USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Weston > Weston, a Puritan town > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17
Gc 974.402 W5391r 1775071
M. L.
REYNOL I L. TORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01067 0922
Weston A Puritan Town
Weston
A Puritan Town
By EMMA F. RIPLEY
Illustrations by MARGARET F. KRONENBERG
THE BENEVOLENT-ALLIANCE
OF THE FIRST PARISH . WESTON . MASSACHUSETTS 196I
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher.
The Riverside Press Cambridge, Massachusetts Printed in the U.S.A.
Acknowledgement 1775071
I acknowledge with thanks the help of my friends: Rebecca McKenna Elizabeth Cutting Kenney Henry W. Patterson
Emma F. Ripley
273377-86-61-11-9881.00-00.01$
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019
https://archive.org/details/westonpuritantow00ripl
Foreword
At a meeting of the Benevolent-Alliance of the First Parish in Weston in 1959, the members were comparing the worth of several ventures for the coming year when Mrs. John L. Kronenberg suggested the unanimously-acclaimed choice-a new book on the history of Weston.
Little of a permanent nature had been written on the subject since the appearance of Col. Daniel S. Lamson's volume, written in 1890 and published in 1913. The Town needed an up-to-date account of its origin, growth and development. Such a book would be a welcome and valuable contribution to the record.
Miss Emma F. Ripley, our distinguished Town Historian, agreed to write it, and she has produced an exceptional work.
The early history of the Town was, of course, the history of the First Parish, which originally owned all the public lands and buildings and which, through the Parish Elders, regulated the com- munity affairs. Miss Ripley has not only traced the story of the First Parish, and of the other churches which came into being in later years, but she has also, very ingeniously, added immeasurably to the rich lore of Weston through descriptions and histories of many of our old houses. Mrs. Kronenberg's sketches are a delight- ful complement to Miss Ripley's absorbing narrative.
This is a truly outstanding accomplishment, and all Weston people must be eternally grateful that the story of our Town, from the Colonial days to the present, has at last been preserved for posterity between the covers of a carefully documented and most interesting book.
HENRY W. PATTERSON
Contents
PART I Parish and Town
I. Parish and Town 3
2. Meeting House Common II
3. Ye Olde Boston Post Road 2 I
4. Early Deacons of the First Parish 36
5. Mr. Joseph Mors, 1703-1706 39
6. Reverend William Williams, Jr., 1709-1750 41
7. Reverend Samuel Woodward, 1751-1782 44
8. Reverend Samuel Kendal, D.D., 1783-1814 50
9. Reverend Joseph Field, Jr., D.D., 1815-1865 55
10. Reverend Edmund H. Sears, S.T.D., 1866-1876 59
63
II. The Evangelical Missionary Society, 1807-1812 The Female Cent Society, 1814-1835
12. The First Parish Ladies' Benevolent Society, 67
1841-1951
13. Building the Stone Church, 1887-1888 72
14. Three Parishes 76
15. The Baptist Society, 1789 79
16. The Methodist Society, 1794 84
17. Reverend Francis B. Hornbrooke, S.T.D., 1876-1879 89
18. Reverend Hobart Clark, 1880-1882 91
19. Reverend Charles F. Russell, 1882-1916 93
20. Reverend Palfrey Perkins, D.D., 1916-1926 99
21. Reverend Miles Hanson, Jr., D.D., 1927- 103
22. The Congregational Society (1891-1901), 1960 107
23. St. Peter's Parish, 1898 IIO
24. The Church of St. Julia, 1921 114
25. The Christian Science Society, 1950 116
26. The Weston Town Library, 1857 II7
27. The Two Hundredth Anniversary, 1913 I33
Contents
PART II Historic Houses
I. The House at Stony Brook 143
2. Two Historic Mansions 147
3. The Amos Hobbs House 15I
4. The John Derby Homestead I55
160
6. Return to the Boston Post Road
164
7. Josiah Smith Tavern
171
8. The Wedding Gift and the Little Shop 175
9. The Abraham Hews House 179
IO. The Artemas Ward House 180
II. The Northwest Neighborhood
184
12. The Elm and the Law Office 193
199
14. The Bigelow Mansion
204
15. The House on Beacon Hill
208
16. A Distinguished Landmark
214
17. The Harrington Homestead
2 19
18. Along the Indian Path
222
19. The Benaiah Morse Tradition
226
20. The House on Doublet Hill
228
21. The 1740 Mansion
230
22. The Coburn Landmark
237
24. Mid-Eighteenth Century
245
25. The John Warren Homestead
248
26. The Whitney Tavern
253
27. The Hastings Tradition
256
28. The Mystery Mansion
258
29. The Patriotic House
260
30. The Garfield Name
264
31. The 1753 Landmark
268
23. Hobbs Corner
240
