USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Pembroke > Ancient landmarks of Pembroke > Part 8
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"Wherefore we the Subscribers, inhabitants of Said Town of Pembroke do Humbly Pray that the Said Josiah Keen may not be allowed a Seet in the Honorable House abovesaid in Consequence of Said Election. But that he may be Denied the Same, and said inhabitants 'Trewly and Propperly Rep- resented in Said Court The Present Year.
"Dated at Pembroke ye 27th Day of May A. D. 1772.
Aaron Soul
Barnebas Foord
Samll Goold
Josiah Barker
Abel Stetson
Danll Baker
Nathl Loring Jur. Joseph Bearce"
Whether the charges set forth in this petition were just or not; whether the Squire, as he strode out from old Harvard Hall that afternoon of May twenty-seventh, with Hon. John Hancock and Col. Williams, on their way to advise the Governor that the House would elect Councillors, was troubled by forebodings of the storm a brewing in the Old Colony : can never be known. The remonstrance against his action was not presented. Certain it is, however, that he lost his seat next year to John Turner, and that he never again, by fair means or foul, succeeded in carrying an election ; and that he died not very much later, 9 October 1778, in the midst of the Revolution, at the age of sixty-five years. Of his alleged confederates, the Selectmen, two-Capt. Edward
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
Thomas and Capt. Thomas Turner-failed of re-election. Thomas Turner was my ancestor ; he was also a neighbor and friend of Squire Keen's ; and may, I suppose, as well as an- other have contracted to aid him in filibustering the Meeting House.
The Squire's daughters-incidentally, perhaps, the Squire's acres-spelt in one breath delight and despair for neighbor- ing swains. Suitors were many, but few found favor. Chief among the aspirants to the elder daughter's hand appeared Elisha Turner, Mariner -- son of Israel, Esquire, her father's ancient competitor-and Tubal Cain. Tubal was Sarah's cousin; and !ike the old blacksmith, "a man of might was he:" however, the sailor's lighter graces made him a better courtier, while to paternal eyes greater still seemed the dis- parity between a yeoman's narrow prospect and the rich chances of the India trade. But with his hope of victory Tubal's love did not wane. Returning one night in company from North River-he from some errand, young Turner from a cruise-and each maintaining valiantly his prior claim upon the smiles of Sarah, the rivals came to blows. Just before they came opposite Dr. Hall's, some taunt of Tubal's fired the Turner temper: Elisha surprised him; seized him by the queue; and taking a secure turn of it about a convenient fence-post, proceeded to improve the ad- vantage. But a stouter cable was needed to hold the mighty Tubal under such indignity. Something yielded-not the fence, averreth our legend, nor yet the hand of Elisha-and Tubal wrenched clear. What happened then is not related : nor have we the subsequent history of the queue. The prize of conquest, we know, went to the sailor. Dead these many generations are he and his household; his descendants re- moved so long ago from the village that they are scarcely a name: but of his own address and valour, fond tradition still cherishes the memory, and loves to tell how that night by the dusky wayside, in the hollow below the Barker burying ground, he fought for his lady with Tubal Cain.
The marriage of Sarah Keen and Captain Turner took
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SQUIRE KEEN MANSION AND OLDHAM FARMS
place in 1781. Two years later, 28 March 1783, the home- stead was divided between them and their sister Rebecca, to whom fell the house with land adjoining. The westerly tract -- including a causeway, now the lane of Mr. LeFurgey- was held until 1801 by the Turners; then transferred to Daniel Ford of Boston and Pembroke, Mariner, whose widow long retained it; and finally, in 1810, by result of litigation, became the homestead of Benjamin Barker. Madam Sarah, the widow, died in 1784: Rebecca lived on at the old house, until in 1791 she married a "braw Scottish wooer," William Dall of Boston, Merchant, and removed thither to a stately mansion which onee stood on Washington street, some distance above Dover, surrounded by ancient trees and a tract of rich grass land extending to the water-side.
