USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > A History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, vol 2 > Part 27
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The shipbuilder and philanthropist, Thomas Coram, was owner of fifty-nine acres near Burt's Corner, the site of which is the estate of the late Herbert A. Dean. By Captain Coram's will this land was disposed of to the vestry of King's Chapel, in Boston, the proceeds going towards the erection of that building, in 1754.
Assonet Neck is a part of Berkley, and was annexed thereto in 1799. Here the natives enjoyed their permanent camping ground, because of its neighborhood to the fisheries. Plymouth Colony took possession of this tract of land, and in 1678 it was sold to Taunton for £150. Six proprietors bought it shortly thereafter-George Shove, Walter Deane. James Walker, James Tisdale, William Harvey, Richard Williams. When Dighton was organized in 1712, it became a part of that town, and in 1799 it became a part of Berkley, the peninsula being about two square miles of land. It is on the northwestern part of the Neck that the cele- brated "Writing Rock" is situated.
Myricks .- As to Myricks, a part of Berkley, it was the former great cattle show and the picnic events that proclaimed that part of the town, and that sent the voices of many a forgotten railroad conductor echoing down through the future, with the insistent "all aboard for Myricks." In 1879 Myricks said good-bye to the home-hearth of Taunton, and went over to join the household of Berkley. The idea of the proposed change was not entirely unanimous among the residents; but it was generally main- tained that the settlement would be the gainer in an all-round decrease in expenses by going over from Taunton to Berkley. The proposition for a division of the then southeasterly section of Taunton by setting off the neighborhood of Myricks to Berkley, was made in a petition before the State Legislature by thirty of the forty-four residents of the locality. The event was consummated February 8, 1879, when the selectmen of Berkley, at a town meeting held in reference to a petition of Julius Haskins and others, voted to extend the hand of welcome to the district. Thus took place the last of the five divisions that were made in the original bounds of Taunton township. Among the original settlers in this part of the town was a family named Myricks, though they spelled their name vari- ously, Myrick, Merrick, Marick, and in other ways. Isaac, Obed and Calvin Myricks being among the first of the name here.
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It was the cattle show that gave fame to Myricks. The Bristol County Central Cattle Show and Fair, as it was officially known, was maintained continuously from 1858 to 1876, the last exhibition of the name taking place September 14-15-16, 1876, after which its thousands of spectators and participators went away to return no more, save as some smaller per- centage of them later attended the annual clambake of the Methodist society. Successful as that fair was, there were yet older fairs and longer- lived, the exhibition at Myricks being an offshoot of the older Taunton fair that had its beginnings in 1823, with such men as Oliver Ames and William Mason as its officials, and Hon. Francis Baylies among its speakers; but few of the old fair landmarks remain here-the L. P. Churchill board and box mill, a building of stone having been the former exhibition building of the fair. Nearby is the gambrel roof house built by the Myricks family in the early part of the seventeenth century. Farther up on Myricks street, near where the village schoolhouse now is, once stood the Myricks Academy, and to the right is the village church, Metho- dist Episcopal.
Myricks Academy was an institution that for a half century was con- ducted for the purpose of preparing pupils for college and the business of life, and its teachers were well equipped for their vocation. Students were enrolled from not only the local district, but numbers came from a dis- tance. The academy opened for its first term in 1853. The principals were J. W. Spaulding, Judge William H. Fox, Benjamin Crane, F. A. Knowlton, George M. Paull. Eventually the academy was sold to Taunton for a, public school. It was burned in the Myricks fire of October 25, 1904, which fire also destroyed a number of other buildings and residences in the village. Myricks has had the misfortune to be desolated by two other fires, those of November 15, 1922, and June 1, 1923, when postoffice, stores and residences were destroyed and many people made homeless.
CHAPTER III. DARTMOUTH
Township of many prosperous farms of the county, of substantial and quaint homes of natives, and attractive residences of newcomers, as well as of the century-old Quaker meeting, Dartmouth alone retains the first English name given the extensive territory that once comprised New Bedford, Westport, Fairhaven and Acushnet. Like Westport, among the southern towns its scenery is greatly diversified both as to farmlands and shoreward property ; and because of its sightly rural and inland districts, and its harbors and seashore, it has become both the permanent home of numbers of New Bedford business men, and the summer resort of promi- nent families from New York and other large cities. For generations, too, townspeople here have in many instances retained and increased the pro- ductive values of property ; and here, again, as elsewhere in the county, thrifty foreign-born have bought up old lands and by intensive farming restored and kept up such parts of the town. The approximate population
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of Dartmouth as a whole in 1923 was 6,500, and the valuation of the per- sonal property within the town was placed at $1,172,125, and the real estate at $7,466,975.
