USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Pembroke > Ancient landmarks of Pembroke > Part 10
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The Common at Pembroke
XII. The Common.
The lilies blossom in the pond, The bird builds in the tree; The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill The slow song of the sea.
N these days of small flocks and ample pasturage, we can hardly realize the great benefit derived by our ancestors from the existence in their neighborhood of a common, or public grazing- ground for sheep and neat cattle. To the eye of an early settler, his field of natural grass was a possession more valuable than gold or precious stones. It was the presence of such cleared land at Plymouth that first attracted the Pilgrim Fathers, and proved their salvation in the midst of a still unreclaimed wilderness. In regions where nature or the Indians had not done his work for him, the colonist turned every rod of ground he could clear, every rich swale or bit of meadow, to the raising of corn, or the production of hay for winter use : from early summer till late autumn, his cattle must run at large, and forage for them- selves. Accordingly, a tract of pasturage as sparse as must have been that afforded by the poor soil and scanty moisture of Pembroke Centre, was still a welcome addition to the re- sources of neighboring farmers, and by them was early appro- priated to public use. I
Their informal action was later confirmed by the legal owners. A large part of the territory now included within the limits of this town remained, till the middle of the eigh- teenth century, under control of certain proprietors styled
ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
Proprietors of the Common or Proprietors' Lands of Dux- bury and Pembroke. On their record appears the following vote, passed one year after the incorporation of Pembroke: "At a meeting of the Proprietors of the Common, lands be- longing to the towns of Duxborrough and Pembrook, upon the 22d day of May, Anno Domini 1713 the said Proprietors voted . that their surveyor should lay out to Thomas Prince at the head of his lot, about two or three acres of land, provided he will grant as much of his land to the town of Duxbury, adjacent to the meeting house, to be a perpetual Common for a training field, etc. The said proprietors also voted as much to be Common near the meeting house in Pembrook, and that their surveyor should agree with said Prince about the premises." The language of this entry seems to show that the two or three acres specified, although not expressly alienated by the appropriation, were thence- forth to be improved under direction of the town of Pem- broke.
Such was the construction placed upon this vote by the Town authorities. On 20th October, 1712, the Town had granted liberty to all persons belonging to Pembroke to build stables on the Common. It now proceeded to regulate the conditions under which citizens might avail themselves of the Proprietors' grant. Cattle, swine, sheep, and horses were allowed to run at large on the Common: the swine to be "Ringd and Yoakd according to the Province Law ;" and the ears of all creatures to be slit in a pattern forming the own- er's private device, or ear-mark. Valiant indeed must have been the housewife of those days who would venture a sally through the grunting, lowing, and bleating droves, to make her morning call at neighbor Pearce's or Cushing's beyond the Common.
The bounds and extent of the lands originally granted it is hard, and perhaps impossible, to determine. Probably they comprised the space between the present sheds and a point near the southern gate of the cemetery; and between the line wall adjacent to the Town House, and the hillcrest where
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Indian Bridge
THE COMMON
the old burying ground comes to an end. The adjoining proprietors were: on the north, Daniel Lewis; on the east, Isaac Barker; on the south, Abraham Pearce, Junior; and on the west, doubtless some member of the Bonney family.
Naturally the Common became also a corners, or point of junction for neighboring highways. We can trace the ori- gin of roads and lanes now intersecting it, in the bee-lines struck by early wayfarers who held convenience their first rule of the road. Centre Street marks the direct course fol- lowed by travellers from North Pembroke bound for the Pearce homestead: the track leading from the neighborhood of the pound toward the church, is probably the earliest road. Curve Street perpetuates in our day the reverent care with which its eighteenth century authors circled about the bury- ing ground. Oldham Street is again a direct line for North Pembrokites going westward; and the track near the Soldiers' Monument, now seemingly its continuation to the Town Hall, was first a short cut taken by the Bonney and Josselyn youngsters on their way to the town's first schoolhouse.
