USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > A History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, vol 1 > Part 42
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Freetown, even now, is comparatively a small place, but its beginnings and those of Fall River were one and the same-the "Freeman's Purchase"; and that one fact of the unpretentious and unheralded beginnings made by common folk of their generation, should never fail to draw the inquiring and interested attention of every worker in every mill, as well as command the respect and praise of mill owner and industrial leader.
It was the "Freeman's Purchase" secured away back in 1656, when the rules and usages of the Colonial period were dominant, but while Massasoit still had more than nominal oversight of the Wampanoags, that in the written contract, at least, Fall River had its beginnings. Other freemen had been and were purchasing lands along New England shores, and they were quick to name the location of their intended settlement usually in honor of the home town or city in England. But these particular freemen exhibited early signs of American independence, in nomenclature, when they styled their new possessions "Freeman's Purchase," and at the same time they paid the Indian owners of the location that sort of wampum that was most welcome and valuable to all natives, namely: "Twenty coats, two rugs, two iron pots, two kettles, one little kettle, eight pairs of shoes, one dozen hatchets, six pairs of stockings, one dozen hoes, two yards of broadcloth -- and a debt satisfactory to John Barnes, that was due from Wamsutta, son of Massasoit."
Discriminating writers who have spent much of their time among the sources of Colonial information, like Weeden, for example, are firm in their belief that in such exchanges the Indians took satisfaction and delight. Of land they then had more than they needed, and the Plymouth Court had likewise secured to them their reservations. Tools to work with, iron re- ceptacles in which to do their cooking, instead of those of clay or hollowed from stone, to which they had been used, and clothing to keep them warm in winter-these, to them, were the better part of the bargain; and so long
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as the white man held to his portion of an agreement, the natives were willing that he should remain a neighbor.
A tract four miles wide and nearly seven miles in length was granted, July 3, 1656, by the Plymouth Court; and on April 2, 1659, a warranty deed of that tract was signed by Wamsutta and Tattapanum, in the presence of Thomas Cooke, Jonathan Bridge and Thomas Sassawan. The paper re- ceived its acknowledgment by Wamsutta and Tattapanum before Josias Winslow and William Bradford, General Court Assistants, though the signature of Massasoit was not placed upon the deed, his death occurring the next year, 1660. Later came the incorporation of the settlement as a town, when in 1683 the freemen called their village Freetown, then a part of Plymouth Colony.
The present Fall River section, that part to the north of the Que- quechan, was purchased and came into the control of the Europeans at a time of general unrest, when the white men were coming to these shores in numbers, and when the red and the white races were soon to resort to their final clash for entire ownership and domination. Massasoit, some- times called Ousemaquin, and than whom no more mild-mannered, prudent or generous chief ever ruled over an Indian tribe, according to all that legend and story have revealed to us, was still in general oversight of the tribe; but he was gettting old, and his sons, Wamsutta, or Alexander, as the English had christened him, and Metacomet, or King Philip, were given charge of lands that had not been disposed of to the English. The region wherein were to be situated the future Freetown and Fall River was known as Quequechan.
The nomad Indians, camping from Mount Hope to Winnecunnit, were acquainted with every foot of this territory; they had roamed over it, and fished and hunted throughout its length and breadth; and at the time they disposed of it to the English they believed there would be a sufficiency of territory both for the new comers and for themselves, neither foreseeing the successive hordes of immigration that were to throng the country. It was an immense relief to the Indians to have come into the possession of means of planting their gardens such as they had never known; of means of catching and curing fish such as none of their race had ever invented; of seed to plant in the ground; and they took the chances of exchanging their lands for such commodities and useful things as those. There was no building, so far as historians have absolutely ascertained, on the part of the white man, in the Quequechan territory until after the King Philip, War, so that the Indian raiders at that particular period had but little of the property of the white man to destroy there.
