USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Brookline > Brookline directory 1875 > Part 2
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OF THE TOWN OF BROOKLINE.
can be but little doubt that the leaders of the little colony were much relieved at the inglorious termination of the ex- pedition, for there was already much rumor of Indian plots, and a single musket fired after nightfall was sufficient to call every man to his weapons. In the succeeding month "a camp was pitched in Boston in the night to exercise the soldiers against need might be; and Capt. Underhill (to try how they would behave themselves) caused an alarm to be given upon the quarters, which discovered the weakness of our people, who, like men amazed, knew not how to behave themselves, so as the officers could not draw them into any order. All the rest of the plantations took the alarm and answered it; but it caused much fear and distraction among the common sort, so as some which knew of it before, yet through fear had forgotton, and believed the Indians had been upon us. We doubled our guards, and kept watch both day and night." In 1630, the same writer records, April 14th : " We began a Court of Guard upon the Neck between Boston and Roxbury, whereupon should be resident an officer and six men," and, accordingly, some fifty men watched each night in the streets, and over the fortifications of the sleeping settlement.
The next mention of the new "plantation " is dated Nov. 21, 1634, and runs as follows : " One Willys, a godly man, and member of Boston church, and one Dorety, an honest man, and two boys, going over to Noddle's Island to fetch wood in a small boat, and none of them having any skill or experience, were cast away in a N. E. tempest as they came home in the night, laden, being then ebbing water. We sent two boats on the Lord's day (so soon as they were missing, being the 23d), but they could not find men or boat or wood in any part of the bay ; three days after, the boat was found at Muddy River, overturned."
Mar. 23d, 1634, it was generally agreed by the governor and his assistants, " that no wood shall be felled at any of the islands or elsewhere, until they be lotted out ; but (say- ing) at Muddy River, Dorchester Neck, or Noddle's Island." It is evident that the number of allotments at this date must have been very small, and that most of the lands now occu- pied by the Town of Brookline were covered by the primeval forest, or afforded natural meadows where many cattle, swine, and sheep were herded in common.
It is probable, however, that a few of the settlers had planted fields, and possibly erected small log houses, or wig- wams, in which they occasionally passed the night. That they depended on boats and lighters for transportation, is distinctly
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AN HISTORICAL SKETCH
stated by the earlier writers. The coming artist, who shall lend his pencil to the task of recalling the lives of the fathers to their descendants, will have in the portraiture of the car lier years, a work full of inspiration and replete with beauty. Words cannot paint the still river, reflecting the glory of the dying leaves, and the splendor of an autumn sunset ; nor can sentences recall from the buried centuries the quaint village where thatched roofs rise in devious rows, amid young orchards and fruitful fields ; the clumsy ships with high extremities and low waists, their multitude of tiny cannon, and antique rig, have long since mingled with the waters on which they sailed, and only the subtle soul of man can reconstruct the fleeting picture of that vanished landscape; but near the wooded shore of a narrow, tidal stream, whose just ebbing waters flow over the coarse marsh grasses and amid close coverts of tall sedge, floats a heavy boat laden with the fruits of the late har- vest and its returning reapers. A heap of golden maize and yellow pumpkins rears itself above the heavy gunwales, and upon the withered husks are piled huge clusters of purple and tawny-hued grapes from the wild vintage of " the great swamp." Against the load lean heavy muskets and clumsy calivers, with barrels of " five and six foote," and bores of twelve and ten bullets to the pound, but from the stout ram- rods depend a bevy of plump quail, and a dead red-deer lies beneath their heavy butts.
Their owners, the reapers, are clad in steel of proof, or buff- coats, quilted and strengthened to resist stroke of sword or flight of arrow, and the light smoke of their still burning matches scarcely wavers as it rises into the still air of the autumn evening. There is nought of fear in the keen search- ing glance which the father gives to each succeeding covert of ripening thatch or glowing birches ; nor do the stalwart youths at the oars relax their measured stroke which propels the heavily laden shallop down the winding reaches of Muddy River, towards the distant spires of the stronghold of the Pu- ritans.
Already " the purple mists of century and of song " have gathered a weird charm about the every-day life of our Puri- tan ancestors, and the coming generation will wonder that so few of those skilled with pen and pencil have attempted to immortalize the heroic but unobtrusive deeds of our progen- itors.