From the Common a road led westward to the Bonney homestead ; and farther on, to the extensive Thomas estate in Tunk : another ran southerly, with a sharp turn at the house of Abraham Pearce, to Indian Bridge between Monument and Furnace Ponds. Access to the area at its northeastern corner seems to have been long a vexed question. Centre Street was closed against the herds that ranged the Com- mon, by a ponderous pair of bars; and to judge from the records, other obstructions made the path of the faithful bound for meeting a very Via Dolorosa. The new town final- ly settled the matter by laying out a public highway there, and instructing Isaac Barker, through whose land it passed, to "keep sd way Clear." Our first notice of Little's Avenue -- formerly known as Cushing Court-occurs in 1715: when the Town voted to quitclaim the land between the homestead of Daniel Lewis, now the corner of the Avenue and Oldham Street, and the land of Isaac Barker, now occupied by the house of Mr. Isaac N. Foster; "excepting a right to pass the
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
fence by a footpath over stiles." Thus was secured a public right of way from the Meeting House to the homestead of Joshua Cushing, Esq., later owned by Hon. Isaac Little.
Before 1712 a meeting-house had been erected on the Com- mon, and probably occupied the site of the present building. In January of 1716, the Town voted "that scoll be kept half a year annually in ye midle of sd town by ye meeting house Annually in ye scoolhouse." This building may have stood on the plot where the Town Hall now is. The first master was Thomas Parris. As early as 1715, land adjoining to the meeting-house on the south was used as a burying ground; but long remained undistinguished from the neigh- boring Common proper. In 1730 the Town received, by exchange with Abraham Pearce, a lot of land which first becaine part of the Common; later, most of it was included in the cemetery.
Perhaps the first structure to occupy the original Common, after the Meeting House, was a wooden pound, of unde- termined location, built for the detention of strays and other disturbers of the bovine peace. A pound of later date was moved in 1820 as far south as would bring it into line with the lands of Charles Jones and Nathaniel Smith. On its site was built, in the summer of 1824, the present incumbent; which was to be "of the same size as the old one in the Clear." Of late years, the Pound and the offices connected with its administration have not been taken too seriously : choice for the Board of Field-drivers is held equivalent to a publication of banns; and superintendence of the Pound has been a sinecure since the election of Almira Bonney to that office in 1869.
The title to the Common seems to have been early disputed. In 1720 a committee of three was chosen "to inspect ye high wayes and common Lands whether perticular person hath made any Incroachments." Apparently, the bounds and ap- plication of the grant of 1713 continued in dispute; for it is further defined and confirmed by a later Proprietors' grant bearing date 1747: "At a meeting of the proprietors of the
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The Old Stone Pound 1824
THE COMMON
common lands in the Second division of the Commons which belonged to the towns of Duxborrough and Pem- brook held in Duxborrough upon the 28th day of September Anno Domini 1747 the said proprietors chose Ma- jor Gamaliel Bradford Moderator and then Voted that the commons or proprietors' lands ad- joining to the Meeting house in the Easterly part of the town of Pembrook lying between the land of Mr. Daniel Lewis, Isaac Tubbs, Isaac Crooker and Thomas Burton which has for many years past been improved, to set a Meeting house on, Burying place, Training field, high ways, and setting a pound on, shall lay, remain, and be for the uses afore said, forever and that what pieces of Commons lands of said town of Pembrook have exchanged, to accommodate and lay the same regular, be and hereby is ratified and confirmed." It will be noticed that neither of the grants quoted names a grantee or delegates control of the premises granted. The Proprietors of 1713 undoubtedly intended that the Town of Pembroke should administer the Common. But in the course of a century after their action, there occurred a chain of events which they could not possibly have foreseen.
Until 1745, the Town in Town meeting had provided for the management of the Meeting House, and for the support of a minister. With the establishment of a west parish or precinct in 1746, local government underwent a marked change. Certain rights and charges which had before ap- plied to the Town as a single parish, henceforth concerned its eastern half only. In that year the First Precinct was separately organized, with a committee, precinct meeting, and headquarters in the Fast Meeting House. To this precinct, consisting of the inhabitants resident within its territorial limits, were transferred the duty of electing and supporting a minister ; the control of Meeting House, Burying Ground, and a large part of the Common; and the right of levying taxes to defray necessary precinct charges. Parallel with the East existed the West Precinct, having its own minister, meeting-house, and burying ground, and levying
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
its own precinct charges. When the citizens of both pre- cincts met, in a town meeting, for action on matters of com- mon interest; by the courtesy of either precinct in turn, they met in its meeting-house.