In 1795 William and Rebecca, for $1833, conveyed the homestead-now of some 67 acres only-to her half-brother Joseph Tilden of Boston, Mariner. His widow, Sarah Tilden, succeeded to the estate before 1801; and perhaps for some years made it her home. I have heard, also, that Elisha Turner occupied it during this period, and that hence was the warm affection for Pembroke always cherished by his daughter Mrs. Livingston. Sarah, his other daughter, mar- ried Col. Alexander Seammell, son of Gov. John and Lucy Brooks. Their sons, John and George, became officers in the Navy and Army, respectively; their daughter, Lucy, married Edward L. Keys in 1843.
The next owner of Squire Keen's mansion-which henceforth passes out of his family -- was Horace Collamore, Merchant of Boston, son of Capt. Enoch of Scituate: Mr. Collamore bought the estate for $1450 in 1821. Two years later, as Gentleman of Pembroke, he conveyed it to the three minor sons of his brother Gilman; whose decision to remove from Boston had precipitated a family quarrel. His wife, Maria Eliza Hoffman, never resided here. Upon his death, she speedily wedded Israel Ames of Boston, Merchant: who acted as guardian of her three sons -- Gilman, John Hoffman, and George Washington ; and in that capacity, on 24th April
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1834, transferred their estate-which, for several years just preceding, had been occupied by Mr. Elisha Barker-to their unele Dr. Anthony Collamore, agent for Josiah Barker of Charlestown. Of these youngsters, John Hoffman died a bachelor, and left his wealth to the Masons; General George perished in a well on his farm in Kansas, where his wife had concealed him from the sharp eyes of a detachment of Southern cavalry.
Josiah Barker of Charlestown, Gentleman, was the son of Ebenezer and Priscilla Barker of Pembroke, and a des- cendant from Robert Barker through Francis, Ebenezer, and Josiah. Born in 1763, in 1777 he entered on a military career which lasted throughout the war, and embraced both branches of the service, army and navy. After peace was declared, he settled at Pembroke, and applied himself to shipbuilding -- then the chief industry along North River : but in 1795 transferred his business to Charlestown, whither in 1799 he removed with his family. From about the year 1810, he held the position of Naval Constructor at the Navy Yard; and there in 1834 rebuilt the famous old frigate Constitution. This year he bought the Collamore property : which he retained until in 1843, after a service of thirty-four years at Charlestown, he was ordered to Portsmouth; and then conveyed in part, for $1400, to David Oldham, Esquire, of Pembroke-husband of his sister Deborah. Mr. Barker died 23 September 1847. His wife was Penelope, daughter of that Capt. Seth Hatch who ran the blockade of Quebec in l:is sloop Clamshell, carrying supplies to General Wolfe: neither she nor her descendants since 1843 made Pembroke their home.
Thomas Oldham was an early settler of Scituate. His son Thomas resided in Duxbury when, by a deed dated 16 April 1693, he purchased for £14 silver, through Major William Bradford, from "Jeremiah Indian of Mattakeessit in the County of Plimouth and Abigail his wife or squa only daughter and sole heir of Josias Chickatabut Indian Sachem late deceased" a traet of 100 acres on the north shore of
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The Oldham Manor: 1693. From the South
SQUIRE KEEN MANSION AND OLDHAM FARMS
Oldham or Monument Pond. The bounds were settled before James Bishop and Thomas Lambert, and the grant confirmed by a receipt from Jeremiah dated 1694. Thomas Oldham seems never to have settled on his purchase. By an instrument dated 20 June 1695 -- which was confirmed by deed in 1702-he obliged himself to give half of his land at Mattakeesett to his brother Isaac: who built that summer, it is said, a dwelling on the site of Oldham Farm; and in the late autumn married and brought thither his wife Hannah, daughter of Josiah and Hannah Keen of Duxbury, and aunt of Squire Josiah.
