USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Braintree > Brief history of the town of Braintree in Massachusetts, prepared for the observance of the tercentenary celebration of its founding, 1640-1940 > Part 3
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It is not surprising, therefore, to find in the North Pre- cinct a fairly complete independent set-up for the manage- ment of the parish. A moderator, clerk, assessors, and treas- urer were elected in 1708/9, and the precinct proceeded to organize for the conduct of its affairs.3 These were almost exclusively matters pertaining to the parish church and the ministry. To be sure, they moved the North Precinct school- house in 1760, but that step was authorized by the town.4
Meanwhile at regular intervals the precinct was petition- ing for incorporation as a separate town, but without success.5 After the Revolution the demand for autonomy was re- newed® until finally in 1791 a committee of the General Court was appointed "to view the situation and Local circum- stances of the North precinct, who have hereto fore prayed to be set of from said Town." There was still considerable opposition to the idea, as is shown by the fact that in that year the town appointed four agents "to appear in behalf of the Town before the Committee aforesaid to oppose a sepa- ration takeing place."7 Despite this opposition, however, the North Precinct was formally incorporated as the town of Quincy February 22, 1792.8
1. Braintree Town Records, I, p. 101, Nov. 3, 1708
2. Province Acts and Resolves, XXI, p. 768 ; Braintree Town Records, I, p. 101, Nov. 5, 1708
3. The Book of Records of the North Precinct in Braintree, 1708-66, ms., unfolioed. In Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.
4. Braintree Town Records, II, p. 201, May 19, 1760
5. Ibid., II, p. 177, Mar. 1, 1756 ; p. 227, May 21, 1764
6. Ibid., III, p. 87, May 10, 1790; III, p. 92, Feb. 7, 1791
7. Ibid., III, p. 106, Sept. 27, 1791
8. Ibid., III, p. 108, Mar. 13, 1792; Acts and Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1780-1805, 13 vols., Boston, 1890-1898, ch. 36 of 1790-1791. Hereafter cited as Laws.
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VII. THE MIDDLE PRECINCT
Before the setting off of the Middle Precinct (known as the South Precinct from 1708 to 1727) by authorization of the General Court in 1708 1 there was a meeting to organize of which we find no particulars except the date, September 10, 1707, and a statement to the effect that on that day Rev. Hugh Adams was ordained as pastor. There is no further record until 1710, when, " At a meeting of the Precinct or parish June 26, 1710, it was Voted that Mr. Adams be paid yearly and every year while he continues to perform the whole work of a Pastor among us - Sixty pounds per ann., one half in money as it commonly passes from man to man in trade and the other half in the same money, or in good provisions at the market price or prices." The parish elders evidently thought better of their first appropriation, for they changed the amount to £50 annually for a period of four years. This ar- rangement did not commend itself to Mr. Adams, for at the July meeting he " refused and would not accept the above sd fifty pounds." Mr. Niles, his successor, was treated more generously, being voted £60 a year salary, £8 for wood, and a " settlement " of £60, to be paid within two years. Mean- while Mr. Adams brought suit against the parish, for on November 6th, 1710, two men were chosen to represent it at the next court session in connection with his grievance.2
The church covenant stipulates that the church is to be governed according to the methods of the "congregational chhs. (churches) of Christ ... according to the platform of ch. discipline agreed upon by the Elders ... in the year 1648 at Cambridge in New England." There is no record of any secular activities. The only other information contained in the surviving records is a full and circumstantial account of the "goings on" of a refractory member named Penniman, who in 1781 referred to the pastor as "a devil," and was excommunicated. Officially known as the Second Church of Braintree until 1792, the congregation became the First Church or First Parish of Braintree after that date until in 1915 the title was changed to the First Congregational Church of Braintree. With the setting off of the North Pre-
1. Province Acts and Resolves, XXI, ch. 91, p. 768 ; Braintree Town Records, I, p. 101, Nov. 3, 1708
2. William S. Pattee, A History of Old Braintree and Quincy, 1878, p. 285
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cinct as the town of Quincy, and the South Precinct as the town of Randolph in 1793, the boundaries of the town of Braintree became identical with those of the Middle Precinct.
VIII. THE SOUTH PRECINCT
The South Precinct was once the Waste or Common Lands of Boston, being most of the territory of the present towns of Randolph and Holbrook. It was known later as the Purchase Lands and became the property of the Town of Braintree in 1708.
