USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Pembroke > Ancient landmarks of Pembroke > Part 3
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Allen Farm
ALLEN FARM
After Mr. Allen ended his labors as minister, he was twice clected a member of the Massachusetts Senate. During his ministry, he had purposely avoided politics, had never even attended a town meeting; and this election came as au unlooked-for honor. Among other questions agitated at this period, was that which relates to the right and duty of a government to provide for the support of religion by law. Mr. Allen believed in this duty. He feared that the repeal of a law requiring people to pay for preaching, would increase the discouragements of the ministry so much that young men of learning and ambition would turn from it. He thought that the minister's support, always precarious, would become still more so; and that the minister himself, depending for a living on the contributions of a few rich men, would be led to pass over vices which, under a different condition, would have met a needed rebuke. The voluntary system was adopted, however; and as Mr. Allen foresaw, the working of it has proved disastrous indeed, though not fatal, to the existence of religious societies.
Mr. Allen continued as minister during the space of forty years. In this period, he thrice represented the town at General Court, was long chairman of the school committee; and thereafter, was moderator at town meeting nearly every year from 1840 till 1860, and treasurer, 1849-1852. In a sermon preached to commemorate his birthday, he has left us the best extant account dealing with the early history of Pembroke church, and the lives of his predecessors. Long after he became a private parishioner, he continued at inter- vals to exercise the office of minister: he preached on several occasions when over ninety; and to the last, officiated frequently at marriages or funerals. Yet he never had a difficulty with any of the four ministers who in turn succeeded him; and his apostolic appearance in church seemed to make the place more holy, and inspired the minister with a feeling that he spoke in presence of a patriarch.
He died-mourned by a whole community, whose love and respect he held through life-17 August, 1870, at the great age of ninety-four years.
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
Early in Mr. Allen's time of residence at Pembroke, he had erected a substantial house just across the road from his former dwelling; which stood as late as 1840. The new house, with the farm adjoining, remained in the Allen family for some years. It was the home of Hannah, daughter of Mr. Allen, and widow of Captain King, until her death in 1884. Long thereafter owned by her brother William Paley Allen, it was occupied, till the close of the last century, by Mr. Theophilus Appleford, now of Norwell; who cultivated extensively the fine old farm, enriched by the labors of Mr. Allen. Meantime, the place had come into the hands of Mr. Edwin Lewis of Taunton, a native of England. Mr. Lewis- himself an expert worthy to succeed the planter of Dancing Hill-was just on the point of removing to Pembroke, when his busy life was cut short by death. He had made Allen Farm the nucleus of a large estate, including the Salmond and Hiclyn houses, which was kept intact by his heirs.
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The Third North River Bridge 1829 - 1904
IV. The Little Estate.
Up and down the village streets Strange are the forms my fancy meets. The ancient worthies I see again: I hear the tap of the elder's cane, And his awful periwig I see, And the silver buckles of shoe and knee. Stately and slow, with thoughtful air, His black cap hiding his whitened hair, Walks the Judge of the great Assize, Samuel Sewall, the good and wise.
A COUNTRY crossroads lies drowsing under the westerly sun; which, though already well past meridian, still draws its haze of steamy vapour from an adjacent clearing, and in the highways, glints brightly on grassblades just shooting from the rich mould between horsepath and ruts. The year is the twelfth of good Queen Anne, of grace 1713; the day, a Saturday in early springtime, or-more exactly-March the twenty-eighth, and rather warm for the season; the hour, three o'clock afternoon: the place, Hanover Four Corners, when Hanover is still western Scituate, and the road which, by its intersection with the famous Boston turnpike, produces the Corners, a simple country lane. The wayside elm is unplanted, and mine host has yet to hang from its branches his swinging sign : but the ancient place is already these sixty years a rendezvous for travellers; three of whom
ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
now issue from Barstow's Ordinary a few rods down northern Broadway, and mounting, take at leisure the easterly road.
The central rider is one to draw and hold the attention of even a chance observer. If justice there be any in an inference from the figure, this man has already well rounded out the span of middle age: dress and bearing alike proclaim that his sixty years have invested their owner with a corre- sponding weight of authority among his countrymen. He bestrides a mount which, like its master, betrays not so much the fleetness of the clipper as the slow and steady qualities of a transport or ship-of-the-line; and is withal so broad of beam that, as the undergrowth abruptly closes in, the second com- panion must needs fall a length behind, leaving his fellow to keep pace, and lend a respectful ear to the solemn garrulity of the distinguished personage. Mark hin well, fellow wayfarer : watch with me a twelvemonth together, and you shall not behold, upon this highway of the councillors, deputies, justices, and governors of two colonies, his equal in dignity and consequence; for here is none other than Judge Samuel Sewall of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, with Corwin and Lynde his associates, now well advanced upon his annual journey to the April session of his court at Plymouth.