5. Along the Forgotten Post Road
13. The Tavern of the Golden Ball
Illustrations
Josiah Smith's epitaph
14
Flagg Tavern, destroyed by fire, 1902
20
Old Powder House
29 45
Nathan Fisk's epitaph
John Derby House
I54
Gambrill House
159
Josiah Smith Tavern
170
Elm and Law Office
192
Tavern of the Golden Ball
198
Bigelow Wing
203
Distinguished Landmark
213
Harrington Homestead
218
The 1740 Mansion
231
Coburn Landmark
236
Hobbs Corner
241
Whitney Tavern
252
Weston A Puritan Town
Parish and Town
The history of this ancient town of Weston begins in England in March, 1628, when the Plymouth Company sold to a number of Proprietors, under the title of the Massachusetts Bay Company, "The Territory extending from a line three miles north of Merrimac River, to one three miles south of Charles River, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean." In June, 1628, a small ship-load of colonists began the settlement of Salem, with Captain John Endicott as their governor. In 1629 a rather feeble colony settled at Charlestown, but this was later identified with Boston, and the Church organized there became, and is known as, the First Church in Boston.
"There being no relaxing in the severity practiced in England upon non-conformists, the number of emigrants to New England increased greatly in 1630." Sailing in the months of February, March, and April, seventeen emigrant ships with about fifteen hundred passengers left the mother country for the Province of Massachusetts Bay. In the ship Arbella, which sailed with three others from the Isle of Wight on April 8, 1630, with their families were Governor John Winthrop, Sir Richard Saltonstall, the Rev. George Phillips, the Rev. John Wilson, together with fifteen early Watertown families.
The four ships, landing at Salem during the month of June, and the passengers finding the colony not quite to their liking for a permanent settlement, re-embarked and proceeded to Charlestown harbor. There, a large number of the colonists, with Sir Richard Saltonstall as their leader, and the Rev. George Phillips as their minister, went about four miles up Charles River and planted their colony. At first called Sir Richard Saltonstall's Plantation, in Sep-
4
Weston: A Puritan Town
tember, 1630, the General Court ordered that "the towne upon Charles River shall be called Watertowne."
On July thirtieth, 1630, "About forty men, whereof the first was that excellent knight Sir Richard Saltonstall, then subscribed to a covenant." From that time Watertown was a distinct church with the Rev. George Phillips the first minister; it is considered, also, the first purely Congregational Church in the Bay Colony, with no definite line between church and town affairs. Deacons of the church collected the tithes that were used not only for the support of the Gospel, but for the highways, for the schools, for the con- stables to keep order, and for the support of the poor.
To Watertown is credited the origin of the New England form of Town government with Selectmen chosen by the freemen or voters. To be a voter, one must be a church member, but it was not necessary to be a freeman in order to hold office, even that of selectman,-this was done by "taking the oath of fidelity." In con- trast, Salem under Governor Endicott, and Boston under Governor Winthrop, "had as solid a union of church and state while it lasted, as ever existed in the country." Watertown, with its more liberal views, had no persecutions, no banishments, no hangings for opinion's sake. To quote: "The Rev. George Phillips, Sir Richard Saltonstall, and Elder Richard Browne were in their spirit, men of today."
In his Century Sermon, preached January twelfth, 1813, Dr. Samuel Kendal says: "The exact period when what is now called Weston began to be settled is not known, but it must have been pretty early; in ecclesiastical affairs the town was connected with Watertown about sixty-eight and in civil concerns about eighty- three years. The tradition is that the inhabitants of this remote westerly part, went to worship at the most easterly part of Water- town, at a house not far from the old burrying-place. In this they manifested a zeal for the house and worship of God, not often found among their descendants."
From Watertown Square, as it is today, turn left and drive over Mt. Auburn Street, to the cross-roads at Arlington Street, and on the southeast corner you will see an old, old burying-ground
5
Parish and Town
with a knoll at one side where stood the first meetinghouse of your ancestors. It is near the Cambridge line.