By the incorporation of Hanson in 1820, Precinct and Town became in area once more identical. But the Pre- cinct-of which all its inhabitants were, in theory, members; and as such, liable to taxation for its benefit-was, with the growth of rival churches in town, fast coming to include only those who chose to attend the First Church. All members of other religious societies were, in fact, exempt from taxa- tion for its support. One after another, various rights and charges in which the town as a whole was interested-such as the ownership of the hearse, and the duty of fencing the cemetery-were transferred from Precinct to Town: and in 1833 the Town was charged rent for use of the Meeting House. That year the Church was disestablished, and lost its right to support by public taxation. Then, if ever, was the time for a final adjustment between church and state. The Precinct-or Parish, as it soon came to be called- which had lost all reason for existing, might well have been abolished; and its kingdom divided between the Church proper and the Town. No such adjustment was ever made and recorded. Instead, matters continued much as before. The Town took what the Parish chose to give it: the Church remained an organization for spiritual purposes only, under control of its minister and deacons ; while the Parish retained the entire management of its temporal affairs, even to the election of its minister.
So the territorial parish became a religious society : deprived, indeed, of its right to support by public taxation ; but holding all property, real or personal, not expressly alienated to the Town. No transfer of any part of the Com- mon, except the Burying Ground, appears on either Town or Parish records. Accordingly, whatever title to its owner- ship the Parish had previously acquired, suffered no pre- judice by the Eleventh Amendment.
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THE COMMON
Our only positive evidence concerning the disposition of the Common in 1746, and its subsequent management until 1783, is the state of affairs revealed by the Parish records for 1783 and later years. In these, the earliest documents available, we find that on 24 March 1783 the Precinct voted that "the Committee procure Twenty Locas Trees and as they shall think proper plant them round the Meeting House at the Cost of said Precinct." From these twenty trees came doubtless the myriad of honey-locusts which now beset the lanes and fields of Pembroke Centre, perfuming all the air, and making "improvement of the Common" a motion unwel- come-one would think -- to either Parish or Town. Soon after 1800, the Precinct appointed a committee of three "to ascertain the bounds of the Common :" these gentlemen exe- ented, partially at least, the duty assigned them; obtaining from Isaac Magoun a formal cession to the Precinct of land now the western border of the cemetery, but leaving on record no further statement of their work. Having completed its investigation, the Parish granted all persons "liberty to build sheds on the Common where they should be least prejuditial to the same," and detailed a committee to fix the locations. During this period, it frequently rented both Common and Burying Ground: on 30 March 1807, the Precinct voted "to hire out that part of the common land belonging to the Precinct, Sonthward of the burying ground now fenced, to the highest bidder, for five years . . said land to begin at the end of the fence at the southeast corner of the Burying Ground to a stake standing on the high ground, then to a stake standing twenty feet east of a certain white rock." This tract continued to be rented until the year 1833; when it became, perhaps, a part of the cemetery. In 1808 the Par- ish voted that Charles Jones might improve the yard near the Pound the insuing year for nothing. On 1 April 1820 it voted "that Mr. Allen should set out trees on the common land where he pleases." In January of 1837, it granted to certain proprietors liberty to erect a new meeting-house on or near the site of the old, with all necessary rights and
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
privileges : these proprietors in 1856 surrendered to the Par- ish all their right, title, and interest in the Meeting House and lot. In 1838 the Parish chose a committee "to invite hands and superintend the leviling of the Common: around the Meeting House." In 1842 it voted "that the Parish Committee have care of the Parish land and superintend the setting out of trees around the Meeting House." In 1847 the Committee were again given charge of the Parish land, and instructed "to sell gravel if they see fit." On the fifth of January in the year 1880, it was voted "that the Parish do give their consent to the Monument Association to place a Monument on the Common." On 4 May 1890, the Parish voted "that the Grand Army have the right to improve the grounds around the monument ;" and on 8 May 1892, "that the improvement of the grounds in front of the Church be left to the Parish Committee." So much is positive; nega- tive evidence of weight is afforded by the complete silence of our town record, from 1746 until 1905, as to the manage- ment of the Common.
