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GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01823 0406
TOWN OF PEMBROKE 250th ANNIVERSARY 1712 to 1962
GENEALOGY 974.402 P36TO
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TOWN OF PEMBROKE 250th ANNIVERSARY 1712 to 1962
An illustrated historical account of the Town of Pembroke Incorporated in 1712 and Its West Parish, since 1820 a part of the Town of Hanson
Prepared and published by The 250th Anniversary Committee in commemoration of the incorporation of the town
Ride with me a little way Down Pembroke's stone-walled roads today, Here pond and pine in beauty stand, Historians of the proud old land.
Beatrice Odin Farmer, Editor Madelon Burbeck Baltzer, Associate Editor Burton L. Sherman, Photographic Editor Everett G. Reed, Cartographer
Photo credits to Pembroke Historical Society, Walter Elder, Mrs. Robert Coughlin, Mrs. Roy Andresen, Miss C. Sally Low. Cover, Old North River Bridge by Burton Sherman
FOREWORD
In this atomic age, when jet bombers leave smoky tails in the Pembroke skies, it is of the utmost importance that we, the living, think again about the history of our town; that we take time to honor its past, to enlighten its newcomers, and to pre- serve its relics for the generations yet to come.
Pembroke played an important part in the founding of the United States of America. We live and walk on hallowed ground. Men and women born in Pembroke have gone out into the world and won fame and fortune. Military men, shipbuilders, states- men, poets, songwriters, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs of industry, have sprung from its sturdy, Yankee stock. Pem- broke's roots are deep and they reach far back into our country's beginnings. Pilgrim and Puritan lived and died here. So did proud Indian sachems and their dusky people.
Pembroke is a town of great natural beauty. Its many ponds mirror the heavens, its great Cedar Swamp protects a forest primeval. And yet it is an unpretentious town, where each man can be himself with the respect of his neighbor.
The material in this booklet, gathered for the 250th Anniversary of the town, tries to present the essence of Pem- broke's background, the devotion of its people and the hope of its onward progress.
We are deeply grateful for the willing help given to us by the committee members from Hanson, and for the cooperation of all whose work appears herein.
The Editors
1
Old Garrison House
Pembroke's Beginnings By Beatrice Odin Farmer
Pembroke's history really begins in 1637, when it was a part of the Old Town of Duxbury which was granted its charter in that year. The Bay Path, so called because it was much used by circuit judges and the court officials on their way by horse- back from Boston to the Plymouth Court, was the dividing line. All east of the Path, which is now West Elm, Oldham, Centre, and High Streets belonged to Duxbury. All west of it, called the West Parish later, belonged to Hanson.
The eastern part of Pembroke was first settled by hardy white men as an Indian outpost in 1650. Penetration of the un- explored, primeval land was made possible by the North River and its tributaries, which came far inland. Wild turkeys, deer, rabbits, fish and Indian corn lured men over the rocky soil into the deep forests. Cautious trading with the Indians, who were of the friendly Massachusetts tribe, provided many needed provisions for the half-starved Duxbury families. In a short time the white men absorbed so much Indian lore that deerskin clothes, flint arrowheads and fields of maize, became integral parts of their own lives. Unfortunately for them, the Indians swapped land and tool for the wonders of the white man's rum and madeira, for his bright beads and his English clothes.
PEMBROKE'S BEGINNINGS Cont.
As early as 1630, Francis Barker and his brother, noted Plymouth Colony explorers, pushed up the North River and built themselves a house on its banks, which then extended almost to the present center of Pembroke. Called the Old Gar- rison House due to its fortification during the time of King Phillips' War, and occupied by descendants until 1883, it was known until its demolition some sixty years ago as one of the oldest houses in Massachusetts. The Barkers, in a typical trade of the times, paid the Indians a "quart of sack" or wine for their land, and the land in turn yielded all needed building materials.
Every early town was a religious unit, led by a parish minister. As the population increased and spread out, it became a hardship for so many families to walk or drive horse or oxen from the Bay Path areas through the wild woods to the parish church in Duxbury. In 1711 fifty-four families of northwest Duxbury peti- tioned the Massachusetts Legislature for their own Meeting House. Negotiations took almost a full year. Tradition has it that the Earl of Pembroke, Keeper of the King's Privy Seal, tired of the many pleas for separate townships, angrily scrawled "Pembroke" where the name Brookfield should have been. For their part the weary petitioners were by then glad to have their own town parish by any name, so Pembroke it became.