The Judge is out of earshot; and as we follow his leisurely progress toward North River Bridge, we can but guess that the theme of his discourse is a recollection of former journeys, taken over the Plymouth highway when the union of 1692 was yet fresh in men's memories, and the Court administered justice in William and Mary's name. Hear what he said of these on another occasion :--
"7 March 1698: 2nd day. Set out for Plimouth about ten of the Morning. Get to Barker's and lodge there. Majr. and Gen. set out about Noon and came to us at Barker's in the night." And of the return : "It rained, but got to Barker's that night. My horse floundered in a bank of snow and threw me off but had no hurt. Laus Deo.
"26 March 1705. Set out from Weymouth for Barker's: a souldier from Deerfield accompanied us with his Fusee. At
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THE LITTLE ESTATE
Barker's the Sheriff met us and Major Walley and Mr. Leverett came up. So went cheerfully along and got to Sheriff's house in good season, where we were entertained."
The bridge by which the Judge and his party crossed over North River, was the second to span that stream at the place. Passengers between Plymouth and Boston had early found tedious the long detour in which the Indian path from Patuxet-now Plymouth -- to Neponset, known as the Bay Path, circled about its headwaters; and abandoning the old thoroughfare either at the Garrison or-more probably-at Brimstone Corner, had established a more direct route, passing the River by ford, or perhaps by ferry, at Stony Reach, and rejoining the Path somewhere within the limits of what is now Hanover. The point of crossing was well taken; Stony Reach is one of the few places at which North River, breaking through a range of lofty hills, contracts its elsewhere wide spreading valley, and admits approach through something less than a quarter mile of marshy swamp and meadow: these facts the Colony Court did not fail to recognize when, in October of 1656, it authorized William Barstow "to build a Bridge above the third herring brook at stoney reache, being the place where now passengers goe frequently over; the said Bridge to bee made sufficient for horse and foot." Here, the Court in 1682 ordered built a cart bridge; which was erected, probably, without a change of site. This was abandoned and destroyed in 1829, when it was replaced by the third North River Bridge -- of which in 1853 the historian of Hanover could say, "It is a substantial structure, and promises to last for many generations." The ancient piers, built of loose stones, are yet visible, jutting out into the stream some fifty feet above the present arch, and affording its base no little protection ; as, after the lapse of more than two centuries, they still buffet stoutly the unremitting current of a stream which-Dr. Howes to the contrary notwithstanding-is not always the phlegmatic "Nort Riffer" of his poem.
So the Judge went over the River; and-I doubt not-as he went, told his experience of the year preceding, recorded
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
thus in his diary: "24 March 1712: 2nd day. Over Besby's Ferry Horse and man the North River Bridge being down. * * 28 March 1712: 6th day. Came homeward. Rain'd hard quickly after setting out, went by Mattakeese Meetinghouse and forded over the North-River. My Horse stumbled, in the considerable body of water, but I made a shift, by GOD'S Help to sit him, and he recover'd and car- ried me out.
Rain'd very hard that went into a Barn
awhile." Besby's Ferry-so called in deference to its former proprietor, Elisha Bisbee, grandfather of Esquire Elisha -spanned North River at the point where Union Bridge now stands.
The way which led Judge Sewall past Mattakeesett Meeting House -- which, when he saw it, had been Pembroke Meeting House just one week-was the Bay Path itself, winding up the slopes of Highgary, skirting the western border of the Great Cedar Swamp, and approaching Indian Head River along the route now taken by West Elm Street: and the ford which so nearly brought his steed to grief, was the same through which, eighty years before, John Ludden had carried Governor Winthrop on his journey to Plymouth in 1632.