What was the common land mentioned in the Parish votes of 1820 and later years ? It certainly did not include the whole of the original Proprietors' appropriation. By 1807, the Burying Ground was fenced; and in 1833 expressly re- tored to the Town, which since that year has had full control of it. The land south of the Burying Ground -- probably a part of the lot which the Town acquired by exchange with Abraham Pearce-was, from 1807 till 1833, included in the common land; I have found no record of its final disposition. The public highways now Curve, Oldham, and Centre Streets, had been early laid out; and were, undoubtedly, under the direction of Town survey- ors. Although the Town built and managed the Pound, the Parish seems to have controlled the yard near it; which, perhaps, included the site of the Ladies' House. But it is probable that, by 183", the Parish had undisputed possession and management of no more land than is included within the three highways just named.
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THE COMMON
In that year a new feature was added to the Common. The ancient schoolhouse, which must have stood as much in the road as anywhere, was removed to the hollow by the south gate of the cemetery ; and on its former site was erected in the summer of 1837, with funds appropriated from the Surplus Revenue, a new town hall. Next May the Town voted "to allow Morrill Allen $3 for ten years' use of the land on which the Town House stands belonging to Gideon Thomas White." In 1858 it chose a committee "to Bargain with Asaph Bos- worth for the site on which the Town House now stands." The Hall was, in its original form, a miniature House of Commons, with rows of seats ascending on either hand, and a high, balustered rostrum at the back: it was remodelled, by votaries of Terpsichore, about the year 1875. Not long after its first completion, the Selectmen submitted the following report : "On 28 April 1845 it was voted that the Selectmen cause the Town House to be painted : by the above vote the Selectmen were required by their Pharaoh-like masters not to make bricks without straw, but a service the performance of which to most minds would seem equally impracticable- to cause the Town House to be painted without materials or the appropriation of funds for the purpose. It has been done however. "
One important step in the improvement of the Common has been omitted. About the year 1860, Rev. William Bick- nell, minister of the First Parish, planted within its limits a score or two of sturdy pine saplings. No action in this inatter is recorded on the part of either Parish or Town. It would seem that Mr. Bicknell proceeded as a volunteer, by sufferance of the legal owner. His efforts have proved fruit- ful of good-if in no other respect -- in that they have recently led to careful researches concerning the title to the Common, and the acquisition of valuable data bearing upon that point.
So much might suffice. But our harvest from the good Minister's planting is not of legal chaff only. The authors of these researches have, incidentally, given us wherewithal
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
to paint, if we will, a changing landscape whose first panel shall obscurely show the lonesome upland pasture among the savins ; whose last, the Common of our own remembrance, devoted to uses the highest and holiest, and shadowed over by its whispering pines. Let us spread their colours to our purpose, while concerning the vexed question of title causidici certant, et adhuc sub judice lis est.
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The Burying Ground at Pembroke
XIII. The Burying Ground.
They point to the graveyard close by the way, And they tell me he's been there for many a day ; That the manly heart and the blushing maid Have been long in that quiet graveyard laid.
I T' was a feeling prevalent among our ancestors, partly inborn and partly derived from much reading of their Bibles, that a high place was likewise holy. Through all the country of New England, when a new village had grown large enough to become independent of its neigh- bours, the loftiest point of land within its borders was sought out as a site for church and cemetery. So it was in Pembroke. The first settlers had been laid to rest either in the great cemetery at Duxbury or in private lots upon their own estates. About the time of the Town's incorporation, a meeting-house was erected on Highgary, the hill of Pembroke Centre; and the land for some distance around became the Common : of this, the part nearest the church on the south was taken for a burying ground.
