USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > Andover, Massachusetts : Proceedings at the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town, May 20, 1896 > Part 4
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1 History of Andover, p. 180.
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250TH ANNIVERSARY
It is the peculiar felicity of this two hundred and fiftieth anni- versary that, without any charge of egotism or vain boasting, we may point with pride to the beauty of our scenery ; to hill and intervale, rich, and producing wealth under the influence of intelligent agricul- ture ; to mill streams turning the wheels of profitable enterprise ; to Andover's honorable and respectable history ; to the ready response she has given to every call that state or nation has made upon her ; to her admirable public schools; to the private institutions that, founded by her own citizens, have sent her fame throughout the civilized world. And now if it be true, as an old philosopher has said, that nothing is evolved which was not first involved, if it be true that all the oaks that adorn your hill sides were contained in the acorn that first broke its shell under the influence of sun and rain, may we not claim that this full florescence of Andover that delights the eye and fills the mind today, is only the ripening and expanding product of the puritan germ ? and shall we not go one step further and claim that in all that she is, and all that she has been, Andover is the representative puritan town ?
All these are high claims, but they are made after careful perusal of the records, and in full knowledge of the facts, From beginning to end I have read the records of Andover, with a filial fondness, and in the full belief that this is a day having a sweet human interest for every descendant of the early settlers, -a day when we turn back from the noise and delights of modern progress to tread in the foot- steps of those who have gone before. Those records are in many places hard to decipher, and the subject matter rarely ceases to be commonplace and dull. Great events like the descent of Indians upon the town are not mentioned save as it was necessary to raise money for defence ; a dark shadow like witchcraft left no mark except upon the records of the selectmen, who laboriously spread out their efforts to put the five children of Samuel Wardwell with reputable families, who "were to find them with suteable food, clothing and physick " during their terms of service, and " double suite of apparell " at the end of it. But commonplace as the records are, one rises from a perusal of them with the thought that these people were serious, businesslike and direct ; that they did, and required every man to do, his citizen duty up to the full measure of his ability; that they governed themselves diligently, trying to make the burden fall equally on all who should bear it.
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ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS
Of course, in this clearing in the wilderness, at first there were no roads ; but free communication from house to house, and from the dwelling houses to the meeting house, was demanded, and accordingly it is not surprising that almost the first vote found in the records relates to repairs upon the roads : "Every male person of sixteen years and upwards shall upon three or four days warning by the survaiers attend the mending of the highwaies upon forfit of double damages for every day neglect by any person ; and soe likewise every teame ; that is every man seven shillings a day ; and every teame ten shillings a day so neglected.1"
It was essential also that the grants of land should be recorded, in order to avoid confusion of ownership, and accordingly, Edmund Fawkner 2 was chosen to enter them, and was "to be allowed twoe shil- lings of every particular man for his house lott and accomodations provided every man bring in his graunts to him within seven years." This important work was afterward undertaken by Dudley Bradstreet 3, and later 4 he was chosen again to " enter all graunts in ye great towne booke for which he is to have two pence a graunt in money, or else he is not obliged." With a view again to determine the boundaries of estates, a vote was passed 5 requiring every proprietor of lands, unfenced or lying in common, to run his bounds with his "naybor" before the last of May, marking them by trees, or heaps of stones, or holes in the ground, upon penalty of five shillings, and the same amount for each month's neglect thereafter ; and this vote was re- affirmed in January, 1676, and all returns were to be made to the selectmen before the last of May of that year, upon the penalty of five shillings for each neglect. This penalty was to be collected by the constables, and if they failed to distrain it, they were to pay the forfeit themselves. Reflecting for a moment that the constables themselves were fined five pounds if they declined to serve after being elected to their office, we see how efficient was the governmental machinery that our ancestors set in motion over themselves.
The town meeting was the centre from which radiated all the authority of the town. Here in the church or meeting house the freeholders met in committee of the whole to discuss the affairs of
1 October 17, 1661.
3 February 3, 1661. 8 January 5, 1673.
" January 1, 1677.