North Dartmouth and Smith's Mills within recent years had been hav- ing a building boom of new residences, and are numbered among the pro- gressive sections of the town. All that portion north of Allen street has been placed in No. 3 fire district, with the purchase and location there of a new combination Maxim fire engine. South Dartmouth includes Padanaram, Bliss Corner and Smith's Neck, mostly the summer resort part of the town, where are located the town hall, the central library, the high school, and the New Bedford Yacht Club. Russell's Mills is resi- dence of many Quaker descendants, and the location of the old Friends' meetinghouse. It was from that meetinghouse and its group of Friends that one of the principal scenes in the play "Down to the Sea in Ships" was obtained. The town has excellent fire and police service. J. W. Baxter is first chief of police. Benjamin J. Potter, town clerk and treasurer for thirty-two years, died in September, 1923.
Dartmouth lands, when first purchased of the Indians in 1652 had for original proprietors thirty-six persons, most of. whom were from Plymouth and its neighborhood, and a number of whom, although the land was apparently bought for speculation, settled here. Hon. William W. Crapo in an historical address concerning Dartmouth in its beginnings stated that the records of the Colony of Rhode Island show that a part of the present towns of Tiverton and Little Compton, prior to 1746, were a part of Dartmouth. Massasoit and his son, Wamsutta, on November 29, 1652, conveyed by deed to William Bradford, Captain Myles Standish, Thomas Southworth, John Winslow and John Cooke and their associates "all the tracts of land lying three miles eastward from a river called Cushenegg to the harbor of Coaksett, to a flat rock on the westward side of said harbor," and the price paid was thirty yards of cloth, eight moose-skins, fifteen axes, fifteen hoes, fifteen pairs of breeches, eight blankets, two kettles, one cloak, two pounds in wampum, eight pairs of stockings, eight pairs of shoes, an iron pot, and ten shillings in other commodities.
No doubt exists that Dartmouth was so called from the town of the name in England, and Mr. Crapo contends that the original causes for the settlement of the town were those that had to do with compulsory tax- ation for religious purposes, the Baptists and the Quakers stoutly and successfully resisting the tax apportioned for the support of ministers, in addition to the province tax-even to the extent of the imprisonment of four of the selectmen for the disobedience of the town in relation to the tax. The town was incorporated in 1664, and the struggle for religious freedom continued until 1724. The first town house was built in 1739, and the town records show that the town house was removed on two different occasions to and from the easterly and westerly villages. Larger questions territorially than those relating to the town were brought up at that period, notably that in 1746, when it was proposed to divide the county and join Tiverton and Little Compton with the town as a new county; later the proposition was brought up to change the county seat to Assonet rather than to Taunton. Town meeting rules were exact and strict as to attend- ance, and fines were exacted for neglect. General road repairing was begun
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as early as 1685, and that year any, including Indians, who killed wolves or bears, were paid for their trouble from the town treasury.
First Settlers .- Concerning the first white men's homes in Dartmouth, called by the Indians Apponegansett, Henry B. Worth, Esq., has stated in his paper "The Homes of Apponegansett Before 1710," that the earliest settlement was on the east side of the Acushnet river, between its head and Fort Phenix. Here were the farms of Jenney, Hathaway, Cook, Shaw, Palmer, Cuthbert, and east of Nastatucket brook Lieutenant Jonathan Delanose, and still farther east, next to the Mattapoisett line, the farm of Samuel Hicks. But he states, so far as known, there was no settlement on the west side of the Acushnet river before 1700. The pioneer settler, states Mr. Worth, was probably Ralph Earle, by whom the Dartmouth lands were brought to the attention of the Portsmouth people. His farm comprised over four hundred acres. With the exception of the northeast corner of Clark's Cove that was assigned to Abraham Tucker, and the northwest corner laid out to Nathaniel Howland, the whole of Padanaram Neck north of Bush street was comprised in the homestead of John Rus- sell. The house of the latter was located near the shore in the swampy pasture, and was defended as a garrison by English soldiers. He came to Dartmouth in 1663, and, not long after, Matthew Allen became his neigh- bor on the south. The extreme end of the neck was owned by William Durfee. On the north side of the cove road was the homestead of Na- thaniel Howland, who settled here not far from 1690. West of the Slocum road was the farm of John Sherman, who came from Portsmouth before 1660. In 1710 there were seven long narrow farms extending from the Pascamansett river on the west to the Apponegansett river on the east. They were those of Eleazer Smith, John Briggs, Jireh Reed and Captain William Penn Briggs; the farm of the sons of John Sherman, Ezra and Ensign Baker; and of William and Peleg Sherman.
