USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Scituate > The early planters of Scituate; a history of the town of Scituate, Massachusetts, from its establishment to the end of the revolutionary war > Part 1
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01105 3920
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Gc 974. 402 sci 8p Pratt, Harvey Hunter The early planters of Scituate
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF
SCITUATE
A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF SCITUATE, MASSACHUSETTS FROM ITS ESTAB- LISHMENT TO THE END OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR
BY
HARVEY HUNTER PRATT
PUBLISHED BY THE SCITUATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1929
Copyright by THE SCITUATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Published for its anniversary 1929 In honor of The Author HARVEY HUNTER PRATT President 1922 to 1925
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LIMITED EDITION, NO. 343
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Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
Sauthem-$10.00
1209744
TO THE MEMORY OF THE HONORABLE PEREZ SIMMONS- ABLE COUNSELLOR AND TRUE FRIEND, WHOSE LOVE FOR THE PILGRIM LORE EARLY INSTILLED INTO THE MIND OF THE WRITER OF THESE PAGES, HAS FURNISHED THE INSPIRATION FOR THE WORK- THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
SCITUATE THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
OFFICERS: Scituate Historical Society
THOMAS HATCH FARMER, President ARTHUR H. DAMON, Vice-President HAMILTON W. WELCH, Treasurer EMMA ALLEN FARMER, Secretary
TRUSTEES:
HENRY TURNER BAILEY
EDITH W. JAMES
KATHERINE ELLIS
CHAS. H. TILDEN
ADAIR YENETCHI
ILLUSTRATIONS
Portrait of Harvey H. Pratt
Frontispiece
Memorial to the First Minister of Scituate
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Lincoln Pond and Mill, Lower Bound Brook
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Litchfield Stones in the old Cemetery,
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"The Old Sloop" -- The Unitarian Church
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Bound Brook Glen
114
Old Scituate, Undivided 148
The Old Oaken Bucket Place, Greenbush
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North River Valley
184
"The Two Stack," North Scituate
196
Old Cudworth House, 1723, Scituate
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The Judge William Cushing Memorial
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The Timothy Hatherly Memorial
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The Humphrey Turner Monument,
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The Old Stockbridge Mill, Greenbush
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The Old Scituate Lighthouse,
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER I CAUSES OF EMIGRATING-EARLY PATENTS
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1-15
CHAPTER II
MERCHANT ADVENTURERS
16-24
CHAPTER III
INCORPORATION OF TOWN
25-33
CHAPTER IV
CONTROVERSEY OVER TOWN LINES
34-41
CHAPTER V
CONIHASSET
42-62
CHAPTER VI
DIVISION OF STATE AND CHURCH 63-86
CHAPTER VII
QUAKERS IN SCITUATE
87-98
CHAPTER VIII
TOWN GOVERNMENT AND FREEMEN
99-126
CHAPTER IX
TOWN GOVERNMENT AND FREEMEN
127-149
CHAPTER X
THE INDIANS
150-179
CHAPTER XI
CUSTOMS PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION
180-192
CHAPTER XII
TOWN ACTS AGAINST TORIES
193-209
CHAPTER XIII
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
210 -- 386
NOTE
The publishers disclaim any responsibility for peculiar spelling and historical facts as they have endeavored to literally follow the text of the author.
S. H. S.
Printed by The Rockland Standard Publishing Company Rockland, Massachusetts
PREFACE
No accurate historian in writing of the early settlers of the Old Colony will be led, however great his respect for their motives, his veneration of their ideals and his sym- pathies in their hardships and sufferings, into idealizing them as a whole. The virtues of Brewster, Bradford, Carver, Standish, Hatherly, Cudworth and Tilden stand out prominently in comparison with their errors. To their determination, stubborn courage and fixedness of pur- pose, we owe the origin and existence of our present stable autonomy.
That they brought with them some less worthy, less devoted and less moral than themselves, is true. Never- theless these persons formed part and parcel in the establishment both of the church and government. In any true chronicle they must be given their proper place, for obviously their presence had its influence in the working out of an eminently satisfactory whole. The Pilgrims themselves, fully realized and appreciated the effects of the residence of this class in their community. They believed it to be baneful. Bradford in his History frequently refers to them. + In 1642 he writes in his manuscript, # "But it may be demanded how came it to pass that so many wicked persons and profane people should so quickly come over into this land and mixe themselves amongst them? Seeing it was religious men yt began yt work and they came for religious sake. I confess this may be marveilled at, at least in time to come, when the reasons
The Bradford History pps. 171, 329, 437.