' January 6, 1672.
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250TH ANNIVERSARY
the town, and all government proceeded from it, clad with authority and might. Majorities always governed. By a vote of December 20, 1664, seven persons authorized by law to vote were declared to be a quorum, and their acts were to be as "authentick and valid as if the whole town were assembled." Attendance upon town meeting was to be not only encouraged, but enforced, and, accordingly, for a failure to attend any legally notified meeting, a forfeit of six pence is imposed, unless the persons in default shall "satisfie the Towne or such as they shall depute that they had just and necessary cause to be absent"; and that a citizen might not keep the letter of the law by dropping into the meeting house to escape paying his fine, it was further voted, that no citizen in attendance upon the meeting should " depart from it without leave of the Towne till the meeting be dis- solved, and soe declared by the Selectmen or the maior part of the inhabitants then assembled." By a vote passed later,1 the fine was increased to twelve pence for each day's neglect of town meeting, and as Mr. Bradstreet, Richard Barker, George Abbott, Sr., and John Johnson were not present at the meeting, they were condemned to pay six pence each to the town for the "present day's neglect." These votes no doubt had their desired result, but it may be that some petu- lant inhabitant, finding himself at town meeting and condemned to stay there until full discussion was over, took revenge by incessant talking. To check his flow of eloquence, votes were passed 2 that, " if any man shall speak in the towne meeting while anything of towne affaires is either in voting or agitation after ye moderator hath com- manded silence twice, he shall forfeit twelve pence per time, and said twelve pence shall be levied by the constable, and this order to stand good for ever." Odd as these votes sound to us today, they sufficiently attest the importance that our ancestors attached to the town-meeting, and to the performance there by every citizen of those duties that devolved upon him as a member of a self-governing community.
The subjects discussed in town meeting were as various as the numerous interests of a town that demanded protection for everything it could justly claim as its own, and that had an exalted notion of self- preservation. Accordingly there are found most careful regulations covering property in which the whole body of citizens had an interest,
1 January 18, 1664.
2 January 5 and February 2, 1673.
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with a view to give each citizen some portion of the product, or make the acquisition of it easy for him. Valuable fishing privileges in the Merrimac were granted to Capt. Bradstreet and his associates.1 These privileges were to extend up the Shawshin from its confluence with the Merrimac to the bridge, then twenty rods up the Merrimac, twenty rods down the Merrimac, then twenty rods from each of these last lines into the stream. This privilege was to last for twenty-one years, with no rental for the first ten years, and for the last eleven years they were to pay to the town ten shillings per annum. But yet the public is protected, for they are to sell "base " at 5d per piece provided those that buy, buy two at one time, and, that the highest equity may be preserved, and the interest of the buyer and seller alike may be protected, the party buying is to choose one, and the party selling to choose the other.2 And in 16963 liberty is given other citizens to build a fish "ware" in the Merrimac, "opposite Major Bradstreet his ground," and these grantees were also to sell to "ye inhabitants shad, att any price, not exceeding twelve pence ye score, and ye inhabitants of the town to be supplied before strangers." The nimble alewife coursing up the brooks to Haggett's (then Blanchard's), or Cochichawick, to lay his spawn, was the subject of an almost yearly vote ; under a penalty of five pounds none of the fish were to be caught except for consumption in the taker's family ; 4 the fish courses are to be kept open, and finally it is enacted that the fish may be caught only at certain definite places and upon certain fixed days of the week.
And so the cedar that grew about the pond, useful alike for rails and timber, was guarded with a view to its preservation. No man was to be allowed to cut it down in order to sell it out of town, with- out the authority of the selectmen ; 5 here the forfeit was ten shillings per tree ; but where trees had fallen down, any citizen might go into
1 February 2, 1680.
1 " Ye partie buying to choose one, ye partie selling to chose another, and if ye partie buying chose rather to pay 3d per piece for base in money ye owners of sd priviledge shall not refuse ye same provided as abovesd they buy 2 at a time each."