Unlike the Pilgrims in 1620, the Watertown settlers, many from farms in England, came well supplied with worldly goods, includ- ing live-stock, and as the village homestalls had too little land for their needs the farmers turned as early as 1634 to the uplands and meadows at the west. Again to quote Dr. Kendal: "A number of brooks and rivulets rise in the town and are fed by springs. There are no stagnant ponds, but several tracts of meadows that abound in excellent peat."
Three of these meadows were used both for farm lands and for grazing. Long Meadow has Stony Brook meandering down the full length of the valley, through which runs the old Lancaster Road, sometimes called the North County Road, now North Avenue. Stony Brook, the largest tributary of Charles River in ancient Watertown, rises in Beaver Pond in Lincoln and has two tributaries: on the east side, through Stowers Meadow, named from John Stowers who owned the land in 1638, flows Stowers Brook, which also rises in Lincoln and has been known as Hobbs Brook since 1750, when Ebenezer Hobbs built his famous tannery on the Lancaster Road where it crosses the Brook; second, on the west side between Conant Road and Viles Street, Stony Brook receives the waters of Cherry Brook, a stream rising in Cherry Meadow, mentioned in the records as early as 1641. Cherry Meadow lies northwest of old Sudbury Road, now the Boston Post Road, and through it ran the ancient Jericho Road, which turned right from the Post Road not far from the present Raynor residence, and joined Concord Road a little west of the Bartlett house. The whole area, including Jericho Swamp, was useful to the early settlers because of the cranberry bogs and the peat meadows. Roads branching from Jericho Road lead to Ripley Lane and to Sudbury Road in Weston, and to Draper Road in Wayland. Tradition tells of the village of Jericho, that lay in the shelter of Groats Head, a high ledge at the north, and more nearly in Wayland than in Weston. The ancient village, of which remain only cellar holes, crumbling stone walls, and old causeways with
6
Weston: A Puritan Town
ruined bridges, has recently been brought to life in a delightful Musical Comedy by Brenton Dickson, III.
The Weston Town Forest now includes two hundred acres in the Jericho area,-a bridge has been restored, and work on trails is going forward. The old Road is historic and romantic, also, from its connection with the Revolutionary spy in 1775; perhaps from this incident, perhaps from the vanishing of little Jericho Village, grew the legend that the Road was haunted; no one would venture over it after dark, and following the War, about 1785, Jericho Road was closed as a Town way.
Although farmers must have settled in this west precinct from 1630 on, the first recorded allotments of land with the term, the Farm Lands, was on October 14, 1638, "the proportion of meadow being twenty acres to one hundred and fifty acres of upland."
There was never an Indian settlement near enough to be a hazard to the farmers, as in Sudbury, where there was need for two block houses for protection of the settlers. As a "frontier town" or outpost, Sudbury bore the brunt of several destructive and murderous Indian attacks. However, the farmers, as early as 1643, organized Train-bands, (Trained-bands), intended for any public service at home or away. From these Train-bands, one-third of the number were set apart called "Alarm Men", to be ready at any moment to meet an Indian invasion or other emergency. The only tradition of trouble with Indians is in 1676, in King Philip's War to exterminate the Massachusetts Bay Colonies. Dur- ing an attack upon Sudbury, some invaders burned a barn on the Smith farm on Sudbury Road in Weston, near the Wayland line.
As a home guard, Alarm Men never went on expeditions that called away the Train-band, even to Canada during the French and Indian Wars from 1735 to 1760. The Alarm Men carried their guns to the fields where they worked; on Sunday, stacked them in the meetinghouse. After the service the men formed in front of the meetinghouse to be inspected by the Captain of the Train-band, or in his absence by one of the Deacons. This "Alarm list" con- tinued after all danger from Indian trouble was over and grew into the Minute Men of the Revolutionary era.
As early as 1650, the distance that the farmers traveled to service
7
Parish and Town
in the church that stood at the extreme eastern border of Water- town near the Cambridge line, is referred to by an early writer: "This great precinct of 160 families is a fruitful plat of large extent, watered with many pleasant springs and small rivulets, runing like veins throughout her body, which hath caused her inhabitants to scatter in such manner that their Sabbath assemblies prove very thin, if the season favor not."
The earliest mention in the records of a boundary between the Farms and the rest of Watertown, is on March 13, 1683, when it was voted at town meeting that, "those who dwell on the west side of Stony Brook be freed from school taxes that they may be the better able to teach among themselves." There is a record on November 5, 1685, of a petition from the Farmers to be exempted from taxation for the support of a ministry which they could not attend because of their remoteness,-"But that contentious spirit is not evinced, which afterwards prevailed."