To return to our subject, we find in Josiah Quincy's " Muni- cipal History of Boston " that " The allotments of land within the peninsula were very limited in extent; those out of it and within the jurisdiction of town, were large and granted
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OF THE TOWN OF BROOKLINE.
with great liberality. In the 9th of the 12th month, O. S. (February), 1635, the rule established by the town for these allotments was, 'two acres to plant on, and for every able youth, one acre within the Neck and on Noddle's Island.' As to those at Mount Wollaston and Muddy River, the allot- ments were authorized to ' take a view and bound out what may be sufficient there' for the particular farms of the allot- tees, and four hundred acres were often given to a single Not offer individual. The year 1635 did not elapse, however, before, in conformity with the settled policy of the emigrants at that period, the town agreed that no further allotments should be granted unto any new-comer, but such as may be likely to be received members of the congregation."
It was also voted (see Boston Records, Vol. 1, p. 45), " That the poorer sort of inhabitants, such as are members, or likely to be, and have no cattle, have their proportion of allotments for planting ground laid out at Muddy River, those that fall between the foot of the hill and the water, to have four acres upon (or to) a head, and those farther off to have five."
Accordingly, in 1637, we find recorded many allotments of land, one of the first of one hundred acres being given to Capt. John Underhill, who " had done the state some ser- vice " in the pursuit of sundry pirates, and the Pequot Wars. He appears at one time to have been to the Puritans what Miles Standish was to the Pilgrims, - a gallant leader in the field, and a devout member of the church. As one of the first land-holders of Brookline, his subsequent history may be of some interest. During this year the celebrated Mrs. Hutchinson was banished by the court, and many who agreed with her in her petition in behalf of Mr. Wheelwright, were disfranchised, and deprived of all places of public trust. Among these were numbered Capt. Underhill, who was rest- ive under the sharp discipline, and "insisted much on the liberty which all States do allow to military officers for free speech, etc., and that himself had spoken sometimes as freely to Count Nassau." In addition to this, on pretence of a fear of sedition, the captain was required to deliver up his arms, together with fifty-eight other residents of Boston, two of whom, Isaac Grosse and Thomas Savage, held small allot- ments at Muddy River.
Here ends the history of his usefulness to the colony ; for, doubtless disgusted with petty persecution and the illiberal spirit of the ministers, who were the real governors of the colony, he visited England, and on his return was again brought before the Council for some rather ironical remarks
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AN HISTORICAL SKETCH
concerning the rules of the settlement, made on shipboard during his return voyage, and the next Sabbath he was pub- licly questioned concerning the honesty of his attentions to the wife of a neighbor, who, as the diary hath it, " was young and beautiful, and withal of a joval spirit and behavior." It does not appear that in this case he was really guilty, but being banished he went to Piscataqua, and was chosen governor, before Winthrop's letter charging him with adultery and other misdemeanors could arrive. In his new dignity he treated with disdain the summons of the church and the safe conduct of the governor, averring that the latter was not suffi- cient to protect, and that the sentence of banishment should be revoked, before he could be called to answer any offence.
After a year, during which the stout soldier nurtured many schemes of revenge, the men of Piscataqua fell from him, and he began to see that he had done wrong, and, though sinned against, was justly punished ; and 1639 we find written, " Capt. Underhill having been dealt with, and convinced of his great sin against God and the churches and state here, etc. etc., returned to a better mind, and wrote divers letters to the governor and deputy, etc., bewailing his offences, and craving pardon."
Accordingly, in 1640, he made a public confession of his sin and his penitence, kneeling for forgiveness to the man he had wronged, and receiving his forgiveness and that of the state and church,-although the letter "for the sake of example " would not restore him to its freedom. Selling his lands and tenements in Boston and vicinity, he removed to Stamford, Connecticut, and was elected delegate to the gen- eral court in 1643. In the same year, with a band of Eng- lish mercenaries, fifty in number, he entered the service of the Dutch of the New Netherlands, fighting the tribes west of Connecticut and north of the Sound, until, in 1646, a great battle at Strickland's Plain, at Horse Neck, in which the Dutch with difficulty carried the day, finished the long and doubtful border warfare. In the difficulties of the United Colonies with the Dutch in 1653, he did honest service, and after filling many honorable positions with credit, settled on his estate of Killingworth, Oyster Bay, L. I., where he died in 1672.