8 May 4.
4 March 7, 1686. Voted and passed that noe fish called alewives shall be stopped by any person whatsoever in their going up into ye pond, but what shall be caught att ye mill in their passage except for eating in their families upon ye forfeiture of five pounds and sd person to be suable that shall soe doe by any that finds themselves agrieved."
6 January 6, 1672.
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the common or swamp and cut shingles out of the fallen trees, and even sell them out of town, provided he paid eighteen pence for every thousand that he sold out of town. This was a vote of 1672, but after January 1, 1675,1 none were to be taken out of town upon a penalty of twenty shillings for every thousand shingles. In 1677 the old vote was restored, but still no tree was to be felled for shingles, only such trees as had fallen down might be used. So eagerly was this valuable growth protected, and we are not surprised to find that when Joshua Woodman, a new freeholder, wanted enough shingles to cover his house, he was allowed not exceeding seven thousand "which is to be old shift and short shingles ;" 2 and it seems quite natural that the selectmen should be ordered 3 to prosecute Thomas Fuller at the next term at Salem or Ipswich, for cutting down a great many cedar trees on the bounds of Andover contrary to the town's order and without their knowledge.
The town in its early days presented an admirable example of that species of policy known in political economy as the Mercantile System, a system whose cardinal doctrine was that acquisition only is wealth. This economic principle was well established in many European countries at the time our ancestors settled here, but greater experience in commerce, and a less selfish view of trade, have left nothing of this system. Yet to the settlers of a little New England village, to which nothing ever came except by the efforts of its citizens, a community that was weak in everything but its desire to help itself, this system was needed even for its preservation, and the utmost economy was necessarily practised over all its slender re- sources. It was out of the stern necessities of their situation and the very isolation of their position that grew their encouragement of the tanning industry,4 the grist mill,5 the saw mill, the fulling mill,6
1 February 1, 1674.
2 March 11, 1678.
8 " Ye fift day of March 1676/7."
4 February 1, 1675.
6 January 18, 1664.
6 March 6th, 1681-2 : " Granted libertie to any man in ye towne to sett up a saw mill ffulling mill & grist mill upon Shawshin River near Rogers Brooke to take up twentie acres of Land adjoining to ye sd place and to enjoy ye same for ever with ye privileges of a townsman," and a committee of five is appointed "to act in this affair to make articles with such person or persons as they shall judge fitt and their sd act to be binding to ye towne."
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ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS
and even the iron mill.1 But after all their hardy industry triumphed, and later we get evidence perhaps that the town, outgrowing its home market, was reaching out its hands for a larger field of effort. In 16972 sufficient timber was voted to Major March of Newbury to build two vessels of not exceeding fifty tons apiece, provided he build the same in Andover. But shortly after this, March was called into the Indian War, and the plan slumbered until 1710,3 when it was again voted in terms less confident than before, that "Col. March should have liberty of trying the experiment of building a sloop in some con- venient place for launching into Merrimake Rivers," and if he did not find sufficient lumber already felled, he was to have the liberty of " cutting half a dozen sticks for some choise use for the vessell." For some reason which does not appear, March did not complete his sloop, for in 17124 liberty is granted to John Aslebe to cut "what timber is necessary for the Building of a vessell of about forty tons." But here the record of Andover as a ship building town closes ; no further men- tion is made of the sloop, whether she was finished or launched, or of her name or fate. Of what use she could have been, except perhaps as a hay or ferry boat to cross the Merrimac, is not apparent now, for a sloop of such size could never pass Mitchell's Falls, and would have been equally useless in crossing the rapids where the Lawrence dam has since been built.