" ... the town named Pembroke; the inhabitants upon said lands to have, use, exercise and enjoy all immunities and privi- leges as other towns of this Province have and do by law enjoy; provided that they do within the space of two years next coming, procure and settle an orthodox learned minister of good conversation and set forth a good accommodation of lands for the use of the ministry, and grant their minister an annual maintenance ... "
On March 12, 1712, the town was incorporated with proud ceremonies. In 1754 more territory was given to Pembroke by the General Court on petition of the citizens of the West Parish, namely portions of Hanover, Abington, Bridgewater and Halifax, all contiguous to Pembroke. The towns themselves gave ready consent and were glad to be rid of these scattered segments of land.
As news of the events preceding the Boston Tea Party reached Pembroke by outrider and stagecoach mail, the townspeople gathered to express their indignation in no uncertain terms. The historian Bancroft says of our irate citizens who met in the Pembroke Center Meetinghouse:
PEMBROKE'S BEGINNINGS Cont.
"The first official utterance of revolution did not spring from a congress of the colonies, or the future chiefs of the republic; from the rich who falter, or the learned who weigh and debate. The people of the little interior town of Pembroke in Plymouth county, unpretending husbandmen, full of the glory of their descent from the pilgrims, concluded a clear statement of their grievances ... "
In 1820, after many parish meetings, the General Court in Boston finally agreed with the majority of the Pembroke pa- rishioners that the West Parish was large enough to become a township on its own, and the petition was granted on Febru- ary 22. The West Parish of Pembroke then became the present town of Hanson. The borders of Pembroke remain the same to this day.
Now the agitation began for the separation of church and state. The restless Puritans and Pilgrims were breaking up into sects. The parish ministers had far too many demands upon their time and energies. We learn from our own historian, Litchfield, that "in 1819 the Parish Committee was instructed to admonish the Selectmen that the Town's stock of powder must be removed from the Meeting House." In the spring of 1834 the division of church and state in Pembroke was com- pleted. Henceforth the Town Meetings were shifted to a large town gathering place and conducted by a Moderator under the guidance of the Selectmen.
Pembroke counts many famous men among its early great. Its householders were hard-working and hardy and their indus- trious habits brought comforts and fine homes to the town. The ministers of its churches were strong of character and God- fearing. Men like Reverend Gad Hitchcock, who delivered a fiery election sermon in the presence of Governor Gage, wrote Pem- broke's name into the history of the nation. Many were scholars, philosophers and orators. But we have a special salute for one quiet, rather retiring man, Reverend William Bicknell. It was he who despaired of the bare and neglected Common. In 1860, or thereabouts, it was he who planted with his own hand the magnificent pine trees that stand there today, the past beautify- ing the present and extending a welcome to the future.
PEMBROKE CHURCHES Helen S. Melanson and the Editors
The need to worship and commune with God, the driving force that had caused them to leave their homes and seek new lands, was felt very keenly by the first settlers in Pembroke. Since the road to Duxbury, back through the woods to the mother church, was long and arduous, they began to worship out under the open sky in a place known as Sabba Day Or- chard, situated on the left about half-way down Mountain Avenue from Center Street, where as Litchfield says, "Fifty paces brings you to the location." Here under Joseph Rogers' apple trees, and later in a "rude hut" erected to shelter them from the storms, they listened to their minister, Thomas Parris. As their numbers grew, however, the building was moved, some time between 1708 and 1712, to Pembroke Green, to become a meeting-house for the inhabitants of Upper Duxbury.
Pembroke First Parish Church
PEMBROKE CHURCHES Cont.
Meanwhile, according to the records, many early owners of land in Pembroke had Quaker leanings, including Joseph Rogers, upon whose land the Sabba Day Orchard worshippers met, and his brother Thomas, whose names appear on the first rolls. The Quaker Meeting House was built in Scituate in 1706, and the remarkable feat of moving it to its present location at the corner of Washington and Schoosett Streets was accom- plished, according to tradition, either by oxen over the ice or by gundalow, a large flat-bottomed river boat. For over two hun- dred years, therefore, on the First and Fifth days, Quakers from Marshfield, Hingham, Hanover, and Scituate held quiet services of worship, burial, and marriage. Gradually, however, the As- sembly of Quakers became fewer. It was not until 1927, after a period of decline in attendance and disuse of the Meeting House, that Gilbert H. West started a campaign of restoration, and the Pembroke Friends Meeting House Association was formed, sponsored by Friends Meetings in various localities. Meetings are now held regularly during the summer months.
