, say that the house was in the meadow on the east side of the hill. And the Hon Judge Dexter, of Cumberland, who resides near the spot, tells me, that, within his recollection, Blackstone's eellar, with the stoning, was plainly to be seen ; and pointed out to me the spot, about four rods east of the hill, and two east from his grave. His well, with the stoning almost entire, is still to be seen, a few rods south of the eellar and grave, on the second table of meadow. The meadow is divi- ded into three tables, elevated one above the other, which appear to be water formations. The house stood on the first, where still is seen the grave, and the well is on the second.
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HISTORY OF REHOBOTH.
from the base to the top, a heavy growth of timber having, within a few years, been cut off. The Indian name of the place was Wawepoonseag .* This name is first mentioned in the Plymouth Records, in describing the boundaries of the North Purchase, in 1661, viz .- " From Rehoboth ranging upon Paw- tucket river, to a place called by the natives Wawepoonseag, where one Blackstone now sojourneth." Here, too, he planted an orchard, the first one planted in Rhode Island ; cultivated a garden, and lived for many years in entire seclusion from the world, with none to disturb his lonely retreat. "Many of the trees which he planted, about one hundred and thirty years ago," says Governour Hopkins, in 1765, "are still pretty thrifty fruit-bearing trees." Three apple trees are now standing, in the south end of Blackstone's meadow, and two of them bear apples. They appear to be very old, but probably grew from the sprouts of those planted by Blackstone. "He had the first of that sort," says the author last quoted, "called yellow sweet- ings, that were ever in the world, perhaps the richest and most delicious apple of the whole kind. Mr. Blackstone used fre- quently to come to Providence to preach the gospel, and, to encourage his young hearers, gave them the first apples they ever saw. It is said that when he was old and unable to travel on foot, and not having any horse, he used to ride on a bull which he had tamed and tutored to that use." [Hist. of Prov- idence. See Mass. Hist. Coll. ii. 174, 2d Series.]
How Blackstone performed the labour of building his house at Boston, or at Cumberland; how he took care of his stock of "cowes," (for he appears himself to have devoted much of his time to study ;) whether he kept servants, or whether he per- formed all his labour with his own hands, history does not inform us. It is said, by tradition, that he had a servant, whose name was Abbot, and to whom he gave land on the 'Run' that bears his name. During his residence at Cumberland, Mr. Blackstone married Mrs. Sarah Stevenson of Boston, as appears by the Boston town records: "Mr. William Blackstone was married to Sarah Stevenson, widow, the 4th of July, 1659, by John Endicott, Governor." She was the widow of John Ste-
* A writer in the Mass. Hist. Coll. (the late Samuel Davis, Esq. of Plym- outh,) supposes this to be properly the name of the brook now called " Ab- bot's Run," which enters the Blackstone, just below Valley Falls. He con- jectures the word to signify " the place where birds are ensnared or taken ;"- from wawe, the name of a species of goose, and poonseug, a term for nets or snares. See Mass. Hist. Coll. x. 171, 2d Series.
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HISTORY OF REHOBOTH.
venson of Boston, who had by her at least three children,- Onesimus, born 26th 10th mo. 1643 ; John, born - 7th mo. 1645 ; and James, born Oct. 1st, 1653. His second son, John Stevenson, lived with his mother after her marriage with Mr. Blackstone ; and, after their decease, continued to reside on a part of Blackstone's land, granted him by the Court of Plym- outh, during the remainder of his life." [Daggett's Hist. of Attleborough.] Blackstone's wife died about the middle of June, 1673,* and he survived her only about two years, dying May 26, 1675,t a few weeks before the commencement of the Indian War, which laid in ashes his 'fair domain.'
Mr. Blackstone made books the companions of his lonely and sylvan retreat, as we shall see by the following inventory of his estate and library, taken two days after his death.
" Inventory of the lands, goods and chattells of Mr. William Blackstone : Taken, May 28, 1675, by Mr. Stephen Paine, and others of Rehoboth.
"REAL ESTATE NOT PRIZED.
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