The first intimation that the South Precinct was taking shape as a definite unit within the town is found in the town records of 1727, when it was voted to assign half of a tract of land of 100 acres for the use of the ministry of that pre- cinct or parish.1 Later in that same year a petition signed by twenty-eight leading citizens was presented to the General Court for permission to erect a church and establish "a separate Society and entire Precinct by ourselves," inasmuch as there were about forty families in the southern part of the town.2 This petition was granted, and on January 5, 1727/28, the General Court ordered "that Mr. John Nyles . . . be impowered and directed to Notifie and summon the Inhabi- tants ... to assemble & Convene for the choice of precinct Officers to stand until the next Annual Election according to law." 3 Thus old Cochato, as the district was known, acquired a corporate existence, and at two meetings, January 21 and March 19, 1727/28, proceeded to organize. With John Niles as moderator, they elected a clerk, treasurer, assessors, and a committee to " agree with a minister." For the salary of the latter, Rev. Mr. Morse, who had been asked to serve on approval, 65 pounds was appropriated as salary, and 10 pounds for past services. For general precinct expenses the sum of 10 pounds was appropriated.4 On petition to the Gen- eral Court the precinct was authorized to levy a tax of a penny per acre per year for the support of the ministry.5
I. Braintree Town Records, I, p. 168, June 12, 1727
2. Massachusetts Archives, XI, pp. 477-478
3. Ibid., XI, p. 477A ; Province Acts and Resolves, XI, p. 256
4. Proceedings at the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Congregational Church, Randolph, Boston, 1881, p. 61. Hereafter cited as Proceedings.
5. Province Acts and Resolves, XI, 1727-33, ch. 195, P. 367
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I
4
£
Land for the first meeting house of the parish was pur- chased from Joseph Crosby in March, 1727/28, but the structure was not completed until 1731, the date inscribed on the cornerstone of the present church in Randolph.1 An in- teresting entry in the parish records of the following year, indicating the method of raising money, is that of May 15, 1729, where it was voted that Thomas Wales, the precinct treasurer, "should hold the box, also contributors should write their names to their money."2 The first permanent pastor was Rev. Elisha Eaton, who assumed his duties March 10, 1731. The records for that year contain the cove- nant of the original members and a statement that the parish had arranged to finish the meeting house inside and to build pews. Various agreements are recorded between the precinct and individuals as to the building of pews. Indeed, most of the records of this period before incorporation as a town deal with matters pertaining to religious organization, and to lists of births, marriages and deaths.
Although very little mention is made of purely secular affairs, there is a record of work on the schoolhouse which had been built in 1727, and which was not finished for some years. In 1734 it was voted " to keep a scoll, voted to chouse a community (committee) to receve the money of the town and to pay it out in kieeping of a scoull in said Precinct." In other words, the parish received regularly from the town its share of school funds, and decided as to the method of expen- ditures.3 A school committee for the precinct was elected annually for nearly sixty years.4 In 1763 the town apparently supplied another schoolhouse, for it was voted "that there be a school-house built in each precinct at town's expense." 5 In 1767 the parish voted to raise money to supplement a town appropriation for a "moving school." A very interesting entry is that of March 7, 1771, on which date it was voted that a considerable part of the school money should be "laid out to encourage Women Schools," a surprisingly broad- minded move for a time when woman's place was very much "in the home." Other more religious matters which appear in the rather meager records of the precinct are the mention
I. Province Acts and Resolves, XI, 1727-33, ch. 195, p. 14
2. Ibid., p. 62
3. Braintree Town Records, II, p. 19, Mar. 3, 1734/35
4. Ibid., II, passim ; Proceedings, p. 112
5. Braintree Town Records, II, p. 220, Mar. 11, 1763
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of a boundary adjustment with Stoughton in 1762, of the digging of a well in 1768, and of the fact that in 1777 meet- ings were no longer called in the King's name. Precinct records cease altogether after 1792 when the South Precinct was incorporated as the town of Randolph.1
IX. INDUSTRIAL GROWTH
The autonomy granted the North and South Precincts gave Braintree approximately its present boundaries. The only other important alteration had been the loss in 1712 of about 1,500 acres from the "Blew Hill" section of the North Precinct to the town of Milton.2 With Quincy, which borders it to the north and northwest, and Weymouth to the east, occupying all the coastline except a small section of the south bank of Fore River, and with Randolph to the west and Holbrook to the south, Braintree now comprises 14.3 square miles, a very inconsiderable portion of its original territory.