# Ib. pps. 476, 477.
thereof should not be knowne; and ye more because here was so many hardships and wants mett withall. I shall therefore indeavor to give soms answer hereunto. And first according to yt in ye gospell, it is ever to be remembered that wher ye Lord begins to sow good seed, ther ye envious man will endeavore to sow tares. 2. Men being to come over into a wilderness, in which much labour and servise was to be done aboute building and planting, etc., such as wanted help in yt respecte, when they could not have such as yey would, were glad to take such as they could; and so, many untoward servants, sundry of them proved, that there was brought over, both men and women kind; who when their times were expired, became families of themselves, which gave increase, hereunto. 3. An other and a maine reason hearof was, that men, finding so many godly dis- posed persons willing to come into these parts, some beganne to make a trade of it, to transport passengers and their goods, and hired ships for that end, and then, to make up their fraight and advance their profite, cared not who ye persons were, so they had money to pay them. And by this means the cuntrie became pestered with many unworthy persons, who, being come over, crept into one place or other. 4. Againe, the Lords blessing usually following his people, as well in outward as spirituall things, (though afflictions be mixed withall,) do make many to adhear to ye people of God, as many followed Christ, for ye loaves sake, John 6, 26, and a mixed multitud came into ye wilderness with ye people of God out of Eagipte of Old, Exod. 12. 38; So allso ther were sente by their friends, some under hope yt they would be made better; others that they might be eased of such burthens, and they kept at home yt would necessarily follow their dissolute courses. And thus by one means or other, in 20 years time, it is a question whether ye greater part be not growne ye worser."
Possessing the advantage of a larger horizon afforded by the passing years since the above was written, it cannot be agreed that the pessimistic view expressed in the last sentence, was prophetic of the future. The immediate
descendants of the emigrants in the Mayflower, Fortune and Anne with those who later joined them fresh from the old country, conscientiously continued the work which the fathers had begun. The interests of the church and gov- ernment in New England were still safe in the hands of Benjamin Church, the Indian Fighter, Benjamin Lincoln of Hingham, Col. Edmund Quincy of Braintree, John Cushing of Scituate, Abraham Shaw of Dedham and Anthony Thacher of Yarmouth.
Whatever may have been the shortcoming and weaknesses of some, the best that was in them has survived, and so in the following pages the meritorious acts, as well as the errors of the early settlers are unreservedly and impartially recorded.
No apology is made for the free use of material found in other publications.
Many original manuscripts, documents and records have been examined. The work has extended over a period of years when the author had no thought of collecting them in this form; but rather in the preparation of cases in the practice of his profession, wherein ancient titles have been involved. Wherever there has been disagreement with others who have written concerning the same event, the conclusions herein stated have been reached only when they have been readily deducible from facts ascertained, beyond all question, to be true. The dominant purpose, which has been constantly kept in mind, is to compile a trust- worthy record of the lives and achievements of the early planters of Scituate.
COLONIAL SCITUATE
CHAPTER I
CAUSES OF EMIGRATING-EARLY PATENTS
"The Lord Christ intends to atchieve greater matters by this little handful of men than the World is aware of."
Edward Johnson, "Wonder-Working Providence of Zion's Saviour in New England, 1628."
I N 1604 before James Stuart had been a year on the throne of England, he called the Bishops and the Puritan Clergymen together at the Hampton Court con- ference for the ostensible purpose of discussing the millenary i petition, which, signed by some eight hundred clergymen, had been presented to him upon his accession. The Puritan demands in this petition were mild in temper and reasonable in remedy. They asked for no change in the government or organization of the church, but for a reform of its courts, the removal of superstitious usages from the Book of Common Prayer, the disuse of lessons from the apocryphal books of Scripture, a more rigorous observance of Sundays and the provision for training and teaching ministers. Whatever his real purpose in call- ing this gathering together, he had not in the least altered his opinions concerning the rights and prerogatives of the crown. Before his accession these had found expression
¡ So called because it was supposed to have been signed by a thousand of the English Clergy. It however, bore the signatures of only eight hundred or about one-tenth of the whole. Greenes English People.
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
in his "The True Law of Free Monarchy" wherein he promulgated the doctrine that "although a good King will frame his actions to be according to law, yet he is not bound thereto, but of his own will and for example-giving to his subjects." He held that in his actions as soverign his will was supreme, he himself unfettered of all control of law, and responsible to nothing save his caprice. Not without natural ability, a great reader upon theological matters, a man of shrewdness, and more than ordinary learning for his time, he was yet without personal dignity or political balance.