The death of Wamsutta, or Alexander, took place in 1662, two years after the death of his father Massasoit, and then King Philip came into control of that part of the present Bristol county that had not been other- wise disposed of. From that time onwards, Philip is said to have left no scheme untried until war was. ravaging the land in 1675. It is maintained by some writers that land was forcibly taken from the Indians, and that the latter were mulcted of their possessions by mean exchange. The Ply- mouth Court itself, just in its dealings with white and red, would have prevented that; and no land was seized before the King Philip War. Not only had the first comers to Plymouth Colony received warning from their
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directors and sponsors in England to give heed to the rights of the natives, but the Plymouth Court drew up carefully worded and lawful treaties, of which abundant proof remains for the securing of titles. Had the honest dealings and humane provisions begun by the early settlers toward the Red Men, been adopted as a continuous habit by the new comers, there would have been no Pequot War, perhaps no King Philip War, though we have never been entirely assured about that chief and the exact causes of his belligerency.
For two generations there has existed much uncertainty and conjecture regarding the causes of the increasingly serious disputes between the red people and the white. There are the extremists like General E. W. Pierce, who, having befriended descendants of Chief Massasoit, pitying their pov- erty, and bemoaning with them the gradual and entire disappearance of the former owners of the land, have been able to see no more than meanness and cupidity on the part of the Europeans towards the natives. He as- serts that in all ways the ignorant native was cheated, mistreated and robbed. There is nothing in all Indian history that is quite equal to Pierce's biting sarcasm. If he "thought for himself" it would appear that he did not think from any other viewpoint, nor did he weigh any other records or traditions with the care due the record of every age. There are other writers who make claim that the new comer, though no better than the latter-day immigrants, took every opportunity to find out who owned lands before they occupied them permanently, while the Plymouth Court was judge as to their good intentions.
All three of the Southeastern Massachusetts chiefs had reigned and disappeared,-the war was at an end, and the former power and place of the Wampanoags had dwindled and fled. The section was still the "Old Colony" as we call it today, and other and political events were exercising the talents of the new diplomats on New England's shores.
In the year 1643, the Colonies of Plymouth, of Massachusetts Bay, of Connecticut and New Haven, had made conjunction in their new confed- eracy for mutual protection, styled The United Colonies of New England; and the final session of this union had taken place at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1684, a year after the incorporation of Freetown. Thenceforward, Ply- mouth itself became absorbed, and its story was interwoven with that of the others-New Plymouth, or the "Old Colony" becoming divided in 1685 . into the three counties of Plymouth, Barnstable and Bristol. The last General Court of Plymouth was held in July, 1691, the date that is gener- ally given as that marking the close of the Colonial Period. Thus Free- town was a Colonial town but eight years.
We of today are keeping in mind the essentials of the first purchase :- that Quequechan, the section to the north of the river, where Free- town's foundations were laid, was purchased of the Indians themselves not indiscriminately, but through orderly procedure of the Plymouth Court, by twenty-six Plymouth residents, at which time they acquitted Wamsutta of a debt owing to a certain John Barnes, and paid over the practical articles of general utility before mentioned. The grant under which this purchase was made was confirmed in a later deed by the Plymouth Court. But the Pocasset Purchase, to the south of the river, on which a part of the city stands today, and extending from that river to
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the Puncatest and Dartmouth bounds, south and easterly from four to six miles, came into the hands of the colony by conquest, on account of the war with Philip; and that section was sold for English currency-eleven hundred pounds.
No record of the preservation of the original deed of the Freeman's Purchase is extant; but the original deed of the Pocasset Purchase is still kept. From the point of view of the Colonial Period, these two purchases, as to situation and condition, were similar to our greater west of 1850. No one knew, with certainty, how far west New England extended, and they were reckoned as pioneers indeed who ventured through Quequechan.
Thus, in outline, were the earliest known trails leading out of Plym- outh colony, and down the primitive river banks, to end, in the appointed season, at the spot where Fall River now is. The new race of people had approached whose children were to redeem the barrens and the river forces for the industrial and economic uses of a generation farther along. At this hour, except in the historical record, the seething and speeding polyglot city has slipped away from all recollection or interest in either Red Man or First Settler. Yet, let it be borne in mind that these marked the be- ginnings, and we could make no count of present milestones, nor, for proofs of progress could we make comparison of days and events, were it not for them and those who soon afterwards came upon the scene.