About the year 1800, continues Mr. Worth, emigration from Cape Cod came to this section, the Bakers from Dennisville settling in Bakersville, hence the name. On the south side of the Smith Neck road and including the Holder Brownell farm, was the homestead of Judah Smith, and to the south the farm of his brother Gershom; while next south, and fronting on the Potomska road, was the homestead of Edmund Sherman. West of the last three farms was the homestead of John Lapham. The farms of Judah and Gershom Smith constituted the homestead of their father. John Smith, as early as 1672. In the conveyances before the Revolutionary War, Smith's Neck is always designated as Namquid Neck. The extreme end of that neck is Mischawum Point, laid out to John Russell about 1690. The end of Smith's Neck is called Salter's Point, but two hundred years ago, says Mr. Worth, this name was written Salt-house point and L. A. Littlefield states there was a saltworks. Other early settlements were those of Captain John Akin, Thomas Briggs, Hezekiah Smith, Deliverance Smith, Benjamin Howland, Giles Slocum. And the historian concludes with the statement: The names of the early settlers are no longer found in the old locations. All of the thirty farms have been divided into smaller homesteads, and on several are large and populous villages with costly mansions and villas occupied by prominent people from every section of the land.
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Edward T. Tucker in "Old Dartmouth Historical Sketches" states that the home of Job S. Gidley, prominent Friend and townsman,, and former town clerk, was built about the year 1720. On its site stood, about the year 1680, the stone house of Henry Tucker, whose son John occupied it at the opening of the eighteenth century. A guest at this house in 1699, at a time of the Apponegansett Friends meeting, was Thomas Story, associate of William Penn, and first recorder of Philadelphia. Among other Friends who had located in this neighborhood were Adam Mott, Abraham Tucker, Jr., Henry Tucker.
The best recollections of early Dartmouth history are contained in the "Old Dartmouth Historical Papers," and in one of these L. A. Littlefield has said concerning the naming of Padanaram: As nearly as can be ascertained, it originated with Laban Thatcher, who came from Harwich, this State, about 1805, and had a shipyard here. The first mention of Padanaram occurred in a deed given by him in 1828, and it is supposed that the circumstances of his life corresponded with the Bible story of Laban, who lived in Padanaram, and prompted him to give the place that name. Mr. Littlefield continues interestingly to say that during the British invasion of September 5 and 6, 1778, several buildings owned by Elihu Akin at this place were burned. Among the early settlers was Captain John Akin, who was in Colonel Benjamin Church's company, and he was also town clerk, selectman and representative. His sons James and Elihu owned a vessel that the British burned on the stocks when they raided the town. Benjamin Akin, also a son of Captain John, was town clerk in 1789, and lived at the head of Apponegansett river.
The resolve made at town meeting July 18, 1774, in Dartmouth, voiced the sentiment of the patriots with regard to the stand that should be taken against the unjust taxation imposed by the English king upon the Colonists. It was to this effect: "that we will not purchase any goods manufactured in Great Britain and Ireland which shall be imported from thence after this day; that we will not purchase any English goods of any hawker or peddler; that we will not purchase any foreign teas whatever ; that we will not export any flax-seed to any foreign market." The town was well represented at the patriotic gathering of county men at Taunton. There were fifty-five men from Dartmouth in Captain Thomas Kempton's company, of Colonel Danielson's regiment, to the first of August, 1775, the time of enlistment having started in May, and the time of service, with few exceptions, being three months. The committee of correspondence and safety for the township in 1776 consisted of General Church, Seth Pope, Abraham Shearman, James Soule, Nathaniel Richmond, Philip Taber, Par- don Brownell, William Wood.
The military record of the men of Dartmouth in the Civil War was in keeping with loyalty to country exhibited and proven at country's call, more than 140 men enlisting in various regiments. In service for the World War, 175 men were enrolled; four died in the regular service, and one in Red Cross service.