When he had gathered the conference about him the petition was not discussed. Rather, he regaled the conferees with a display of his own theological reading and his views upon witchcraft, predestination and the noxious- ness of tobacco. Preparing thus early in his reign for a battle with the Houses of Parliament rather than a policy of concession, this meeting with the petitioners afforded the opportunity for display of that intention. When one of the conferees suggested that however interesting his views upon these subjects were, they were not what they had come together to discuss, he lost his temper and retort- ed "A Scottish presbytery agreeth as well with a monarch as God with the Devil. Then Jack and Tom and Will and Dick shall meet, and at their pleasure censure me and my council and all our proceedings. Stay I pray you, for one seven years, and if then you find me pursy and fat and my windpipes stuffed, I will perhaps hearken to you. Until you find that I grow lazy let that alone. I will make them conform, or I will harry them out of the land." This stormy ending of what the Puritans had hoped would result in religious concessions, fully convinced them to the contrary. The expectation that the presentation of the petition would bring about radical changes in both church and government was not to be realized, and the conflict
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CAUSES OF EMIGRATING
was on. The benches of the Commons, save only for the lawyers, who were subservient,-were filled with members who were in sympathy with the Puritans. The Parliament had met, inspired by the same faith that filled the hearts of the ministers when they met James and his Bishops at the Hampton conference. "Our desires were of peace only, and our device of unity" it said. Its desire was to reform certain ecclesiastical abuses by the abandonment of "a few ceremonies of small importance" and by "the estab- lishment of an efficient training for a preaching clergy." But James had not so soon forgotten the insults and humilities that had been heaped upon him by the Presbyterians in Scotland. He saw no distinction between Puritanism and Scotch Presbyterianism.
The House of Commons addressed him in these words "Let your Majesty be pleased to receive public information from your Commons in Parliament, as well of the abuses in the Church as in the civil state and government. Your Majesty would be misinformed if any man should deliver that the Kings of England have any absolute power in themselves, either to alter religion or make laws concerning the same, otherwise than as in temporal causes by consent of Parliament."
James the 1st paid little heed to these representations of his Parliament. The rebuff given by him to the House of Commons was but one of the remote causes which made the exodus of the colonists from the realm, possible nearly two hundred years later.
This attitude toward both the Hampton conferees and the Commons gained recruits for the Separatists. The wise and cautious William Brewster, although firm in the faith, had hoped to bring about redress of the abuses through purely peaceful measures. He now saw that this was vain. He summoned a congregation to meet in his own home-Scrooby Manor. Here he was joined by that
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man "of great learning and sweetness of temper," John Robinson, whose influence over the Separatists was at all times beneficent and great.
Associated with Brewster and Robinson in this independ- ent congregation was William Bradford of Austerfield, then only seveenteen years of age, but later to be the revered and long continued Governor of the Colony of New Plymouth. In the brief years following its formation, it gathered to itself Separatists from Lincolnshire, Devonshire, Essex, Kent and other southeastern counties. 'Assiduously it was hunted out of its meeting places; its individual members were hounded by the officers of the law, and both were harassed upon all pretences and occasions. It grew never- theless and soon numbered over three hundred. An unsuccessful attempt to escape from these persecutions was made in the later part of 1607. Failing this, the Separa- tists fled to Amsterdam and thence to Leyden in 1609. Here they remained for eleven years, their numbers being constantly augmented until they had increased to a thousand.
In Leyden they found a broad tolerance of all tongues and creeds so long as the latter embraced Christianity and the former gave utterance to the belief in Christ. This very mixture of tongues and races was, however, a constant source of disturbance and unrest to them. Their children were growing up among alien people, and might learn the language and adopt the ways of the foreigners.