Following the general prostration of trade and industry after the Revolution there began to be distinct signs of im- provement by the beginning of the nineteenth century. The glass works which General Joseph Palmer had set up in the Germantown section of the town in 1749 with a group of im- ported German workmen 3 had been refinanced by means of a lottery.4 There were several grist and saw mills in the town, lineal descendants of Richard Right's original mill, and the making of salt from sea-water had been carried on from the earliest years. The boot and shoe business, so important to Braintree later, was begun in 1800 by Samuel Hayden. On June 12, 1818, the proprietors of mills on the Monatiquot River had been given permission in the act of incorporation to dam or to draw upon the waters of the four ponds that emptied into the river for power purposes." The iron works, which had led a precarious existence, and had upon one occa- sion gone into bankruptcy because the dam at that point had
I. Laws, 1792-1793, ch. 49
2. Massachusetts Archives, CXIII, pp. 592-595 ; Braintree Town Records, II, P. 109, Jan. 21, 1711/12
3. Massachusetts Archives, XV A, p. 232
4. Province Acts and Resolves, III, p. 1053
5. Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1805-1838, 11 vols., Boston, 1806-1838; 1818-1822, pp. 58-60; Laws, 1818, ch. 35. Hereafter cited as Laws.
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been removed for the benefit of spawning alewives,1 was re- established as the Braintree Manufactory, after many years of ups and downs, by Oliver Ames and others in 1823.2
The acts of the legislature incorporating this company and a year or two later the Boston and Braintree Copper and Brass Manufactory 3 marked the beginning of a long period of industrial prosperity. On March 22, 1832, the Braintree and Weymouth Coal Company was incorporated for the pur- pose of raising, digging and selling coal.+ Fourteen years later the Braintree Cotton Manufacturing Company was established for the manufacture of cotton goods and ma- chinery.5 An industrial census taken in 18376 shows that in that year Braintree manufactured over 136,000 pairs of boots and shoes, had two paper mills, which manufactured 182 tons of paper, a nail factory which made 215 tons of nails, and a machinery plant which turned out $15,000 worth of cotton gins. Both cotton and woolen goods and an ex- traordinary variety of useful articles ranging from ticket- punches to fans were manufactured. After the Civil War, during which Braintree made shoes and war equipment, there was a gradual decline in the textile industry, particularly in the case of linen, due to foreign competition. Other indus- tries, however, continued to flourish. Braintree was still a great shoe manufacturing center,7 and the Braintree quarries were well known for their red granite.8 The Fore River Ship- building Company, now the Quincy branch of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, was originally located at the mouth of the Monatiquot River in what is now East Braintree. In 1789 Eli Hayden of Braintree had built there for the China tea trade the schooner Massachusetts, 116 feet over all, at that time the largest ship in the country.º Sixty-five years later George Thomas established a shipyard,10 and built wooden vessels during the heyday of the clipper ships. The actual nucleus of the present shipbuilding corporation was the Fore River Engine Company, established in 1883-1885 by Thomas
1. Braintree Town Records, II, p. 25, Oct. 4, 1736
2. Laws, IX, ch. 45, p. 257
3. Ibid., IX, ch. 61, p. 493
4. Ibid., XII, 1831-1833, ch. 154
5. Acts, 1846, ch. 163
6. U. S. Industrial Census, 1837
7. Boston Herald, July 5, 1890 ; Braintree Observer, July 5, 1890
8. Braintree Observer, July 25, 1891
9. Wilson, op. cit., pp. 266-267
10. Idem
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A. Watson.1 Meanwhile the great shoe industry of Braintree was gradually losing its prestige in favor of Haverhill, Lynn and Brockton. During the present century there has been a decline in Braintree industries, which have shared the wide- spread industrial hardships arising out of the post-World War depression. However, there are still a number of im- portant industries operating in Braintree, the best known of which are the Abrasive Products Co., the Armstrong Cork Products Company, the J. M. Connell Shoe Company, the oil refining plant of the Cities Service Oil Company, and the C. B. Slater Shoe Company.
In the past twenty-five years Braintree's manufacturing industries have in some respects shown striking deviations from normal trends. In the year 1919 there were nineteen such industries employing 2,386 wage earners to whom was paid $2,370,715, and the value of the products of which was $11,974,839. In 1929 at the peak of the industrial cycle Braintree's twenty manufacturing plants employed only 1,388 workers, or 1,000 less than a decade earlier. The amount of wages and the value of the product had shrunk proportionately to $1,687, 127 and $6,934,770, respectively. In 1933, on the other hand, when industry generally was be- ginning to climb from its depression depths, Braintree still had nineteen plants, the value of the products of which at $11,563,723 almost equalled the 1919 figure. But the num- ber of workers needed to turn out these products had de- creased 46% to 1,099 and the amount paid in wages 44% to $1,043,702, a rather striking demonstration of the effects of industrial rationalization between 1929 and 1933.2 The number of unemployed workers in the town in 1937 was 1,048, of whom 67% were skilled and semi-skilled workers and clerks.