Pembroke became a town in 1712, and on October 22, 1712, the formal organization of the First Church took place. The new parish controlled Pembroke and the areas of Hanson then part of our town. Under the stern guidance of Reverend Daniel Lewis of Hingham, whose wife was Elizabeth Hawke, aunt of the pa- triot Governor John Hancock, the prosperous parish enlarged the church in 1717, adding pews and space for the Indians. Isaac Thomas, for the sum of 600 pounds, erected a new Meeting House, which was "raised in the old manner 21-22 June 1727." Records show that the old structure, amazingly, was sold and the frame moved to the land of Henry Bosworth in Pembroke Center. This new church had high, square pews, no stoves, and a "mercy seat" at the back, where "aloft in awful state" the min- ister lectured long and harshly. Pews were auctioned off for ten to twenty-five pounds each, and the names of the owners give a fine clue to the leading citizens of those times. The year 1763 saw the Meeting House enlarged again.
We come now to the events leading up to the Revolutionary war, and the words of Litchfield cannot be improved upon:
"The minister of Pembroke (Mr. Smith) was a staunch patriot and upheld steadfastly the rights of the colonies; but when the Revolution broke out, he had already reached the allotted three score and ten, and enthusiasm for the great enterprise was supplied by Doctor Hitchcock, minister of the West Parish. Between the years 1765 and 1775, there took place in Pembroke a series of famous town meetings held, as were most others until 1786, in the East Meeting House. From that year on it is re- corded that every third meeting was held within the limits of the West Precinct.
"In the autumn of 1765, the town was startled by news of the famous Stamp Act, and on Monday 21 October 1765 a meeting was called to take action. This came to no decision, but left the matter in the hands of a Committee and adjourned until evening. Just after nightfall the citizens came together in the old Meeting
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High St. Methodist Church
House, dimly lighted by the unsteady flames of a few candles, and listened to the report of the committee. Excitement was tense, and feeling that a crisis was at hand the town adopted their resolution 'by a great majority of votes,' instructing their Representative to use his utmost endeavor 'to postpone the In- troduction of said act until the united cries of the Whole Continent may have reached the ears of our most gracious King and the Parliament of Grate Brittain and shall obtain from them who wish neither the death nor loss of their colonies, an answer of Peace.'
"Years passed; the Stamp Act was repealed, but a series of oppressive measures followed in its train, until at last public opinion would endure no more. In December of 1772, three years before the war broke out and four years before inde- pendence was resolved upon, a great meeting of all the towns-
Bryantville Methodist Church
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Quaker Meeting House
PEMBROKE CHURCHES Cont.
people was held in the Meeting House and a resolution adopted whose every clause bears witness to the keen foresight and un- yielding patriotism of its authors. After an array of British acts of oppression and the rights thereby infringed, and a strong statement of the relations which ought to subsist between Great Britain and her colonies, the Resolution closes as follows, more in sorrow than in anger: 'Resolved that if the measures so justly complained of by this province are persisted in and enforced by fleets and Armies they must-we think of it with pain-they will in a little time issue in the Totall Dissolution of the union between mother country and the Colonies to the infinight loss of the Former and regret of the latter'."
"These words are reputed to be the first public manifesto contem- plating independence issued by an American assembly."*
Records of early town meetings show that the Meeting House was once headquarters for the transaction of all business in the Parish. As late as 1818 the Town Collector assessed a Parish Tax. In 1834 the church ceased to receive support from public taxation and henceforth had to rely on voluntary contributions. Years of public debate preceded the passing of this measure.
In 1837 the condemned Meeting House was sold at auction to one Christopher Oakman of Marshfield for the sum of $155-, and a new building was erected upon the site of the old, its present location. Under the spirited direction of the popular pastor, the Reverend Morrill Allen, money was raised in various ways, mostly from assessing the various "squires" of the town, to pro- vide the necessary accoutrements for the interior, which is architecturally the same today. Partial ruin came with the storm of April 8, 1893. When repairs were made, the high pulpit was lowered, the gallery walled up, and the organ loft placed in the northwest corner.