The Oldham grant, included just one tenth of those Thousand Acres which shrewd old Josias had always been careful to reserve expressly from his cessions of territory- notably of the Major's Purchase in 1662-about Herring Ponds; and which Abigail and her half-caste husband, Jere- miah, were now hastening to dispose of at two shillings nine pence the acre. The domain of the Massachusetts was indeed sadly shrunken since that September day in 1621 when Chikkatabak their Emperor, issuing from the fastnesses of Namassakeesett and appearing at Plymouth with Quadaquina and seven other inferior sachems, acknowledged himself the royal subject of King James. The nation then numbered some 3000 warriors; and ranged a territory which, including the Blue Hills of Milton, on its south-easterly boundary extended from Titicut, near Taunton, to Nishamagoguanett, near Duxbury mill. Chikkatabak's village was during most of the year at Neponset, but frequently also-it seems probable-at Namassakeesett, near Herring Ponds; which after him became the sole residence of the sachem's family. He perished, with many of his people, in the small-pox cpidemic of 1633; and was succeeded by Josias, his son, variously styled Wampatuck and Chickatabut. Josias had one son, Charles Josiah; to whom, not later than 1662, he gave the Thousand Acres. in joint tenure with George, styled "Wampy"-doubtless a corruption of Wampatuck. The frequency of the latter name among these Indians is
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
easily explained as a direct consequent of its literal meaning wild-goose. In 1684 Josias' flock at Namassakeesett had dwindled to forty persons; and -- as we have seen already- by 1693, he and his son were dead. His daughter Abigail and her husband Jeremiah, styled Momontaug or Mumma- togue, succeeded him : their children were Patience, called Sunny Eye, and Charles Josiah. Jeremy died before 1713. The apocryphal legend of Hobomoc has much to say of Patience' husband Wachita-the Stag-and daughter Ertil, or Wild Rose; of their untimely deaths; of a second pesti- lence ; of the flight into Tunk, and Patience' destitution : whether the persons mentioned are each and all as mythical as the haunted stump, I know not. Before the personality of good old Queen Sunny Eye, at least, scepticism stands silent. She died very aged in 1788, and her funeral was attended by the minister of the First Parish in Pembroke.
Isaac Oldham tilled his new plantation forty years, dying in 1736: his son Isaac, born 1709, succeeded to the home- stead; where he resided until his death in 1796. The pioneer's dwelling was by this time weather-worn and rickety ; his grandson David, born 1741, occupied a house which he had erected a few rods to the eastward on the other side of the road; and it remained for David Junior, born 1776, husband of Deborah Barker, to rebuild in 1804 on the ancient site.
David Oldham. Esquire, was a man of prominence in his day. That day came before the rule of rotation in office-of which, undoubtedly, the worst phase appearing in this region is a restriction of the Representative's service-had gained mnuch favor; and Squire Oldham, with his sons, enjoyed fully the freedom of their time. Eighteen years-1815-23: 1826-32 : 1834-5-he was a member of the Board of Select- inen, and generally its chairman. He acted as moderator at many Town Meetings hetween 1822 and 1838. Together with his town affairs, he handled much business as justice: he was frequently chosen to office by the First Parish; and his fine handwriting, surpassed in regularity of stroke only
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The Indian Fields
SQUIRE KEEN MANSION AND OLDHAM FARMS
by Deacon Oliver Whitten's, is conspicuous upon its books. He was associated in many legal transactions with Judge Kilborn Whitman-who was, on the other hand, a notably poor writer-and consequently, gained considerable skill in deciphering that gentleman's script. One town meeting day, Judge Whitman, acting as Moderator, had occasion to read an article of the warrant which he himself, as Chairman of the Selectinen, had drawn. The labyrinth of letters was beyond him. "Here, Oldham !" cried the Judge at last, non- plussed ; "do you read this : for upon my word, I can make nothing of it."