There was nothing too minute to escape the directing care of the citizens or of the selectmen, their chosen representatives. A new cemetery is called for by the citizens living on the west side of Shaw- shin; one acre of land is granted them for that purpose, provided they "fence it handsomely against swine and other creatures " within a year from the date of the vote.5 The funeral cloth is becoming old and rusty, and accordingly it was voted and passed6 " that a handsome
1 Voted and passed that ye towne will allowe such incouragement both of wood land & mine towards ye setting up of iron works as may be most convenient for ye same & least prejudiciall to ye towne & not to damnify ye mill upon Shawshin River, provided ye owners agree with ye Committee according to ye towne order, ye saw mill in sd order excepted."
And January 19, 1697, it it is voted that " any mine yt may be found upon ye common shall be free for any man to digg & carry to sd works."
* January 19, 1696.
3 March 5, 1710.
4 January 12, 1712.
' February 6, 1892.
6 May 24, 1703.
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piece of Black Broad cloath be bought for a funerall cloath for the towne use." The grass in the burying ground in the North Parish is profitable for hay or pasture, and John Abbot, who gets forty shillings a year as janitor of the meeting-house, pays five pence per annum for the use of the burying place "for feeding with sheep and calves," but he is not to suffer any other creature to come into it, and he is to keep up the fence.1 Mrs. Carrier and her children are smitten " with that con- tagious disease the small pox," and, as some person was so inconsider- ate as to suggest that the care of them belonged to the town, the select- men, with great dignity, write a letter to the family of the Carriers commending them to the gentle care of their relatives, and absolving themselves from any responsibility for their presence in the town, because the selectmen had warned them out on their arrival into town. But at the same time the selectmen laid strict charge upon Walter Wright, the constable, not to allow the patients to come out of their houses to the public meeting, or elsewhere, and "what they want, let them acquaint you with, which provide for them out of their estates." 2
This was a self-contained and self-governing community, and therefore, as might be expected, there are found from time to time, records of votes in town meeting, by which new freeholders are admitted to citizenship, and the terms are always prescribed 3. In this way the stamina of the organization was maintained of those " choise " citizens that Woodbridge had in mind when he wrote to Gov. Winthrop. But if the community had a right to choose freeholders, it would equally be entitled to expel any persons who were likely to be a charge upon the town. Hence the vote warning out Mrs. Car- rier and her brood, and later the constable was ordered to warn three men and their families, "least they prove a futer charge to the Towne." 4
The government established by our ancestors had many theo- cratic elements ; as a government of towns, it was by freeholders, that is, owners of lands and houses in their own right, for a church ;
1 October 28, 1689.
1 October 14, 1690.
3 January 4, 1674. “ Graunted to Francis Faulkner ye privilege of townesman, up- on ye amount of ye land he now enjoys he paying for ye same as others doe, that is ten shillings for twenty acres."
4 January 30, 1719.
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the church, as we have seen, was the central meeting house for pur- poses alike of government and of religious instruction and edification ; its site was always the geographical centre of the community that gathered it, and, like the sun, it was the source of light and all higher enkindling influences. Hence the authority that surrounded the preacher, and hence his position in the puritan community, a position at once dignified and esteemed with the highest reverence. Andover formed no exception in these matters to the regular puritan method, and it is not surprising therefore, that many of the early votes of the town relate to the support of the clergyman and the maintenance of his official dignity in their midst. Hence it is that, as early as 1661,1 a vote is found defining to Mr. Dane his rights and privileges, and confirming to him his grants of land : and when later some dispute had arisen about the rates to be paid by new settlers, probably toward the minister's support, it was voted 2 that this rate was to be ten shillings for every householder, "the one half in wheat, ye other half in indian corne," and, as the tendency to get out of public obligations lightly was as well understood then as now, it was felt necessary to add that both should be " merchantable and at the usuall prise it goeth in towne from man to man." An hundred acres of land were held by trustees for the minister's benefit,3 and it was doubtless from this that Mr. Woodbridge and his successor, Mr. Francis Dane, got their supply of wood ; but afterward this was changed, and the minister got wood, or expected it, by direct contribution from the citizens, each man providing wood in proportion to the amount he paid toward the min- ister's rates.4 But here too human weakness had its way, and in 1690 so many of the good folks were delinquent, it was voted 5 that the selectmen [be authorized to] issue their warrants to the constables to " distreine upon each deliquent after ye rate of three shillings p load & provide sd wood themselves out of sd fines, ye remainder to be to ye
1 February 17.
2 January 1, 1676.
8 1668.