But the afternoon is waning : we must pause for no more longwinded digressions, and hasten after the Judge, over Quaker Meeting House Hill-which, had he known to what use it must one day be devoted, he would doubtless have avoided though the act involved his passing the "parlous Ford" a score of times-past the houses of Thomas, Francis, and Robert Barker ; past Robert's sawmill at Pudding Brook, built in 1693 on the beaver dam which still projects into the stream above West's factory; and so on to Namassakeesett, the Herring Brook with its sawmill erected shortly before 1682 by Charles Stockbridge as agent for the Barkers, the Garrison, and the Massachusetts Path. Entering the Path, our party unexpectedly swerve to the right; and leaving Barker's behind them, pass from it into the lane now Allen Street-not until 1715 a public way-through a massive oaken pair of bars, evidently left open in anticipation of
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The Barker Mill
THE LITTLE ESTATE
their coming. The sun is just sinking behind the pines which stand over against Dancing Hill, as they cross the valley, climb the opposite slope, and turning the corner of an apple orchard, draw rein before the low, substantial dwelling which in his diary the Judge sets down as "Capt. Joshua Cushing's : Pembrook."
Joshua Cushing, Esquire, was born at Scituate in the year 1670, son of John and Sarah Cushing, and grandson of Matthew the Planter. He received an education which en- abled him to fill with credit, during later life, the honorable post of a justice, but which did not save him from diversifying our town records with strange phrases, like "One scoar Blew Birds," and his oft recurring "Apeirll." He had already removed from Scituate to Marshfield when, in January of 1710, he bought for £1000 from Robert Barker of Duxbury, Blacksmith, the latter's "farm or messuage at Mattakeesett, bounded on Samuel Barker and the Lane." The residents of Mattakeesett, as citizens of the Town of Pembroke, hon- oured their new neighbor by choosing him a captain, and- with Francis Barker and Joseph Stockbridge as colleagues- a member of its first board of selectmen.
At sunset on Saturday evening begins the Puritan Sab- bath. Of his entertainment during this period by the Cush- ings, Judge Sewall saw fit to say only, "Mr. Daniel Lewis, their Minister, preaches twice." We may picture, each to himself, those solemn functions. Promptly at stroke of the drum, rolling sonorously out over Highgary, and dying away in the valleys and distant woods below. would issue in state from his front door the Captain, with Madam Cushing and the three justices their guests; and proceeding decorously southward along the hillcrest past the minister's new house -built in 1713 on the west side of the Avenue near its junc- tion with Oldham Street-and so up the Common to the primitive Meeting House. take place in the family pew, there to sit silent in meditation until the deacons, Joseph Stock- bridge and Joseph Ford, rise from their seats beneath the high pulpit, and open service with the Old Hundredth, duly
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
"deaconing" every line. The details of the service we cannot come at by guessing; and the Judge though he often re- corded at length such matters -- has not thought it worth his while to set them down. Perhaps the young minister, then only three months settled and just turned twenty-seven, was abashed by the majesty of his congregation, and delivered a halting message. Perhaps, giving rein for once to the genial impulses which-we know -- governed his conduct as a man and a neighbour, he failed to paint in sufficiently lurid colours the future woes and torments of the non-elect. Few men can speak interestingly to any audience upon any topic for two hours without ceasing: and even the most devout members of Mr. Lewis's flock must have sighed in relief when at last the long sermon ended, the pitch-pipe sounded, and the deacons rose to lead them in chanting, as a final Te Deum, the rugged but noble lines of the eighteenth Psalm done into English verse by the Puritan poet, and blackprinted beneath a staff of rough-hewn, angular, unruly notes in the time-honoured. Puritan hymnbook of Sternhold and Hopkins :
"The Lord descended from above And bowed the Heavens most high, And underneath His feet He cast The darkness of the sky.
"On Cherubs and on Cherubim Full royally He rode, And on the wings of mighty Winds Came flying all abroad."