In 1638 sixty-four allotments were made at Muddy River, and in the two or three years next succeeding, nearly forty more, making in all one hundred and two persons named as having received land at that place. Of these, but six names were borne by residents of Brookline in 1805, when the Rev. John Pierce preached his centennial discourse, which left
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OF THE TOWN OF BROOKLINE.
little of interest in the town history to that date unrecorded. Among the names of the later grantees, are found those of Philemon Pormont, the first school-teacher of Boston, and Rev. John Cotton, the first settled pastor of the same city.
It does not appear that any especial Indian name was used to designate this section, but the Indians then resident were, undoubtedly, tribesmen of the Massachusetts, then un- der the rule of Chichataubute, who resided at Neponset in 1630, and entered into friendly relations with the English ; which were seldom after disturbed except in the memora- ble war of extermination undertaken by King Philip, in which a portion of the Massachusetts were implicated, and fought against their " praying " brethren and their English Allies.
In an age when strong religious faith was carried to a pitch which, in these easy-going days, seems the height of superstition and credulity, there was scarcely a town or sec- tion occupied by the English in which there was not some locality memorable for " inexplicable sights, wondrous appari- tions, remarkable providences," prophetic sounds, and other " spiritual manifestations." It is not our intention to sneer at these psychical idiosyncracies of our forefathers, for the institutions they founded have moulded the destinies of a nation, and it is hard to examine their record without con- fessing the calm and even balance of their minds. That they cared more for their " spiritual growth " than for " the things of this world " we must confess, for the tenor of their records and lives on the whole is inconsistent with any other hypothe- sis ; and we who generally adopt the antithesis of their policy, cannot justly determine the full capability of the soul's de- velopment under the forcing process of that age, and the peculiar social surroundings of our forefathers.
Persecuted for conscience' sake, driven from friends, treas- ures, and native land to dwell among aliens, in poverty and obscurity, or awaiting in perplexity and doubting the fulfil- ment of " the Divine promise," our forefathers at last sought in the New World the peace which the Old denied them. To them the Bible was indeed " the Word of God"; its Saviour, a comforter of their many afflictions ; its devil, an omnipresent adversary, and not "a personification of the destructive element in nature " ; its heaven and hell, a solace for all life's woes, or an abode of unending misery. There- fore God's providence succored his righteous servants against the many arts with which the devil strove to beguile, terrify, or annoy those who strove so earnestly to upbuild, not a political power, but " the Kingdom of the Lord" " in this
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AN HISTORICAL SKETCH
our Zion "; and, accordingly, in the early records are many instances of strange and inexplicable occurrences.
Brookline, or Brookland, as Sewall's diary las it, has but little share of legendary lore of this kind ; and the only in- stance of reports of this nature appears in the second men- tion of Muddy River, in Winthrop's Journal. It was as follows : -
" In this year, one James Everett, a sober, discreet man, and two others, saw a great light in the night at Muddy River. When it stood still it flamed up, and was three yards square. When it ran it was contracted into the figure of a swine. It ran as swift as an arrow towards Charlestown, and so up and down about two or three hours. They were come down in their lighters about a mile ; and when it was over they found themselves carried quite back against the tide, to the place they came from. Divers other credible persons saw the same light after, at the same place."
The editor of the "Journal" explained this as being an ignus fatuus, or corposant, and it is not at all impossible that such was the case. But as Malden seers beheld the march- ing "troops of horse " in the sunset sky, and heard the supernatural cannon and " small shot " which prognosticated the deadly vengeance of King Philip ; as Gloucester's stanch borderers fought again and again with pliantasmal French and Indians ; as Salem records her dire catalogue of infernal compacts, fiendish cruelties, and unpitying justice ; as the inner harbor of the capital itself is connected with many a weird tale of those most ancient days of our brief history ; it appears but fitting that, simple as the instance is, it should remain in " this our history."
The last day of the year 1639, "It was agreed that five hundred acres be laid out at Muddy River for perpetual com- monage to the inhabitants there, and the town of Boston to begin at Mr Hibbon's lott, and so go into the countrey as the land will afford, before any other allottments are laid out hereafter.
" A true coppie, as entered with the records of the town of Boston.