The remarkable industrial growth of the town during the nineteenth century was both the cause and the result of good highway and railway connections with its markets, particu- larly Boston. The old coast road, which had served as a through way for over a century and a half, was supplemented
I. Wilson, op. cit., p. 268
2. Boston University College of Business Administration, Bureau of Business Research, New England Community Statistical Abstracts, compiled by Ralph G. Wells and John S. Perkins, published by the bureau, 685 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, October, 1939, unfolioed. Hereafter cited as Statistical Abstracts.
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1
by the Neponset turnpike, which was incorporated in 1803 as a toll-road, built by private enterprise.1 In 1844 the Old Colony Railroad Corporation was authorized to build its line from South Boston to Plymouth by way of Quincy and Braintree.2 This gave a distinct impetus to the growth of the town and its industries. The establishment of the South Shore Railroad two years later facilitated still further the com- munications between local industries and the outside world.3 The town was keenly interested in the possibility of a ship- canal connecting the Fore River and Narragansett Bay, a project which never matured because of engineering diffi- culties.4 Town and state records of this period reveal the con- stant improvement of road and rail communications within the town.5 The taking over of the Old Colony Road by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad system in 1893, and the favorable position of Braintree on Routes 37 and 128, with bus connections to Boston, Quincy and other near-by towns, assure the town easy access to near and re- mote points.
X. MUNICIPAL SERVICES
From the time when each settler was obliged to be pro- vided with a ladder "to stand up against his chimney," fire was a constant and imminent hazard." The prototype of the present fire department was the town fire warden authorized by the General Court in 1744.7 In 1812, the selectmen of Weymouth and Braintree were authorized by the General Court to nominate and appoint up to twenty-one enginemen annually, " so long there shall be a Good engine at or near the brook . . . called Smelt Brook." " Up to 1872 fire wardens or "wards " were elected regularly." In 1840 the town took the first step toward a paid fire department by remitting the poll tax for all "members belonging to the engine com- panys," and voted to pay $10 a year to "engineers and
I. Laws, 1802-1803, ch. 102; Laws, 1815-1818, ch. 156
2. Acts, 1844, ch. 150
3. Ibid., 1846, ch. 152
4. Quincy Patriot, Jan. 27, 1838
5. Acts, 1846-1848, ch. 137; Braintree Town Records, 1843-1869, p. 101, Mar. 8, 1847 ; Acts, 1882, ch. 19
6. Braintree Toum Records, I, p. 3, Jan. 1, 1645
7. Province Acts and Resolves, 1742-1756, ch. 30 of 1744
8. Laws, 1812-1815, ch. 58 of 1812
9. Braintree Town Records, 1745-1870, passim
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others."1 A joint Braintree-Weymouth fire district covering the district which is now East Braintree and Weymouth Landing was authorized by the legislature in 1846. In 1853 a fire committee, or "committee of vigilance," was ap- pointed,2 and in 1872, after due investigation by another com- mittee, it was voted to establish a fire department, "procure two sets of hooks and ladders, purchase the fire apparatus of the East Braintree Fire Department (the fire district mentioned above), procure lots of land and erect thereon three engine houses, one in each part of the town provided the whole cost shall not exceed $8,000.00."3 Since then the department has developed into a thoroughly efficient and modern organization. The failure of the horse-drawn apparatus due to delay in rounding up the rented horses to arrive at the blazing town hall in 1910, and the conse- quent complete loss of the town hall, led to the motoriz- ation of the fire department.