Travel and neighborhood calls were taboo on the Sabbath -- two lengthy religious services leaving small space for the amenities of life; and after sundown, we may be sure, the Judge preferred talking home and foreign politics, flavoured with stout old cider from the Cushing orchard, to the un- certain quantities of an evening stroll. There existed in Pembroke at that period, however, a community which he earnestly desired to visit-the broken remnant of the once powerful Massachusetts nation, now living under nominal
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Brimstone Corner : the Tavern and the Bay Path
THE LITTLE ESTATE
control of their hereditary princess in the vicinity of Herring Ponds. Accordingly, before setting out for Plymouth next morning, Judge Sewall-in his own words-"Visited Abigail, Momontaug's widow, at Mattakeese, a pleasant situation by the great Ponds." This Abigail was daughter to Josias, called Wampatuck, sachem of the Massachusetts; and mother, by Jeremiah, of that Patience who later became, as Queen Sunny Eye, the central figure in Mrs. Hersey's wealth of Indian myth and legend: her father and husband were now dead; and she, with her daughter, dwelt probably on a point of land projecting into Furnace Pond near Mr. Charles Drake's, the traditionary camping ground at Namassakeesett of the Massachusetts' kings. Hence the Judge and his companions departed, that spring morning of two centuries ago; brimful, no doubt, of the weird ancient stories which we used to hear-it seems but yesterday-fronı Mrs. Hersey in the gloaming of her rich, old-fashioned sit- ting room : and as they vanish down a narrow, winding trail among the pines, to rejoin at a point some distance south of Barker's the Massachusetts Path, let us bid them Godspeed upon their journey, and ourselves return to a province widely straved from-although, as you shall see, in itself suf- ficiently extensive-the Little estate.
Of the house which Joshua Cushing bought from Robert Barker, not much is known. It stood on, or very near, the site of the present dwelling; and in front of it, an apple orchard flourished, at least as early as 1712. Its owner was prominent in town affairs from the incorporation until his removal to Kingston in 1725. As town clerk 1714-1715, he opened the first extant volume of Pembroke's town meet- ing records ; transcribing into a book which he obtained for the purpose, memoranda jotted down on many loose sheets by Francis Barker and Thomas Parris his predecessors. He represented Pembroke at General Court during 1716 and 1723. He died 26 May, 1750, probably in Kingston, at the home of his son; but was buried in the cemetery at Pembroke, where his gravestone may still be seen. Years
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
before his death-in September of 1725-he sold his Pem- broke estate of seventy-five acres, for £800 in bills of credit, to his future son-in-law, Isaac Little of Marshfield.
The Honourable Isaac Little, Esquire -- as his gravestone styles him-was born at Marshfield in 1678, son of Isaac and Bethia Little, and grandson of Thomas, Esquire, the ancestor, whose wife was Ann Warren, daughter of the May- flower Pilgrim. He was already a widower of nearly fifty, with three children-Otis, Nathaniel, and Mary, who in 1726 married John Winslow. later General John ; when, during the spring or summer of that year, he became a citizen of Pem- broke. Two circumstances were, doubtless, chief among the causes of his removal. His sister Bethia had in 1711 come to live on what I have called the Anthony Collamore estate, as the wife of Thomas Barker. Mr. Little himself had, so early as 1708, acquired a large interest in the furnace at Furnace Pond. A tract of twenty acres at the outlet of this pond was obtained in 1702 by Lambert Despard from the Indian sachem or prince-consort Jeremiah-through a treacherous fraud, said Capt. Simeon Chandler, which has caused a curse to rest ever since upon the property, depriving the owner of all advantage from it, and slowly but surely blighting him and working his ruin. With funds contributed by the Barkers, and Michael Wanton of Scituate, Despard at once proceeded to establish a furnace on this site: the share of Samuel Barker-whose quarrel with his family thus adds another chapter to these Landmarks-was purchased by Mr. Little. Here, in 1722, he cast the famous iron fireback which could, not so very long ago, be seen in the Brook room of the Old Garrison.
Two hundred years have little changed-have left even more completely retired and solitary-the ancient Furnace close. It lies at the head of a deep cove or bayou which makes out from the Furnace pond, winding far inland, and dividing, by a channel not so wide as steeply sunken, the lofty easterly shore. Wild hills surround it, their slopes shaggy with scrub-oaks, and crowned by towering pines.
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THE LITTLE ESTATE
The summer sun streams broadly through their branches on thickstrown needles; and in open glades of the oak forest, calls up tufts of hardy woodsgrass from a soil of coarse gravel and decaying boughs. Over these sunlit hills curves the Furnace way from Hobomoc; then dipping abruptly into a dusky glen, follows awhile the brook of Namassakeesett; and ends at last beside a hollow oak that overhangs the channel. Only a slight depression of the earth, running parallel with its course, remains to tell us that we stand by the millrace, and that yonder flowed the ancient stream. Under foot, the ground shows a stain of iron; and like the brookbed, abounds with slag and ore. Opposite rises the ruined foundation of the furnace structure; off at our right, the pond gleams through the trees ; and on every side, unbroken save by rip- pling water closes around us-as in the poet's vision-
"The forest's shadowy hush,
Where spectres walk in sunless day,
And in dark pool and branch and bush
The treacherous will-o'-the-wisp lights play."