Churches and Schools .- The town had been set apart but thirty-five years when the first record of Friends' meetings was made, in 1699, and the deed of their first meetinghouse has the date 1706, the building having
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been constructed upon the same lot of the present Apponegansett meet- inghouse. The first yearly meeting of record was held at the house of John Lapham in 1699. Before 1788 this meeting was in charge of the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, but from that time onwards it was con- nect :d with the Sandwich Quarterly Meeting. Quarterly meetings are still held there. Later, meetinghouses were built at Smith's Neck, Smith's Mills and Allen's Neck. The Gurneyite Friends form the larger body of the Quakers in this section today, the separation having taken place in 1845.
A branch of Elder Jacob Hix's church of Rehoboth was organized here as the First Baptist Church of Dartmouth in May, 1780, and on October 10, 1781, Elder Daniel Hix was installed as pastor. This church identified itself with the Christian denomination in June, 1807, when all church creeds were set aside, and the Bible alone was accepted as the standard of faith and practice.
The establishment of the Congregational church in this town was brought about in 1807, with Rev. Daniel Emerson as the first pastor, the church edifice being built in 1817. A South Dartmouth Baptist church, now closed, was formed in May, 1831, as a branch of the New Bedford Baptist Church. Yet another church formed in 1836, the Second Christian Church, is not active at this time. The Methodist Episcopal church, organ- ized in 1838, has declined in interest and membership. The Smith Mills Christian Church was formed December 22, 1838, the house being built,just previously. The Christian Church in the Bakerville district was built in 1837, the organization taking place in 1838.
Within a few years, The Roman Catholic Bishop has purchased prop- erty in South Dartmouth, and established a Catholic church, under the direction of Rev. Father James Noon, of St. James Church, New Bedford.
Dr. Andrew B. Cushman, chairman of the Dartmouth school commit- tee, and for whom was named the new school erected in 1923 on Dart- mouth street near Davis' Corner, in his report for 1922 stated that the appropriation for Dartmouth school purposes had grown from $5,000 in 1890 to $60,000 in 1922, while the pupils' transportation account, which was $200 in 1898, when schools consolidation began, was $10,000 in 1922. The average school attendance in 1890 was 474; in 1922 it was 1,219. In 1891 the school committee first advised the establishment of a school superin- tendency, and since that time the following-named have served in that capacity : Seth S. Crocker, Clarence E. Brockway, Winthrop N. Crocker, Ernest P. Carr, Albert S. Cole, Leon E. Prior, Frederick L. Kendall, A. R. Paull. The town in 1922 appropriated $150,000 for the two new school buildings-the Job S. Gidley school at North Dartmouth, and the Andrew B. Cushman school in the south part of the town. The dates of building of schools in the town follow: Bliss Corner, occupied in 1893; Smith Mills, 1897; Padanaram, 1903; Hixville, 1907; Bliss Corner addition, 1907; Smith Mills addition, 1907; Faunce Corner, 1910; Russell's Mills, 1914; Lincoln, 1916; Bliss Corner addition, 1916; Collins, 1917; Bakerville, 1920; Sanford's Corner, 1921. The Charles H. Howland high school was built in 1901.
The first schoolmaster in the town was Christopher Faunce, who was accepted as a grammar schoolmaster in 1728. William Lake was school- master in 1733, at £45 a year. William Palmer, who succeeded him, also taught navigation.
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Job S. Gidley, in an historical survey of the schools here, has con- cluded that houses for public schools were not built until after the town was redistricted in 1816, and that the first schoolhouse was built at the Seth Davis Corner. In 1827 the town elected its first board of school committee, previous to which the schools had been in charge of a pruden- tial committee, and in 1866 the school district system was abolished.
Shipyards sprang up along the river banks for quite a period of years from 1820, in the Padanaram section, says L. A. Littlefield. About the vear 1826 or 1827, Charles Matthews and Matthew Thatcher were engaged in shipbuilding at Deep Water Point. Daniel Homer also had a shipyard here, and built the large vessel called "Nimrod." About 1845, whaleships were built by Alonzo Matthews, John Mashow, James M. Babbitt and Frederick Smalley, and Padanaram at one time shared its whaling interests with New Bedford, with its fleet of seven barks and ships. Between 1834 and 1836 the first bridge was built over Apponegansett river by a corpo- ration composed of Nathaniel Howland, Caleb Anthony, Gilbert Howland, Joseph Bailey, Richard Sandford, Clark Ricketson, Luther Kirby; this bridge being maintained as a toll bridge to 1870, when it was made free to the public. The present bridge was completed in 1902.