Water supply, which for over two hundred years was derived from springs, streams, wells, and the two town pumps, became a matter of serious concern as the popula- tion increased.4 The selectmen were ordered in 1872 to arrange for the digging of wells,5 and for some years the question of a reservoir was discussed.6 Finally in 1885 the state legislature passed an act providing for the con- struction and maintenance of a water supply for Braintree, jointly with Randolph and Holbrook.7 The town did not, however, immediately avail itself of this act. The follow- ing year a privately owned Braintree Water Supply Com- pany was incorporated, with capital of $100,000 and borrowing power of a like amount.8 This company com- menced construction of a water system which, in accord- ance with the terms of the act, was taken over by the town at an agreed price. Filtered water is now taken from the Great Pond, which has a total storage capacity of 600,000,000 gallons. The plant has a daily delivery capacity of 2,000,000 gallons.9
I. Braintree Town Records, 1820-1843, P. 386, Mar. 4, 1840
2. Ibid., 1843-1869, p. 249, Mar. 3, 1853
3. Ibid., 1869-1887, p. 72, May 6, 1872
4. Ibid., p. 73, Mar. 4, 1872
5. Ibid., p. 76, Dec. 23, 1872
6. Ibid., p. 153, Jan. 11, 1875 ; p. 401, Mar. 5, 1883
7. Acts, 1885, ch. 217
8. Ibid., 1886, ch. 198
9. Statistical Abstract, unpaged
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Water commissioners were then elected, and a water rate established. The equally important installation of a system of sewers and drains was given state authorization in 1930,1 and an act of 1936 extended the town's author- ity further in the construction of a sewerage system. The local sewers are now connected with the Metropolitan District system at Quincy.2
Braintree's municipal lighting plant, which commenced operations on October 15, 1892, was one of the earliest publicly owned lighting plants in the state.3 First estab- lished for street lighting purposes with a total valuation of $30, 161,4 the plant began as early as 1893 to serve private consumers. In 1938 its assets totaled $1,078,695.73, and it returned a profit of $60,813.76 to the town.5
XI. GROWTH
The population of the town has increased steadily since it was numbered as eighty families in 1657, and as 800 townsfolk in 1707. The loss of the North and South Pre- cincts reduced the population by about one-half. The cen- sus of 1790 gives 2,771, while that of 1800 gives 1,285. After that, however, there was a gain practically every year, until now Braintree is well over the 1.7, 122 returned by the state census of 1935.6
Along with the increase in population there has been a corresponding increase in property valuation figures. At thirty year intervals, the total valuation of buildings, land, and personal property increased from $1,498,691 to $3,449,650 in 1890; $11,092,239 in 1920 and $25,217,725 in 1937.7 Braintree has three banks: the Braintree Savings Bank, which applied for and obtained a charter in 1870,8 the Cooperative Bank, which was incorporated in 1889, and the Braintree National Bank, founded in 1919.9
I. Acts, 1930, ch. 17
2. Ibid., 1910, ch. 546; 1936, ch. 45
3. Annual Report, 1891, pp. 254, 256, 266; 1892, p. 194
4. Ibid., 1892, p. 109
5. Ibid., 1938, p. 182
6. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The Decennial Census, 1935, compiled by Frederic W. Cook, Secretary of the Commonwealth, and William N. Hardy, State Census Director, Boston, no date, p. 14
7. Massachusetts Public Documents, 1861, No. 42 ; 1890, 1920 and 1937, No. 19 8. Acts, 1870, ch. III
9. Statistical Abstract, unpaged
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During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries educa- tion kept pace with the steady growth of the town in popu- lation and industrial importance. In 1716 the increase in the number of school children necessitated the building of a grammar school for college preparation "between the north meeting house & Mr. Benjamin Webbs land," and of a "convenient school for writing & reading" in the southern part of the town for a six months' period.1 By 1790 the three precincts had taken on sufficient individu- ality to warrant the division of the town into definite school districts,2 and the election of a school committee of five members from each precinct, to have general charge of school policy.3
The setting off of the towns of Quincy and Randolph before the close of the century narrowed the confines of the town, and simplified the school problem. After Ran- dolph and Quincy had been assigned their share of the original school lands, Braintree rearranged the school dis- tricts,+ having organized its school fund on a paying basis.5 An endowment fund for an academy was established in 1797, a measure which was to have a far-reaching effect upon the educational history of the town. The incorpora- tion of the School Fund Committee in 1826" was closely followed by the establishment of the Weymouth and Brain- tree Academy.7 Like most of its sister towns in the Mas- sachusetts of that day, Braintree had its "Lyceum," de- voted to literary interests.8
The interesting report of a committee chosen in 1830 to report on the improvement of the schools shows that the school authorities of a hundred years ago were con- fronted with the same difficulties in the management of rural schools which exist at the present time." The town showed a healthy increase in number of schools and per capita appropriation for school purposes. Between 1840 and 1870, for example, a typical thirty years, the appro- priation for schools increased from $1,000 to $5,900, while
1. Braintree Town Records, I, p. 124, May 14, 1716
2. Ibid., III, p. 82, Mar. 1, 1790
3. Ibid., p. 86, May 10, 1790
4. Ibid., 1820-1843, P. 431, Mar. 6, 1820
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