From the records of the late Florence Whitcomb, who was parish clerk for almost half a century, we learn that the church was closed for several years prior to World War II. Through the efforts of the Collamore family, Reverend Arthur Coar was called from retirement and the church reopened. In 1942 a group of church women founded the Restoration Committee, earning money for redecorating and central heating. In 1961, having been served by more than twenty ministers during its history, and now a Community Church, its members, under the guidance
PEMBROKE CHURCHES Cont.
of Reverend Quentin Leisher, voted to construct a parish house, from plans by the Hanover architect, John Beal. This building contains two memorials: the chapel to the memory of William A. Key, long a trustee and beloved town clerk; the auditorium to the memory of John R. Farmer, many years treasurer and par- ish committee member and devoted and respected holder of several town offices. Dedication services will take place during the 250th Anniversary celebration.
The Bryantville Methodist Church's first records are found in the Methodist Episcopal Society books of 1826. Reverend Wil- liam Stone was its first pastor. Whittemore Peterson built the frame structure for $925, "with 12 posts, to be finished after the style of the Meeting House in Marshfield, with ye pews to the number of 44." The Church was dedicated in 1828. When the tower was added in 1872, Greenleaf Kilbrith and John Foster gave the bell, inscribed with their names.
In 1913 contributions for extensive repairs came from many well-known persons, including ex-Governor John L. Bates of Boston, whose grandfather was twice pastor of this church, and whose father, Reverend Lewis B. Bates, preached his first ser- mon here. A much needed addition for the Sunday School was added later, and an extensive three-year building program was set up in 1958.
The High Street Methodist Church is situated just over the town line in Duxbury, but it has many Pembroke members. The present church was built in 1867, an outgrowth of the Methodist Society first organized in Ashdod, Duxbury, in 1829. During the ensuing years business and industry shifted to High Street, and the religious center followed. Some members op- posed, withdrew, and erected a small church of their own on the old Ashdod location.
Since 1913 the High Street Church has been affiliated with the Bryantville Church and has shared the same minister. A service of rededication was held on the seventy-fifth anni- versary, November 5, 1961, when the chancel and nave were redecorated, the altar changed and two new rooms added, all given by Mrs. Hugh Duffil in memory of her husband.
Reverend Gilbert H. Caldwell has served both the Bryantville and High Street Methodist Churches since June, 1958.
Pembroke First Parish Church, Pembroke Center, with new addition
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Indian Woman, Abigail Hyatt Ash descendant of Queen Patience
INDIANS OF PEMBROKE Russell Herbert Gardner
(Editor's note: The author is a direct descendant of the early Indians of Pembroke. He has spent many years assembling true facts and figures about Indian lineage and legends. His story begins after the Massachusetts tribe, reduced from about three thousand to three hundred by a plague, left Mount Wollaston and came to reside around the fish-filled ponds of Pembroke.)
Many fanciful legends have sprung up through the years concerning the Indians of Old Pembroke centered around the town's many ponds and lakes. Unfortunately these legends con- tain little true history of the Indians, and much that is myth has become accepted as fact. The real story is now being assembled in detailed authenticity and is as fascinating as any legend or romanticized idea of Indian life presented in former volumes of this nature.
The Indians called this region Mattakeesett, or Old Planting Ground, for the maize fields between Furnace and Oldham Ponds. Dancing Hill by the alewife weir saw many harvest dances, as is testified by the fire pits and the broken pottery and implements which have been unearthed.
In 1662 Josiah Wampatuck, Indian Sachem, son of Chicka- taubut of Neponset, reserved 900 acres for himself and his heirs
INDIANS OF PEMBROKE Cont.
and 100 acres for George Wampy, his chief man. This was the famous thousand acres, roughly enclosing the ponds of Old- ham, Furnace, Great Sandy, Indian Head, and Maquan. The lat- ter two are now in Hanson. The Tunk, the old Indian crossway between Mattakeesett and Satucket, winds its way across the Great Cedar Swamp and on to Titticut.
Chickataubut was given a suit of English clothes by Governor Winthrop. He died about 1631 of smallpox and his son Wampa- tuck succeeded him. For giving his mother a Christian burial, Wampatuck rewarded one John Levitt of Hingham by a gift to his son Josiah of ten acres at Turkey Hill, later called Levitt Hill, which lies north of Silver Lake between Tubbs Meadow and Reed Hollow. Sachems of Satucket visited his wigwam at Joshua's Point on Furnace Pond, shortly before his trip to the Mohawk country, where he was killed by Mohawks. His grave may be seen today at the fort in Fonda, New York.
Indian Woman, Abigail Chummocks Hyatt
INDIANS OF PEMBROKE Cont.