CHAPTER II. THE FORERUNNERS.
"It is the present that we have most interest in," is the veracious statement of busy Fall River men of this hour. "The story of today is so absorbing to us that we have very little time to share with the narrative and the people of yesterday." It is, as stated, an almost completely absorbing Present. Yet there is not one business man in Fall River, as we write, who is not vitally concerned with the history of his own plant and company, his own school and church, from the beginnings thereof; so that to him their story cannot be gainsaid or ignored. The history of his city, his town, then, from the start to the present status-does not that call for a like respect, since the very business he is engrossed in, the neighborhood he lives in, the school he attended-these could not have been without all those earlier stepping-stones in the town's journey, that have led up to this hour?
This being no more nor less than a plea for a revival of interest and veneration for the historical record, we are ready to inquire: Who, then, were the people of the Fall River of yesterday-of the former Troy-of the earlier Freeman's Purchase,-and how may we come to know them, as partakers in our common story?
It has become well-nigh impossible for us to transplant ourselves in imagination to their far-off times, or to apprehend the conditions of the pioneer age and people. All their story, as the researchers have found it, has been but fragmentary. We can never, in all probability, clearly and to modern satisfaction state the case of their coming, their settlement, and the exact procedure of their relationship with the native races. It
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is not for us to infer from present-day overworked comments upon traditions of blue-law rulings and rum-drinking that the colonists' were worse in their morals than this generation. Meantime, the reader of contemporary history will prove that certain social usages were not isolated, but rather international; and the history of our own day, in fur- ther rebuttal, is prone to point out our own serious defections toward men of the black and red races. At least, we have concluded that the first- comers, the earliest of all, fought against great odds to establish them- selves here; and that it was not at all against the will of the Indians of the time of Massasoit that they built and delved. They ate the bitter bread of need and loss; they labored with the soil and with the rivers to produce from them their living. They were not heaven-born; they were human-they were everyday workers and builders of our towns.
It has been shown that there were twenty-six purchasers of the Que- quechan, or Falling Water section,-the Freeman's Purchase-and that they were Plymouth men, and they had bought here for the same reason that other Plymouth men had purchased the Duxbury and the Marshfield sections-to provide pastures-lands and lands to settle upon, with the in- crease of the arrivals from abroad. By name, these purchasers, though not settlers, of the Freeman's location, were: Captain James Cudworth, Josiah Winslow, senior, Constant Southworth, John Barnes, John Tesdale, Humphrey Turner, Walter Hatch, Samuel House, Samuel Jackson, John Daman, Mr. Timothy Hatherly, Timothy Foster, Thomas Southworth, George Watson, Nathaniel Morton, Richard Moore, Edmund Chandler, Samuel Nash, Henry Howland, Mr. Ralph Partridge, Love Brewster, William Paybody, Christopher Wadsworth, Kenelme Winslow, Thomas Bowen, John Waterman. These are names of surveyors of lands of the Old Colony, builders, farmers; and one, Josiah Winslow, would follow in the footsteps of his father, Edward, and become Governor of the colony. They by lot divided the Freeman's Purchase into twenty-six shares, each share having its frontage of about one hundred rods on the river; and that which interests us in the item of the settlement to be, is the fact that most of these shares, or thirteen full lots, were within the present boundary of Fall River.
The story of those thirteen or fourteen lots is contained in the almost illegible account of the beginnings of Fall River. But we have it thus, as the old recorders have set it down: Most of the lots owned by Timothy Foster were purchased by John Borden, the first of the name here, he having origin- ated at Portsmouth, Rhode Island. This portion of land had come largely into John Borden's possession three years after King Philip's War, in 1679; though smaller portions had been bought by William Earle and David Lake-the entire lot being exchanged for 140 pounds, or about $700. Thus we first welcome the name of Borden to our story, settlers of that name and their descendants for generations continuing on the same lot. Then the Durfees, in their turn. Humphrey Turner's lot passed into various hands, until in 1731 Benjamin Durfee, pioneer of the name, became owner of its westerly portion. His son Thomas, who had also bought the north half of the Foster lot, came into possession of Benjamin's lot, and was soon a leading landowner. Successively, the other lots in question were the property of Christopher Wadsworth, Edmund Chandler, Samuel House,
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John Howland, George Watson, Ralph Partridge, Timothy Hatherly, Love Brewster, Richard Moore, William Hatch, Thomas Southworth, Wil- liam Paybody. These lots had come into the holdings of the Plymouth men, through direct purchase of the Indians, before the war with King Philip.