The Keen estate Squire Oldham purchased as a homestead for his son John Oldham the Miller, born 1809; who in 1843 married his cousin Adeline, daughter of David Mann and Rebecca Oldham, and took up his residence there. He it was who in youth, with his brother General Oldham, sowed the first seedings of pine cones in the Indian Fields. From this remnant of the Thousand Acres, a clearing which had for untold generations witnessed most of the Massachusetts' half-hearted attempts at agriculture, sprang forthwith the mighty pines whose survivors still make beautiful the eastern shore of Oldham, and whose more or less remote descendants wave and whisper above the ancient planting ground.
He loved well the sights and sounds which surrounded his boyhood-the ceaseless ripple among the reeds of the lake- shore; the reeds themselves, bending and slatting before a south-westerly gale; the crimson sun, setting cloudy behind wooded cape and islands, with maybe a flock or two of black- bonnetted wampatukh floating in the quiet water between; the honking of the geese, borne from far down lake on the crisp, chilly air of November nights, stirring the sportsman's pulses and admonishing him of Thanksgiving-all these he knew and loved, and drank in the wild beautiful old Indian legends , their counterpart-notably the ancient tale of Monument Island, of which the hero is yet another Wam- patuck-and the rude old songs, now long forgotten, whose melodies his violin knows but will not reawaken where they
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
sleep with the touch of Mr. Oldham's fingers upon the wasted strings. Stories, too, there were of witch and warlock, of Nancy Tamar and Black Pero, the wizard fiddler, his neighbor: these, too, have mostly perished. It must not be thought, however, that Mr. Oldham viewed the Pond solely from an antiquarian or aesthetic standpoint : he was an eager sportsman-who, on one occasion, stuck not at quitting his bed before cockcrow, and for want of time to don a peajacket, stalking a brace of fine geese in his night-gown; when he came to live at the Keen place, he added a Gunnery to the two already named closets existing in that mansion, whereof the larger is still known as the Nunnery, and that which is probably the older, as the Nazarite !
Among scanty fragments preserved from a rich store of Indian tradition, that pertaining to Monument Island in Oldham Pond and the legendary chief of the Massachusetts whose death it commemorates, is perhaps the most unworthy of omission. We have not for it the language of Mr. Oldham, and our loss is ill supplied by a version which- audax juventa-I wrote in rhyme from another's telling, and called :
THE LEGEND OF WAMPATUCK
Stranger, markst thou vonder island By the lake's far western shore? Famed in ancient Indian legend, Wouldst thou hear its story o'er ? Dead and gone are they that reared it, But the tale of their intent In the mind of man yet lingers- "Tis an isle of monument.
Though the ancient robe of Nature Clothes it in spontaneous green, Human hands its fabric builded Where the waters erst had been : In the tribes of Mattakeesett
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SQUIRE KEEN MANSION AND OLDHAM FARMS
Was the legend handed down; Still its echoes faintly whisper O'er their graves so lone and brown.
A council sat beside the lake, A dark and fearsome band, Each warrior in his war-paint, His war-club in his hand; And o'er each stern and sullen face A smile of savage glee Played, like the lightning's baleful gleam Upon a stormy sea.
For scarce three suns were past since they Had left their northland home About the peaceful villages Of Wampatuck to roam : They reached the lake at sunset, And through the short spring night
Prowled round the silent wigwams Till broke the morning light;
All day they hid in thickest shade Of matted brier and vine ;
In the still midnight creeping forth Beneath the sheltering pine, They rushed to their work of slaughter, And ere the rising sun Some had they slain, though more were fled, And captive held they one.
Now at the cool, fresh morning breeze Did sombre pines with summer's trees Join in a whispering melody, The sun shine bright upon the lake, Among the reeds the ripples break, The wild birds sing right merrily.