Bryant's map of the Thousand Acres Shows the dwelling of Abigail and her husband, Jeremiah Momentaug of Punkapog, and that of their daughter, Queen Patience, the Sunny Eye of the legends. She married several times: first, Tobias Coombs; second, Joseph Thomas, alias Peter, of Middleboro; and third, one Quason of Cape Cod. Their only daughter, Abigail Quason, married first a Brand and had a son Caleb, and second, Richard Osgood, servant of Thomas Josselyn. John Turner, for thirty years guardian of the last remnants of Wampatuck's family, and others built a cabin for the royal family on the south side of the road opposite Ward Hill and leased all but twenty acres of his land to the Josselyns. Repairs to the cabin later reduced this to seven acres. However, fishing rights were secured to the Queen and her heirs forever and a pew was reserved for the Indians in the Meetinghouse on Pembroke Green.
Map of Indians' Thousand Acres
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RIVER
AD
APPROXIMATE BOUNDARIES OF THE
INDIANHI
N
THOUSAND ACRES
1. MOMONTALIG'S WIGWAM
2 HART HILL ..
3. QUEEN PATIENCE
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4 HANNAH & TITE
5. INDIAN HOUSE ( 1757)
6. JEFFERY'S POINT
7 JOSHUA TURNER
( JOSH'S POINT)
8. JOHN QUICKSET
9 JOHN THOMAS
10.13 WIGWAMS
HEAD
NDIAN
Monument
X 12
POND
2-
X13
5
MAQUAN
x
POND
FURNACE
POND
GREAT
SANDY
BOTTOM!
INDIAN
8 POND
WHEAD
POND
10
LITTLE SANDY
ROCKY
BROOK
OLDHAM
NO BOTTOM POND
7
INDIANS OF PEMBROKE Cont.
The retiring guardian Turner said that the Indians were very troublesome and that he would not do it again for double the recompense. Isaac Barker and Daniel Lewis assisted Turner and Dr. Wadsworth attended the Indians' ills.
Queen Patience and her daughter both died in 1788. The last of their land was sold by 1790. The tribes were all but gone.
The 1830 map of Pembroke shows the cabin of Suky (Osgood) Hyatt, near Pembroke Center on the Josselyn place. She was the daughter of Richard and Abigail (Quason) Osgood and married Richard Hyatt. She died "Suky Joslyn" in 1835, leaving the children Jane and Joseph Williams. Joseph married Abigail Chummucks, a Mashpee, and built a cabin near Hobomock Pond where they raised five children. In the State census of 1861 these children were listed by John Milton Earle, who called the Indians "capable, intelligent, and moral."
Henry Clay Hyatt married Sophia Peterson. Henry and their daughter, Abigail Sophia, participated in Pembroke's 200th anniversary parade. The latter now resides in Hanson with the writer and his family, who are lineal descendants of "Robin of Mattakeesett" and his wife Aquanetta, whose ancestor was called the "courteous sachem" by the Pilgrim fathers.
For the most part the history of the Indians of Pembroke shows that they were friendly and helpful to the first settlers. Disease of the white man decimated their numbers rapidly, how- ever, and though their history mingles at all times with the early records of the town, fate has decreed their disappearance. So it is that our own research becomes very valuable indeed.
Old Indian Home, with Henry Clay Hyatt
Center Street showing First Parish Church and Town Hall
POINTS OF INTEREST Kenneth B. Ludlow
THE POUND
A unique Pembroke landmark, because there are probably not more than six now existing in all New England, is our Old Stone Pound near the Town Hall. Formerly of wood, it was moved from the Common in 1820. A relic of by-gone customs, it served originally for the "detention of strays and other disturbers of the bovine peace." Its placque reads, "The ox knoweth his owner. In Memoriam. The wooden pound cost the town 40s for the 20x20 structure. The second pound, near the former site, cost $55. in 1824. Repaired by the town in 1909."
THE HERRING RUN
There are many references to the Herring Brook in the town records. An important early industry, the taking of herring caused many a debate, and a student of Pembroke history would find much to chuckle about in the old rules and regulations concerning our famous alewives. According to Litchfield, one of the first town meetings "voated yt iff any person shall from the 10th day of Apeirll to ye 20th day of may, either build or sett up or continnew any dam or stopage in ye heren brook att pembrook so yt ye fish may not conveneintly pas to there pond yt . .. It shall be alowable for any person whome the town shall appoint to pull down or Remove ye same." Today a small park has been created around the brook at the weir on Barker Street, and each spring tourists come from far and wide to see the thousands of herring returning to the ponds where they were spawned.
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