At a town meeting December 27, 1692, a committee was ap- pointed to consider the location of a new meetinghouse in Water- town "most convenient to the bulk of the inhabitants." This com- mittee of three met so many obstacles, and so much time elapsed that finally they appealed to the Governor's Council for a decision; so the choice of a site for the new building was made by a com- mittee of the Council, with an added proviso that the meetinghouse be erected "within the space of four years." This action was an- nounced at a town meeting called for May 9, 1694, but the "con- tentious spirit" had been aroused. An earnest protest was presented against the decision of the Council, "Because the town nor any part of it, never desired any gentlemen to say where we should build a meeting-house, nor when; and we do absolutely deny ever to pay one penny to erect a place of meeting on the site chosen; but if the town shall see cause to erect a place of meeting in the westward part of our town, where the Farmers with such others as will be pleased to join with them shall think convenient, we shall be willing to be helpful therein." This protest was signed by eighty- two men and women residing in Watertown, and by thirty-three men and women residing in Watertown Farms.
However, the previous town meeting, March 15, 1694, had
8
Weston: A Puritan Town
elected selectmen who favored the advice of the Council; they ordered a levy of 320 pounds for building the new house, but the opposition was, "very fierce and acrimonious." Judge Sewall, who presided at the conference, wrote in his famous Diary; "So great was the contention, that I had to pray hard to keep the contending parties from coming to blows."
At a lively meeting on October 2, 1694, a petition was presented, signed by one hundred eighteen farmers, asking to be set off into a separate precinct, alleging the great distance from the Church, and protesting against being obliged to go so far from home. Feeling ran so high, that, "The Moderator, Daniel Warren, Sr., did, by advice, adjourn the meeting to prevent such inconvenience as might justly be feared by reason of the heat of spirit that seemed to prevail."
After great delay, "sometime in August, 1695," money was contributed by the Farmers to carry the petition to the General Court, and, "the prayer was granted at the May session, 1698." The actual Court Order is dated from the State House Record, June 24, 1698; it granted the Farmers' Precinct permission, "to build a church, to settle a minister, and to appoint officers to trans- act and manage their affairs."
Meanwhile, on January 9, 1695, the men of the Precinct met and "agreed to build a meeting-house thirty-feet square and to place it on land of Nathaniel Coolidge, Sr., by the side of the road at the head of Parkhurst's meadow." The deed is framed in the Minister's study in the First Parish Church; the land was a green knoll gently sloping on three sides; the road was the Great County Road, or Sudbury Road, now the Boston Post Road; through Parkhurst's Meadow flowed the Canal, sometimes called Three Mile Brook that has almost disappeared under the present By-pass, while the small church was the Farmers' meetinghouse, according to Dr. Samuel Kendal, "A very apropriate, significant and honourable appellation." This was the first of four churches to be built on the green knoll within a few feet of each other between 1695 and 1888.
On March 16, 1698, the Farmers were freed by Watertown
9
Parish and Town
from church rates, "because they have built a Meetinghouse for themselves." The records state: "Meetings of the Precinct were holden November 8 and November 15, 1698, officers were chosen, organized work was laid out," and this Parish began the life which is still strong and active. Several ministers were called to settle here, but it was not until November 2, 1709, that the Reverend Mr. Williams, a Harvard graduate was ordained, and for forty-one years, until 1750, was the able and constructive minister of this First Parish Congregational Church. Mr. Williams began his ministry with eighteen church members,-when he ended there were four hundred twenty-five.
In 1712, the Farmers' Precinct met and drew up a petition to the Great and General Court, praying that the Precinct be incorpo- rated as a Town. This would give the right to send a Representative to the General Court. To present the petition to the Legislature, the voters chose a committee of three: Captain Francis Fulham, Lieutenant Josiah Jones, and Mr. Daniel Eastabroke. As a result, on Thursday, January 1, 1713, the Governor, His Excellency Joseph Dudley, Esq., the Lieutenant-Governor, the Honourable William Taylor, Esq., with twelve members of the Governor's Council, "Ordered, that the Prayer of Petition be granted, and that the West Precinct in Watertown, commonly called the Farms be erected and made into the Township of Weston.
Concur'd by the Representatives, Consented to, J. Dudley."
A Petition was also presented to the Town of Watertown that the Farmers' Precinct be allowed to form a separate town. "The Town of Watertown by a free vote manifested their willingness that the said Precinct should be a township, with proviso and con- dition, viz :- 1. That the Farmers continue to pay a due share of the expense of maintaining the Great Bridge over the Charles River, and 2. That they pay their full share of the debts now due by the town." The second proviso does not seem to have been insisted upon, but Weston continued to pay its share of the maintenance of Mill Bridge or the Great Bridge, until the year 1801.