But little recked the Council If wood and lake were fair,
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
For in their hearts were hatred And anger and despair : Full in their midst stood Wampatuck ; With stern and fearless eye He scorned the threatening circle, Though pain and death were nigh.
He knew the sheltering marshes where His tribe in safety lay,
He knew the treacherous path that wound Its black and tortuous way Within their last retreat-he knew, But answer made he none; Then quoth a northland chieftain : "The death-race he shall run."
Two lines of stalwart warriors stood A living arcade from the wood Down to the open sandy shore; On their bronzed arms the sunlight glanced,
And on their war-clubs, high advanced The runner's toilsome path before.
Proudly he climbed the low green knoll, And viewed the fading morn On the blue lake and solemn woods And fields of waving corn; Then from his fields he turned him Unto the deadly race. And sped between the crashing lines Of ruthless club and mace.
Twice fifty warriors smote him Ere through the ranks he won, Yet, blind and crushed and bleeding, Natheless he stumbled on : One sure escape lay open now ; And from the hateful shore He sprang far in the foaming lake, And sank-to rise no more.
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1
"The Islands," Oldham Pond, 2953 Pembroke, Mas.
Lewis, Photo.
Monument Island
SQUIRE KEEN MANSION AND OLDHAM FARMS
The baffled foe departed safe To their far northern land,
And ere the cornfields waved again, They mourned the avenger's hand : But o'er the grave of Wampatuck His grateful tribe upreared
A rocky cairn, whose summit broad Above the lake appeared.
Year by year it rose and broadened, For each passer cast a stone, And in harvest all the village To his tribute joined its own; Till at last, heaped by the waters With their drift of soil and seeds,
Rose a green and pleasant island In its belt of sand and reeds.
Stranger, mark thou yonder island By the lake's far western shore;
Famed in ancient Indian legend, Thou hast heard its story o'er: Dead and gone are they that reared it, But the tale of their intent
In the minds of men yet lingers- 'Tis the Isle of Monument.
John Oldham followed in his father's footsteps, and was a selectman of Pembroke 1866-1869. For many years he ran the grist mill close by the Garrison: and for the rest, cultivated his farm. He died 6 July 1871, aged sixty-two years; his widow, in 1897. The daughters of Mr. Oldham occupy his fine old homestead, and them I have to thank for a great deal of interesting and valuable information about the place.
Far and-I suppose-by this time almost forgotten, are Josiah Keen the Conspirator and his traffickings. To me, he has of late been a figure very often present; since at his
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ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
ancient secretary, according to tradition, most of the work upon these Landmarks was done. It was purchased from Capt. Turner by Peter Salmond, and thus descended to my mother. Still on its summit flames the torch of sandalwood, and on the lid an ostrich grasps a writhing serpent in his beak, and in the arch above the bookshelves that angel Gabriel winds his trumpet whom Squire Josiah so resolutely defied. Let us pray the Angel make light of his rough-house; writing large his better character, and the high service which he did the Town.
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The Turner Buttonwoods 1765
XI. The Deacon Whitman Homestead.
Beautiful they were, in sooth, The old man and the fiery youth! The Master, in whose busy brain Many a ship that sailed the main Was modelled o'er and o'er again ;- The fiery youth, who was to be The heir of his dexterity.
J UST over the stream from the Judge Whitman place stands another house long connected in village tradition with the name and family of Whitman. It rises on the brow of a hill commanding the meadow of the Herring Brook; and like its fellow, is shaded by several of the rare buttonwood trees. It is singular that these, the Occidental plane-trees of which on one occasion Whittier told, abounding along our western rivers under the name of cotton- woods, sycamores, or water-beeches, are seldom cultivated in Massachusetts : and still more singular that the finest specimens in town all sheltered Whitman homesteads. The massive trunks that were Judge Whitman's pride are now scarred and broken; those on the Seth Whitman estate still "wag their high tops" against the westerly gales of autumn, and wear lightly their hundred and forty years. Family tradition tells us that they were planted by Joanna, bride of Thomas Turner, on her wedding-day in 1765.