How early the first grave was made in this plot, we have no means of knowing; many of the first stones have perished, and no doubt there were unmarked graves even earlier than these. 'The oldest date to be found among the inscriptions now extant, is that of the death of a child of Isaac Thomas, 28 August 1715: but as the mother's death also appears on the stone, with date 1723, it seems reasonable to suppose that this stone, though it represents the earliest known interment, is not the oldest monument, in the yard ; and is of later date
ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
than another which stands hard by-that of William Tubbs, who died 15 August 1718. He was a town charge, though not a pauper ; his property having been released to the Town in return for his support.
There remain but few stones of date earlier than 1740, and these are all in the northeastern corner nearest the church. About the year 1730, the Town bought from Abrahanı Pearce, Junior, a lot of several acres; which, along with a part of the Common, went to make up the present cemetery. From the original God's Acre, the ranks of stones advanced southward and westward, down the slope toward the present Grand Army Hall, and out on the hill-crest as far as the graves of the Tracies and Salmonds. During the last years of the eighteenth century, a new departure was taken; and they crossed to the hill lying beyond the glen westward, where much of the modern cemetery is situated. Before 1800 most graves were made with foot to the east, and head to the west ; with the purpose that, when on the Day of Judgment the dread trump should sound from the East, the whole company of the dead might rise from their long sleep marshalled in order due, and facing their great Lieutenant.
For more than a century after its establishment, the ceme- tery was controlled by the First Parish or Precinct of Pembroke. In the year 1807, we find the yard enclosed by a rickety wooden fence ; which seems to have required annual reinforcement against the attacks of wind, weather, and predatory cattle. In 1814 the Parish voted to procure a padlock for the gate near the Meeting House, and in 1815, "to build a pair of stairs over the board fence near the Meet- ing House so that the people may get over with more ease." Fence and stile, in 1819, made way for a stone wall, capped with timber; which extended along the northern and eastern borders, and was doubtless continued on the south and west by a wall of ruder construction. In 1820 the shrewd parish- ioners instructed their Committee to employ some person to cap with timber the wall round the Burying Ground: "who shall receive, in compensation therefor, the rent for one year
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THE BURYING GROUND
of said Burying Ground." Until 1824, it was their general practice to "wrent for keeping of sheep only" the cemetery, in consideration of an annual payment of three dollars more or less. ' In that year, and regularly thereafter, they refused to "wrent;" and Deacon White was instructed to prevent trespassers.
A notice of burial equipments occurs in 1811, when the Precinct voted "to accept the Herse and House as Parish property and raise $15 for a Paul: the Key to be left with Mr. Allen and the Herse not to go out of the Parish except by order of the Committee." In 1820 the Town was given liberty to build a place for the Town stock of powder in the hearse-house, "provided the Town demnify the Parish for any damage occurring thereby." It would seem that the Parish found charge of these matters an unwelcome burden; for in 1830, with generosity more apparent than real, it passed this remarkable resolution-which, like the proverbial scorpion, bore menace in its tail: "Voted to transfer the Herse and Herse House owned by the first Precinct in Pembroke to the Town of Pembroke, the same to be kept in good and sufficient repair by said Town forever."
Strange to say, the donation was unconditionally accepted. Encouraged by so favorable a reception of its advances, the Parish decided to try again; and on the sixth of April in 1833, voted "to see if the Town will pay to fence the Burying Ground as a common Burying Ground belonging to said Town." In response to this appeal, the Town voted just one month later "to repair and in future pay the expense of keeping in repair the fence inclosing the Cemetery near the Congregational Meeting House."
The Cemetery was little benefited by this change of masters. For nearly twenty years, the same method of management continued in vogue: half-hearted repairs were made on the enclosing fence; parts of the yard became choked with briers and bushes ; and so little reverence was done the spot that it became a public pleasure-ground, and the young men played ball there on Town Meeting Day. In 1851 a
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
better state of things was inaugurated. The Town voted in September to buy land west and south of the Cemetery; to build anew or repair its fence; "to subdue the brush and wood now growing in said Cemetery;" to set out trees of some kind round it; to dispose of certain lots for family burials ; to purchase a hearse and building: and to those purposes it appropriated an adequate sum from the Surplus Revenue Fund, in addition to the Ladies' Fair money.
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