" Examined " per JOSEPH PROUT, Town Clerk."
In 1640, the present boundary between the town and Cam- bridge was fixed upon, and a little later the boundary between Brookline and Roxbury was decided upon, which remained until existing inconveniences ended in the cession of more territory to Brookline.
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OF THE TOWN OF BROOKLINE.
Oct. 1st of the same year, " Mr. Colburn, Mr. Eliot, and Mr. Peter Oliver (were appointed) to see that a bridge be built at Muddy River," as we learn from the varied and minute journal of Gov. Winthrop. The first named of these worthies was probably William Colborn, or Colburn, who had received a large allotment here, and afterward in 1650 sold a tract of one hundred and fifty acres to Robert Sharp and Peter Aspinwall, the deed of which is said to be still in the possession of the Aspinwall family.
When Metacorn roused his native warriors to a sense of the danger of their race and the necessity of destroying their invaders, it does not appear that this town was ever subjected to the attacks of the savages. They, however, willingly volun- teered their services to assist in suppressing this new and startling danger ; and John Sharpe, son of the foregoing Rob- ert Sharpe, served as a volunteer under Captain Wadsworth of Milton, and rose to be second in command.
Miss Wood's new and compendious History of Brookline contains a copy of a letter written by him in the winter of 1676, which quaintly reflects the unflinching and resolute cour- age and Christian fortitude and trust, which is so often char- acteristic of New England correspondence in the 17th and 18th centuries. At that time both forces were recruiting for a renewal of that deadly and unrelenting struggle for final supremacy ; and with the early spring, the storm broke with fatal fury on the outlying settlements of the English. The history of that fatal spring is the most disastrous of all the long story of our early wars. The savage monarch seemed ubiquitous, and attacks were often made on the same day, at several points, many leagues apart.
In April, Marlborough was attacked, and Captain Wads- worth, with John Sharpe as his lieutenant, and some fifty men, together with a smaller company of partisans, under a Capt. Brocklebank, forming a force of about seventy men in all, hastened to the relief of the garrison. After a fatiguing march of about twenty-five of the fifty miles which lay be- tween them and the threatened town, they found that the Indian trail suddenly struck off through the woods, in the direction of Sudbury. Full of apprehensions of the result of this stroke of savage strategy, they pressed on in pursuit; hearing, as they drew near the town, the sharp reports of the enemy's guns, and the crash of caliver, swivel, and musket from the beleaguered garrison. The attack had been sharp and sudden, with the usual results : a few families perished ; their houses and barns were given to the flames ; and the rest of the settlers, in their massive block-houses, had dispatched
!
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AN HISTORICAL SKETCH
messengers for succor, and kept the enemy at bay until its arrival. A small force from Boston had been repulsed, with the loss of ten or twelve men, when the force of Capt. Wads- worth had attained a position within a mile of the town. Suddenly a party of about one hundred Indians threw in a scattering fire, and then, as the colonists answered, fell back in seeming confusion. There appears to have been no doubt in the minds of any of the doomed party as to the proper course to be pursued. The enemy was in their front, the beleaguered town but a mile beyond, and a quick but cautious advance might meet with heavy loss; but in view of the apparent partial repulse of the Indians, was likely to end in their defeat and the relief of the besieged. The fatal order was given, and the doomed soldiers sprang forward after the flying foe. For a few moments they drove all before them ; then they recoiled from a sharp volley in front, to fall before a merciless cross-fire from flank and rear.
That they fought well it is unnecessary to say ; for every man knew that death on the field was far preferable to the cruel tortures which were reserved for those who should grace the savage conqueror's triumph as captives. The historians of that day are diffuse only on such points as affect the rights of sovereigns, the duties and interests of the state, and the welfare of the church. We can only imagine how the wearied Europeans, travel-worn and despairing, fought on in despe- rate silence, while the deafening whoops and savage yells of their foes rose higher above the failing rattle of their lessen- ing musketry ; how the thick-flying arrows found their way one by one through the joints of cuirass and tasslet ; and one by one the brawny swordsmen, wearied with foil and thrust, fell beneath the keen war-axe, or casse tête. We can fancy only how, in the narrow chambers of the garrison houses, crouched wan women and trembling children, listening to the terrible sounds of the near conflict, while from their narrow loop-holes men blackened with the frequent powder-flash of their own recent conflict listened with lessening exultation and waning hope to the dying thunder of the English mus- kets, and the triumphant yells of their inhuman foes.