ANCIENT LANDMARKS OF PEMBROKE
Ab Jove principium sang the ancient poet. Every institution in Pembroke seems traceable to a Barker. The lands adjoining the middle course of the Herring Brook came into possession of the Barker family about 1650. The earliest recorded owner of this homestead was Samuel-eldest son of Isaac, and grandson of the first Robert, who founded their estate. Samuel Barker married in Sandwich a girl of respectable, though humble, parentage: her social standing, however, was not such as to satisfy the high ideal of the proud old Pembroke patroon; who, after a violent family quarrel, made Pembroke and life there so unpleasant for his brother that he determined to leave this place forever, and remove to his wife's native town of Sandwich.
Such episodes were not of frequent occurrence in colonial New England. Seldom was there found a family so humble or one so wealthy and proud withal that an alliance between them caused serious trouble. It is related that Joanna of the buttonwoods had an uncle Benjamin, who instituted an exception to the rule. His father, Cornelius White of Marshfield, lived at White's Ferry, now called Humarock; and held in that region a large estate, inherited from his grandfather, Lieutenant Peregrine. Young Benjamin, like many another, thought more of good looks than of Pilgrim blood or broad acres; and proceeded to fall heels over head in love with Hannah, daughter of Robert Decrow, the village blacksmith. She is reputed to have been of Indian descent: her grandfather, Valentine Decrow --- who appears in Marsh- field about 1670-was more probably a Frenchman, and a refugee from the earlier persecutions of King Louis; her grandmother was of the family of Thomas Besbedge, Gentleman. It appears, therefore, that the only true charge against her was that she was poor. The marriage ceremony took place-how clandestinely we are not told. Cornelius, in his anger, forbade his son ever to live in that neighborhood again ; and banished him forthwith to Hanover. He cut the young fellow off, however, with a good deal more than the lawful shilling. All that a powerful yoke of oxen could
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THE DEACON WHITMAN HOMESTEAD
haul in the creaking farm cart, was carried away into exile. Up from the broad Marshfield meadows, through the hills that enclose North River on its right, the little household came; crossing that stream by the ancient bridge called Barstow's, and journeying on into Hanover by the rough track now Broadway until they reached the Hatch place in Hanmer's Hook, which Cornelius White had purchased as a homestead farm for his son. All this happened in 1743. The Whites prospered in Hanover, and their house became the nucleus of an estate nearly as large as their lost patri- mony. It was occupied until about the year 1860 by Albert White, Esquire, a descendant; and with his death passed from the family.
Another of Joanna's uncles was Cornelius, Junior-better known to the gay blades who made Plymouth tavern their rendezvous, as "Corny" White. Him Old Colony tradition holds leader or second in many an escapade. He was one, although not last, of the "also rans" outstripped by General John Winslow's famous ride across Beach Channel. His true claim to notoriety, however, rests upon an adventure all his own. Dining once of an evening at the Bunch of Grapes, with a select company who speedily drained that hostelry's mightiest punchbowl, he discovered that mine host's failure to replenish was due to a shortage of lemons; furthermore, that there was not a lemon to be had this side of Boston. Corny swore that no guest of his should thirst for lack of a lemon : pledging his friends to await his return, he mounted, and rode off at a gallop into the darkness of the northerly road. For those left behind without a lemon, the night-we may be sure- passed slowly enough. Just as day was break- ing, Cornelius drew rein before the Bunch of Grapes, a net of the precious fruit hanging at his saddlebow. He had covered since nightfall seventy-five miles. The horse died, but Corny's friends whetted their punch with lemon. Small wonder that when Captain Thomas brought home his Marsh- field bride, the eyes of orthodox Pembroke were opened, and Mistress Turner's latest became thenceforth a fruitful topic at her neighbours' supper-tables.
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