The Pocasset Purchase (so-named from the territory upon which the Pocasset branch of the Wampanoag tribe dwelt), to the south of the Quequechan stream, was no longer in the natives' hands when that pur- chase was made in 1680, conquest having determined it as the property of the Plymouth government, by whom it was sold to Edward Gray of Plymouth, Nathaniel Thomas of Marshfield, Benjamin Church of Punka- test, Christopher Almy, Job Almy, and Thomas Waite of Portsmouth, and Daniel Wilcox and William Manchester of Punkatest. The historian Fen- ner has followed with care the statement of the deed, in which it is plainly set forth that the purchase was made of the government by the above- named men for 1100 pounds, while earlier historians had erroneously de- clared that the purchase had been made of the Indians.
The holdings of these new purchasers, then, included part of Fall River and the whole of the present Tiverton. The first twelve lots themselves were within the present Fall River, while a strip thirty rods in width ad- joining the Quequechan, was owned in common. The twelve lots referred to were in the ownership of Edward Gray, William Manchester, Benjamin Church, Christopher Almy, Job Almy, and Daniel Wilcox. Theirs were called "greate lots," and extended from the bay one mile east to the present Plymouth avenue, which was laid out as early as 1696. Soon afterwards, 120 one-acre lots were laid out in a second division of land be- tween Plymouth avenue, Watuppa pond, and the Quequechan river,-the first owners of that tract being Richard Borden, John Cook, William Corey, Job Almy, Thomas Corey, Lidy Gray, Christopher Almy, Nathaniel South- wick, Joseph Wanton, Seth Arnold and Edward Gray. A third division of land was made in 1697, near the pond, and including the present Flint Village.
The colonial story of Fall River is almost void of annals of any sub- stantial value. There was no permanent settlement at all before the King Philip War. We have little more than tradition concerning a possible few individuals who then dwelt within the bounds. We catch but fleeting glimpses of the shadows of men hastening beyond the wilderness to the safety of towns. The first actual sign of settlement that we have, then, is that of Matthew Boomer, who, purchasing in March of 1676 the north half of the fourth lot, built the first house that we know of, on the east side of the main road, and opposite the present Brownell street. His son, Matthew Boomer, Jr., came into possession of half his father's pur- chase in 1692. From that time onwards appear names to which are at- tached the unfading interests of industry, so closely connected with the growth of town and city.
In 1686, John Reed, who had come up from Newport, had built his home on the site of the present St. Joseph's Church. Samuel Gardner, town clerk, also a Newport townsman, in 1687, bought of George Lawton, another of the early settlers, one half of the fifth lot, with buildings that were upon it; and it was this same Gardner who later became owner
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of Gardner's Neck of South Swansea. It is recorded that the very year that Freetown was incorporated, in 1683, Henry Howland, who hailed from Duxbury, occupied the sixth lot, and that his sons, Samuel and Nathaniel, afterwards divided the lot with the house thereon, in 1647. Even earlier than Howland, Robert Durfee, in 1680, built on the tenth lot, while Henry Woodberee was the occupant of the eleventh lot.
The records show that William Chase was living here in 1684, and that the Henry Brightman house was then newly built. Ralph Earle had come up from Portsmouth about the year 1690, and made his home here on the main road nearly opposite the "cleft rock,"-a landmark later known as the boundary between Tiverton and Fall River. In 1690, also, Benjamin Church's house stood at the corner of the present Pond and Ana- wan streets, on the "Mill Lot;" and Francis Brayton, blacksmith, built, in 1791, where the Baptist Temple now is. George Brownell was one of the Portsmouth men who early settled in this neighborhood. He bought and built in 1699 on the present Morgan street. These and yet others have been pointed out by the historians Fenner and Buffinton, who also refer to Deacon Richard Durfee's house on Cottage street, Benjamin Durfee's on Middle street, the Pearce house on Hamlet street, the Bowen house at the corner of Globe; a Durfee house at the northeast corner of Slade-all the homes of ancestors of many prominent citizens of the present hour.