We know not the details of that disastrous onslaught. It may be that a few made a bold charge, and broke through the fatal ring of the ambuscade ; and a few bold spirits may have pressed on through the deadly fire, and found shelter in the garrison they had sought in vain to succor ; but we know that the defeat of the English was complete and appalling. When the smoke cleared away, and the budding thickets were no longer shaken and torn by the desperate charge and
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piercing volley, the declining sun shone on the mutilated bodies of nearly half a hecatomb of English corpses, and the unutterable torments of those unfortunates whose unhappy lot it was not to die sword in hand. In after years a rude monument, the filial offering of President Wadsworth, of Harvard College, displayed above the common resting-place of the victims this simple inscription : -
" Capt. Samuel Wadsworth, of Milton, his Lieut. Sharpe, of Brookline, Cap. Brocklebank of Rowley, with about twenty- six other souldiers, fighting for the defence of their countrey, were slain by the Indian enemy, April 18th, 1676, and lye burried in this place."
Among the renovated ancient houses which connect the Brookline of to-day with the little hamlet of two centuries ago, is that known as " the old Crafts house," on the Denny place. Tradition states that this house was built by one Vincent Druce, whose brother John served as a volunteer in a troop of horse, commanded by Capt. Prentice. In July, 1675, in the early part of King Philip's war, this troop, with a company of foot, under Capt. Henchman, marched from Boston towards Mt. Hope, and were there overtaken by another company of one hundred and ten volunteers, under Capt. Mosely, who it is said had seen much service " on the Spanish Main," as an old buccaneer.
On the 28th, they reached Swanzey, and then found some Plymouth forces under Capt. Cudworth. A small party of the horse sallied out over the bridge, but before scouting far received a volley which killed one outright and severely wounded John Druce. The English pursued immediately, driving the savages into a swamp, and slaying six or eiglit of them. John Druce was conveyed home, but died from his injuries soon after, aged thirty-four years.
In the spring of 1690, Sir William Phipps, whose whole his- tory is but a proof of the trite saying that " truth is stranger than fiction," commenced hostilities against the French in Canada. With a small force of eight vessels, and about eight hundred men, he attacked and captured Port Royal (now Annapolis, Nova Scotia), and returned with a large amount of plunder, after an absence of less than five weeks. Flushed with success, a larger force was raised, and Connec- ticut and New York agreed to furnish 2,000 men, who were to march by the way of Lake Champlain against Montreal, while the Massachusetts forces were to proceed by sea against Quebec. About forty vessels, and perhaps two thousand men, comprised the forces of the colony. The men were raised by the volunteer system, and several men went from
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AN HISTORICAL SKETCH
Brookline, among whom were Capt. Thomas Gardner, and Robert Sharp, son of the Lieut. Sharp, butchered at Sudbury fight, neither of whom ever returned. Tradition does not tell us how they died, - whether by the bullets of the French and their savage allies, amid the disastrous mischances of their ill-devised landing and mismanaged assault; whether they succumbed to the camp-fever which proved so fatal, per- ished amid the reefs of Anticosti, or foundered amid the surges of the great gulf, is not to be surely determined. We know, however, that about two hundred men were lost by sick- ness and battle, that several vessels were never more heard from, while scores of emaciated colonists came home only to die, and to spread the contagions of the camp and fleet amid the disappointed colonists.
In 1685-86, among the officers of Boston chosen from that current year, were appointed the following inhabitants of Muddy River: Constable, Benjamin White. Surveyors, Andrew Gardiner and Roger Adams. Tythingmen, Thomas Gardiner, Jr., and Roger Adams.
Benjamin White, one of the last officers of Muddy River, considered as a portion of Boston, was one of the original grantees, or the son of one, and in 1805 had immediate descendants bearing the family name still residing here. Andrew Gardiner was the son of Thomas Gardiner, who died at Brookline, leaving his lands to his two sons Thomas and Andrew ; the former of whom, in 1672, when the people of Muddy River undertook to pay one fifth of the cost of a new church at Roxbury, contributed the sum of ten pounds, the largest contribution towards the sum needed, which was £103 13s. Andrew named above contributed five pounds.
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