The great oak binds a spell over its neighbourhood-a strong, living link uniting then and now. Indian fisher, forgeman of the colonial time, hunter, trapper, tourist-it has seen them all. Shielding watchers of the Indian weir it grew to maturity. Beneath its branches, French gold dazzled the Half-king that September day of 1701. The sooty furnaceman, stifling in summer heat, was grateful for its shade, and spared it from the fate which overtook its fellows. Back to its shelter, when the busy din ceased, and the forge lay cold forever, came the ancient queen of the Massachu- setts, to take by sufferance the alewives that in the old prosperous days of Indian ascendency had been hers by prerogative, or crouching beside its gnarled roots, to brood upon that lost ascendency, and lament the passing of her tribe. So ages and races speed. Six score years hath Sunny Eye been gathered to her fathers; but the old oak lives on, to successive generations a majestic reminder of the finality of Nature, and the briefness, not the vanity, of human things.
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
Like the former owner of his homestead, Isaac Little was much in public office. Throughout his political career in this town, he ran neck and neck with his neighbor Daniel Lewis, Esquire, and won from him the palm of an election to General Court nine times: 1735; 1739-1743; 1747- 1749. He is said to have been nothing if not litigious; furnace, houses, land, slaves, cattle-all were but means to one delightful end, the court at Plymouth : he and his neigh- bour Isaac Barker were forever in a lawsuit, and loved each other the better therefor. In January of 1741, we find him prosecuting through the General Court-of which he was then a member-Sarah, wife of Nicholas Sever, Esquire, of Kingston, widow and administratrix of his brother Charles.
Isaac Little married in: 1732 Abigail, widow of Isaac Thomas, Gentleman, and daughter of Joshua Cushing. His children by this marriage were: Isaac, born 1738; Mercy, born 1741, who died unmarried in 1779; and Lemuel. He died 2 February, 1758, at the age of eighty.
A very partial idea of the extent of Mr. Little's holdings in real and personal property, may be had from his will, dated 15 August, 1751, an ancient draft of which is still in the possession of his descendant Mr. Samuel Little of Pem- broke. To his wife and the six children he devises and bequeaths five slaves-not to speak of other personal property -"Aesop my manservant, my negro woman Relah, my negro boy Saul, my negro girl Rose, and my negro woman Dinah ;" two farms besides the homestead; meadow, woodland, salt marsh, and cedar swamp in the Old Colony ; lands in Dart- mouth and North Yarmouth ; and several large uncultivated tracts in Maine, including two islands of 300 acres and three acres respectively. The acreage of two farms, and of the land in Dartmouth, he does not estimate: the remaining tracts amount to 9831 acres. Certainly the whole estate devised by the Will must have exceeded ten thousand acres, or nearly sixteen square miles-the area of a goodsized township: and to the sons Otis and Nathaniel, he had already given "very considerable."
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PL BEIG
The Little Estate
THE LITTLE ESTATE
A codicil, dated 21 January 1758, is not without interest : "Whereas since my will one negro girl has died, named Dinah, that I gave to my daughter Marcy; as to the said Dinah deceased, there is another girl since born of my negro woman named Rose, another Dinah, which I give to my daughter Mercy in lieu of the other Dinah deceased." Nothing could show better than this one allusion, that the citizens of Pembroke were once quite as fully committed to the practice of negro slavery as were ever their brethren of the South : another document may be cited to prove that they were vigorous in leading the turn of the tide. In 1773 the negroes of Massachusetts caught the liberty fever, and pre- sented a petition to have their fetters knocked off. On 17 May, 1773, the inhabitants of Pembroke addressed a respectfully suggestive letter to their representative, John Turner, Esquire ; which may be read at length in the Boston Gazette of 14 June 1773: "We think the negro petition reasonable, agreeable to natural justice and the precepts of the Gospel; and therefore advise that, in concurrence with the other worthy members of the Assembly, you find a way in which they may be freed from slavery, without a wrong to their present masters, or injury to themselves,-to the end that a total abolition of slavery may, in due time, take place. Then, we trust, we may with humble confidence look to the Great Arbiter of Heaven and earth, expecting that he will, in his own due time, look upon our affliction, and in the way of his Providence, deliver us from the insults, the grievances, and the impositions we so justly complain of." Pembroke in this resolve took the initiative step, it is said, toward the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts.
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