Libraries, etc .- The North Dartmouth Library, founded in 1902, says the librarian, Miss Alice W. Gidley, has grown in twenty years from a few dozen books to a collection of nearly 3,000, and the library supplies the Smith Mills, the Collins and Lincoln Schools. Russell's Mills Library has a circulation of about 4,300; Miss Mary A. Tucker is librarian. The John H. Southworth Library, in South Dartmouth, was dedicated February 1, 1890, and in 1923 had over 7,000 books. Miss Theodosia P. Chase was the librarian, Miss Frances S. Taber assistant. The Apponegansett Library was opened in 1921, Miss Alice D. Meyers assistant.
Among the societies that do much towards the general improvement and progress of the town are the Padanaram Improvement Association, Henry C. Robinson, president, and the Farmers' Club, Elmer Poole president.
CHAPTER IV. DIGHTON
Dighton, busy and progressive river town, named for Frances Dighton, wife of Richard Williams, one of the first purchasers of Taunton, has always been a place of industries, whether of agriculture and garden-mak- ing, or ship-building or cotton-manufacturing and its allied interests. The first comers remembered the Four Corners neighborhood-then running in various directions and of several hundreds of acres-as an extensive garden that had been planted by the natives. In later years the white settlers had their gardens throughout that section; a part of the "Old Field," as it was called, within our times has been made use of as the Dighton Nursery, by Dr. Alfred Wood; and still more recently on portions of that same Old Field, the Azoreans and Western Islanders who have immigrated
WORLD-FAMOUS WRITING ROCK AT DIGHTON
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in numbers and purchased many of the old homesteads hereabouts have made thrifty use of much of the land with their own orchards and gardens. Dighton thus agriculturally, at least, is particularly interesting in its transitions from one race to another in succession.
In Early Days .- George Shove, Esq., historian, has made interesting reference to a fact that previous to the permanent settlement of this terri- tory, transient settlers, hunters and small farmers, built their homes along the edge of the old Indian farmland of which mention has been made. Who these were, there remains no further record, but it is understood that all had left before the outbreak of the King Philip War in 1675, with the exception of Captain Jared Talbot, who, when the war actually made itself evident, went over to Taunton to join the colonists at the garrison house. The name of Jared Talbot is the first to appear in the old records of this Purchase. When the white settlers began to buy land of the natives, this was called the Taunton South Purchase, and it was conveyed to the purchasers in two sections and on two different occasions. A com- mittee of the First Purchasers, consisting of William Brenton, Esq., William Harvey, James Walker, Richard Williams, Walter Deane, George Macy and John Richmond, received the deed of the first section Septem- ber 28, 1672, paying therefor £143, the property being three miles wide along the river, and four miles in length. These men transferred the deed, with the exception of their own rights, to Rev. George Shove, third min- ister of Taunton, and seventy-six associates. The deed of the second part of the purchase was dated October 1 the same year, and it was transferred to Constant Southworth, treasurer of the Plymouth Colony who paid for it £47, transferring the deed to the committee mentioned. This section was one mile wide on the river and four miles long. Soon after this trans- action, a Two-Mile Purchase, so-called, was sold to Swansea. Permanent settlement began to be made in the Purchase soon after the King Philip War, but the earliest family record that has been preserved concerning the section is that which announces the marriage of Jared Talbot and Rebecca Hathaway, May 4, 1687. It is believed that theirs was the first frame house in Dighton. And prior to 1712, the year of the incorporation of the town, the names of the South Purchase dwellers mentioned are those of David Walker, Edward Shove, Ebenezer Pitts, Samuel Talbot, Nathan Walker, John Burt and Abraham Hathaway. The town of Dighton was incorporated May 30, 1712.
At about the time of the town's incorporation, the residents of the present Berkley and Dighton joined their holdings on the river by a ferry, which was situated about a half mile below the present Berkley and Dighton bridge. In 1715 Captain Jared Talbot and Deacon Abraham Hathaway were given charge of the use of the ferry-boat, which was to be free for the inhabitants on all public days. Another ferry was after- wards established a mile farther down the river. The town officers at the time of the incorporation in 1712 were: Joseph Deane, town clerk; selectmen; Colonel Ebenezer Pitts, Edward Paull, James Tisdale; con- stables : John Burt and David Walker; assessors: Samuel Waldron, Daniel Axtel and Abraham Shaw; town treasurer, Ensign John Crane; tithing- men : Isaac Hathaway and John Wood; surveyors : Abraham Hathaway and
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