"They had come to Leyden as an organized com- munity, and absorption into a foreign nation was something to be dreaded. They wished to preserve their English speech and traditions, to keep up their organization, and find some favored spot where they might lay the corner-stone of a great Christian state. The spirit of nationality and self government was strong within them. The only thing which could
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CAUSES OF EMIGRATING
satisfy these feelings was such a migration as had not been seen since ancient times." *
Where then should they turn? The New World discov- ered by Columbus only one hundred and thirty-eight years before was already populated in part by English speaking people. The colonization of the Atlantic coast of North America was encouraged by the government. In the reign of Elizabeth, the virgin queen, the valorous Raleigh had explored Pamlico Sound and given her name to the territory which he seized,-Virginia. Johnstown had been founded and its success assured. John Smith had discovered the Potomac and the Susquehanna, and some of his band were tilling the soil at New Sweden. Bartholomew Gosnold had already sailed into Vineyard Sound and Buzzards Bay. He had taken possession of the headland, which he named Cape Cod, and of Martha's Vineyard. Likewise he seized the group composed of Naushon, Cuttyhunk and Nash- awena. They were re-christened the Elizabeth Islands. In 1605 George Weymouth had sailed up the Kennebec River, to be followed two years later by George Popham, who founded there an ill-started and short-lived colony.
In these widely separated settlements the speech, laws and institutions were all English. Although far from home, all the traditions were those of England. The policy of the government was toward the settlement and colonization of these shores by British subjects. It did not seek to interfere, nor did it actually intrude upon the observance of such forms of religious worships as the colonists them- selves should adopt. It demanded simply fealty to the Crown.
Robinson resolved that his congregation should quit Holland and set up an autonomy in the new world. He wrote :-
"We are well weaned from the delicate milk of the
1 John Fiske's "The Beginnings of New England," pp 74 and 75.
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
mother country, and inured to the difficulties of a strange land; the people are industrious and frugal. We are knit together as a body in a most sacred cov- enant of the Lord, of the violation whereof we make great conscience and by virtue whereof we hold ourselves strictly tied to all care of each others good and of the whole. It is not with us as with men whom small things can discourage."
The decision to emigrate having been reached, it remain- ed to devise means and method. At the time Thomas Weston, one of the Merchant Adventurers of London, had sent out one or more companies which had exploited the shores of Newfoundland and New England. He was an adventurous, self-willed, domineering person, of generous wealth for the time, and bent on further accumulations by achievements in the new territory. It was said of him by one of his associates that he was "a man that thought himselfe above the generall, and not expressing so much the fear of God as was meete." With his associates he had obtained a patent from King James in very general and comprehensive language, which professed to cover all the Atlantic coast of America from the grant to the Virginia company on the south, to and including Newfoundland. Little was accurately known of the real extent of the grant, or in truth, of the territory out of which it was made. It did, however, extend fifty miles inland.
In 1619 Weston was the treasurer of and the dominating mind among the Merchant Adventurers. To him Robinson applied to fit out ships, stores, and necessaries for founding a settlement, and homes for himself and his fellow Brown- ists. Weston had nothing in common with them. Their purpose was to found a new state of which freedom of religious thought and worship should be the corner stone :- his was to colonize plantations to the end that wealth and his own personal aggrandizement, should follow.
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Yet he was not adverse to Robinson's proposal. Robert Cushman, the agent of Robinson, was sent to London to make terms with him. The negotiations were in progress for months and finally culminated in the chartering of the Mayflower and Speedwell.
Although the exiles in Leyden had been industrious dur- ing their residence there, but little could be, and actually was contributed by them to the finances of the expedition. Weston had driven a hard bargain. His associates in the Merchant Adventurers had, during the period of negotia- tions, abandoned him in his support of the project, and the expense, some £7000, was largely borne by him. In return he expected from the Pilgrims not only the results of their own toil but the wealth of the new territory which they were to colonize. The failure to achieve the latter and to satisfy the large demands of their financial sponsor caused sore trials to the leaders in the years which were to follow.
No trouble was anticipated, however, on the score of land tenure when the other side of the Atlantic should be reached. It was the intention to settle upon the grant of land in the country about the Delaware River which had been obtained from the Crown by the London Company. A charter had been sought but refused, and on the sixth of September 1620, Brewster, Bradford, Carver, Myles Standish, and their fellow voyagers, one hundred in all, sailed aboard the Mayflower, leaving a part of the pass- engers in the unseaworthy Speedwell at Plymouth.
The passage was a rough one; the reckoning was lost f
+ Some of the earlier historians claim that Capt. Jones of the Mayflower had at all times during the voyage complete and ac- curate knowledge of his position. They aver, with some show of truth, that the Dutch, already contemplating the colonization of the territory recently explored by Hudson about Chesapeake Bay, bribed Jones to take his passengers farther north. Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts (London Ed. 1768). Vol. II Page 452.