4 January 3, 1686. " Voted that Mr. Barnard's wood shall be payd in long wood & to be proportioned as the towne shall afterwards agree." "Voted and passed that ye Select- men for this year shall be a committee for this year for ye proportioning of each man's share of wood to be payd to Mr. Barnard according to every man's rate for this year which they are forthwith to doe & to signifie to ye inhabitants."
6 January 5, 1690.
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use of ye towne." In 1693 it was necessary to reaffirm this vote, and as Mr. Barnard after that still suffered from the delinquency of his parishioners, a vote was finally passed 1 by which he was paid eight pounds in consideration of his supply of wood, and the burning ques- tion was settled.
Scarcely less important than the support of the minister was the matter of seating the people in the church. Our ancestors had brought over from England strict ideas of social precedence, and, though they started here on the same dull level of privation and hard- ship, their attention to this inferior detail was scarcely less devoted than that paid to the doctrines of the teacher ; votes were constantly passed, appointing committees to attend to this duty, and as constantly heart burnings and jealousies arose out of their decisions. Yet from their final word there was no appeal, and "if any person, either male or female, shall sitt in any other place in ye meeting house than where they are appointed by ye aforsd Committee they shall forfeit for every such offence to ye use of ye towne 20 sh to be forthwith gath- ered by ye constables by order frö sd Committee and if the constable faileth to doe as aforesd, to pay sd sum himself." 2 There is a clear and determined tone about this vote, as if the matter were one of tremendous importance, and one about which there was and could be no equivocation. The work on this committee was odious to all affected by it, and no wonder that blunt Dudley Bradstreet refused to dis- charge the irksome task, protesting "against haveing anything to do with it." 3
This was a social concern ; it related merely to one of the pro- prieties within the sacred precincts ; but alongside of it were grave matters of discipline that also received the attention of the citizens. The young persons up there in the upper gallery of the meeting house, the gallery that in summer was hot and stifling and in winter was too cold for endurance, would naturally, under the influence of the long exercises and the uncushioned seats, fall into a state of impatience, not to say of physical pain, that could be repressed only with great difficulty. Hence the necessity of the tything men to keep them in
1 March 12, 1704.
2 February 2, 1680.
8 March 5, 1693.
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order. Coming into being in our early annals, these picturesque 1 officials continued their useful function down to the year 1841, when for the first time there ceases to be a mention of them in the records of the town meeting. Their general duty was "to have inspection over the boys in the gallcries on the Sabbath, that they might be con- tained in order in time of publick exercise ;" and later their juris- diction was extended to the hour between the services. When these boys came rushing out of their gallery at the expiration of the forenoon service, many a devout worshiper, I am afraid, might well have applied to himself Milton's description of the hell hounds in Paradise Lost, as they,
" bursting forth, Afresh with conscious terrors vex me round, That rest or intermission none I find. " 2
All this " prophaneness of yc Sabbath tended to ye great dis- honour of God, scandall of religion, and ye grief of many serious christians," and the tything men and constables are ordered 3 to " take care to pvent such great and shameful miscarriages which are soe much observed and complained of." But the trouble continued with- out abatement apparently, for March 16, 1696, more strenuous orders are passed by the selectmen requiring the tything men to report in writing to the minister the names of all offenders ; it was the minis- ter's duty to give them fair warning for their first offence, and if after this admonition they are again detected, the officers are to turn them over to the next justice of the peace " that they may be punished for such crimes as the law directs." Twenty-four tything men were appointed by this order of March 16, 1696, two of whom were to act in the galleries each month. The tything man's duty was uncongenial, and there is one record of a refusal to serve. Joseph Stevens had
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