The town of Weston lies twelve miles west of Boston. It meas- ures five and one-half miles from north to south, three and one-
IO
Weston: A Puritan Town
half miles from east to west and covers about eleven thousand acres of land. Together with tracts of plain land are many hills, from which may be enjoyed beautiful views of the countryside. Besides these "templed hills," there are many "rocks and rills," but much of the soil is deep and rich with a sub-stratum of gravel. "Almost every farm is fenced with stone-walls from its own grounds; and probably few towns in the country exhibit more excellent handi- work." As this quotation was written one hundred and fifty years ago, it explains the romantic appearance of early dividing lines, still in excellent condition, that are to be seen today in every wood- land area. These walls once fenced cleared fields on the farms that are fast losing their charm and their identity.
Meeting House Common
The green knoll given to the Parish in 1695 by Nathaniel Coolidge and originally called the Center, had been the gathering place for sixty years or more of the farmers and their families on Sunday morning; met here by the Lincoln group which came over a rough path now in part Conant Road, they had made the long and difficult journey to the Watertown Church, however cold and stormy the weather. When the Farmers' meetinghouse was built, the Great Country Road lay more to the south than it does now; the County Road leading from it to the north about where the Endicott gate stands, ran over the easterly side of the knoll, turned right to the present Church Street and Old Road, to join the Lan- caster or North County Road at Hobbs Corner, Kendal Green.
The Farmers' meetinghouse was on top of the knoll; it occu- pied a small area where the stone church proper now stands and faced the west, with the County Road at the back. In it, with its hard dirt floor and hard wood benches, all church and parish or town meetings were held after the final separation from Water- town in 1713. With growth of population and of wealth, it was voted on October 23, 1721, to build on Meeting House Common, a larger and more elegant edifice of Colonial architecture with a basement hall for church and town meetings.
This edifice was built of solid oak timber. The church proper had a gallery around three sides, large windows, square, high- backed pews, and a raised pulpit with sounding-board. The interior could have been much like that of King's Chapel in Boston. It stood a little to the north and west of the earlier church, and faced Willow Lane, now School Street. The church was built with a tower, in which hung a rather small bell brought from Canada by
12
Weston: A Puritan Town
Weston soldiers who served in one of the Colony's frequent French and Indian Wars.
In 1800, this meetinghouse was thoroughly repaired, painted within and without and a steeple added to the low tower. For this steeple a much larger bell was ordered from the Paul Revere foundry,-the bell is inscribed P. R. and Sons, 1801. Mr. Revere bought the small bell, "weight 164 lbs.", for $72.88; the bell cast in 1801 for the Town of Weston is Number 41, weighs 997 lbs. and cost $493.12; and as recorded, "Now in tower of First Parish Church." The town paid for the improvements, but the money for the bell was raised by subscription.
The separation of parish and town government came gradually and quietly. Both had built and kept in repair the meetinghouses of 1695 and 1722; town meeting every year voted the minister's salary and his firewood, and paid for his installation and for his burial. In the year 1824, Dr. Field's salary and firewood were voted as usual, and in 1825 no such action was taken. From 1825, different warrants were posted for parish and for town meetings to be on different days, while both met in the basement hall of the colonial meetinghouse. Beginning with November 6, 1839, there were five meetings of the Parish, before a small majority in an adjourned meeting, May 11, 1840 voted "that a committee of eleven persons be chosen who shall be authorized and empowered to take down the old meeting-house and build a new one." The dissension in these heart-rending months nearly disrupted both Parish and Town.
The proposal by the Parish for the new building, "to contain a basement hall for town meetings and other public purposes for the sum of $1300, to be paid by the town and to convey said basement story to the town by sufficient deed with limitations," was promptly declined by the Town Fathers together with a special committee who desired, "absolute and exclusive right and title without any reservation on the part of the Parish."
Surprised, but undaunted, the Parish building committee dis- mantled the Colonial meetinghouse, sold materials and furnishings at public auctions (the sales-book is still extant), and built a new
In Memory of JOSIAH SMITH ESQ who departed this Life the 27th of July 1782 in the 60 year of his Age.
Who for upwards of 20 Years had been imployed in different Public Characters & acquitted himself with Honour. Life is uncertain Death is fure
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.