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and instead of reaching the Delaware Capes, the clearing weather of the morning of November ninth found them in the vicinity visited by Gosnold, fourteen years before,- the shores of Cape Cod. Here they cruised about for weeks, landing at Provincetown and signing, while in its har- bor, the compact in the Mayflower's cabin. Finally on the twenty-first day of December, Plymouth was chosen as the point for disembarkation and the site for the new settlement.
It is not the purpose of this chronicle to follow the perils, adventures, privations and heroic devotion to principle, which marked the three years following the establishment of the town of Plymouth.
Before the Pilgrims had become fairly established here, in the mother-country Sir Ferdinando Gorges with the Council for New England, had obtained another patent which covered that part of New England upon which the forefathers had settled; and the Merchant Adventurers in 1621, sought and received a patent from this company. It was taken in the name of one John Peirce, a member of and for the benefit of the whole company of Merchant Adven- turers.
"The indenture made the First Day of June 1621 and in the yeeres of the reigne of our souaigne Lord James by the grace of God King of England Scotland Fraunce and Ireland defender of the faith &c That is to say of England Fraunce and Ireland the Nynetenth and of Scotland the fowre and fiftieth. Betweene the President the Counsell of New England of the one ptie And John Peirce Citizen and Clothworker of London and his Associats of the other ptie WIT- NESSETH that whereas the said John Peirce and his Associats haue already transported and vndertaken to transporte at their cost and chardges themselves and dyvers psons into New England and there to erect and
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build a Towne and settle dyvers Inhabitants for the advansemt of the genall plantacon of that Country of New England NOW THE SAYDE President and Counsell in consideracon thereof and for the further- ance of the said plantacon and incoragement of the said Vndertakers haue agreed to graunt assigne allott and appoynt to the said John Peirce and his associats and euy of them his and their heires and assignes one hundred acres of ground for euy pson so to be transported besides dyvers other pryviledges Liberties and comodyties hereafter menconed. And to that intent they haue graunted allotted assigned and confirmed. And by theis pnts doe graunt allott as- signe and confirme vnto the said John Peirce and his 'Associats his and their heires & assignes and the heires & assignes of euy of them seully & respectyvelie one hundred seuall acres of grownd in New England for euy pson so transported or to be transported. (Yf the said John Peirce or his Associats contynue there three whole yeeres either at one or seuall tymes or dye in the meane season after he or they are shipped with intent there to inhabit the Same Land to be taken & chosen by them their deputies or assignes in any place of places wheresoeu not already inhabited by any English and where no English pson or psons are already placed or settled or haue by order of the said President and Councell made choyce of, nor within Tenne Myles of the same (unless it be on the opposite syde of some great or Navigable Ryver to the former pticuler plantacon, together with the one half of the Ryver of Ryvers, that is to say to the middest thereof as shall adjoyne to such lands as they shall make choyce of together with all such Liberties pryviledges pffitts & comodyties as the said Land and Ryvers which they shall make choyce of shall yeild together with free
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
libtie to fishe in and upon the Coast of New England and in all havens ports and creekes Therevnto belong- ing and that no pson or psons whatsoeu shall take any benefitt or libtie of or to any of the grownds or the one half of the Ryvers aforesaid (excepting the free vse of highways by land and Navigable Ryvers, but that the said vndertakers & planters their heires & assignes shall haue the sole right and vse of the said grownds and the one half of the said Ryvers with all their pffitts & apptennes. AND forasmuch as the said John Peirce and his associats intend and haue under- taken to build Churches, Schooles, Hospitalls, Town howses, Bridges and such like workes of Charytie As also for the maynteyning of Magistrats and other inferior Officers. In regard whereof and to the end that the said John Peirce and his Associats his & their heires & assignes may haue wherewithall to beare & support such like charges. THEREFORE the said President and Councell aforesaid do graunt unto the said Vndertakers their heires & assignes Fifteene hundred acres of Land moreover and aboue the afore- said proporcon of the one hundred acres for euy vndertaker & Planter to be ymployed vpon such publiq vses as the said Vndertakers & Planters shall thinck fitt. AND they do further graunt vnto the said John Peirce and his Associats their heirs and assigns, that for euy pson that they or any of them shall transport at their owne propr costs & charges into New England either vnto the Lands hereby graunted or adjoyninge to them within Seven Yeeres after the feast of St. John Baptist next coming Yf the said pson transported contynue there three whole yeeres either at one or seuall tymes or dye in the meane season after he shipped with intent there to inhabit that the said pson or psons that shall so at his or their owne charges transport any
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