Older residents once followed the ancient road lines, to point out the Dwelly homestead, where now stands the Bellevue house; the Davis house near Cook pond; and the Townsend house, near the hill of that name. They have proceeded to state that on the second lot of the Pocasset Purchase was the Snell homestead; that Richard Borden's farm was the third lot; that Aaron Bowen's house was on the third lot (the Grinnell land, so- called) ; that the Wordell house was built on the Stafford road about 1720. Other landmarks of those days were: The Curry house, on Jefferson street; the Negus place, date 1789, was north of Tower street; next to that in turn came three houses owned by Cook settlers-the Perry house, the Thomas Cook house, and the Estes house; and at the northeast corner of June and French streets, the house of Charles Church, Tory, built about 1750. It was in those days that Tiverton was a part of the Pocasset Purchase, but the town was annexed to Rhode Island in 1741, together with Little Compton and other villages.
One of New England's many homely sayings is a simple one: "There's not a lazy bone in his body," and it may well be applied to Fall River at the outset. So far as history has informed us, the first settlers were ever anxious to keep themselves at work at something. Thus it was that the "Mill Lot" of the Pocasset Purchase was the colonial arena of the sources of business hereabouts. The "Mill Lot" sends its call down the years to the greater convocation of the mills of the Fall River of today, to declare: Here were your beginnings.
The "Mill Lot" was set aside by the proprietors of the Pocasset Pur- chase, as soon as they had bought the tract, in 1680. Water power in- cluded, it was thirty rods wide and extended from the river shore, easterly, to the vicinity of the present Twelfth street. Colonel Benjamin Church and his brother Caleb at once became owners of twenty-six and one-half shares of the lot, and it was understood that John Borden owned the
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remainder of it. The first factory business that we have any record of at the lot was that of the Church saw mill built there before 1691, at which time Benjamin came into his brother's share by the payment of one hun- dred pounds. About twelve years later, he had added a grist and fulling mill, and business action was begun. With the passing of the mill inter- ests and the water power, to the Borden family, in 1714, the industrial section of this work will be devoted. Other early business ventures were those of the tanyard of Joseph Read, at the site of the Westport Manufac- turing company's storehouse; the town's saltworks, established July 7, 1777, near the site of the present Mechanics Mills, and other saw and grist mills, as well as the iron works that were established in 1704.
Growth and expansion and increase in population of the young colony brought along in their train consideration of the problems of boundary lines, first of towns, later on, of states. Differences of opinion that existed as to the line between Freetown and Tiverton were adjusted in 1700 by the Freetown committee, consisting of Robert Durfee, Henry Brightman and Josiah Winslow, and the Tiverton committee, consisting of Richard Borden, Christopher Almy and Samuel Little.
But it required a royal commission to set forth what should be understood as the true boundary between the Massachusetts and Rhode Island colonies; and even their report was appealed from by both colonies, although confirmed by King George II in 1746, in which year Tiverton and Little Compton were added to Rhode Island. This proved one of the most long-drawn-out boundary disputes on New England records, ranging throughout a period of more than 240 years. The transfer of the towns was granted by Massachusetts, but the definiteness of State lines continued to be a matter of controversy, and commissions of 1791 and 1844 made no satisfactory progress toward settlement of the matter. The solution of the difficulty was not reached until the year 1861, and the result was that nine square miles were added to Fall River, together with $1,948,378 in taxable property, and 3,593 in population.
So proceeded the general course of the problems of settling down and of dividing the lines in the old days. The first folk were rather late in arriving -- somewhat tardier than was the case with the settlers a little to the north; though, as a township, they thus avoided earlier colonial per- plexities, including the combat with the Indians. But they chose well to build their homes at Falling Water, and thenceforth went into partner- ship with River Quequechan, that brought them and their descendants and the new pilgrims of today, increase of industry and wealth.
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