USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > Cape Cod, the right arm of Massachusetts : an historical narrative > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29
In November, 1622, a famine being imminent among the Plymouth settlers, determined them to seek bread from the Indian tribes. Gov. Bradford was in charge of the expedition, which embarked in the Swan, belonging to the Wessagusset settlers, and in the interest of both communities. Provided with knives and heads for traffic, they essayed to go around Cape Cod. They encountered stormy weather, and put into the harbor of Monomoyick, and the Governor, with Squanto and others, went on shore, staid all night, and trafficked with the Indians, obtaining eight hogsheads of eorn and beans. Here Squanto, their early friend and faithful guide and interpreter, was taken sick and died. They sailed from here to the Massachusetts, but could not trade to
30
CAPE COD.
advantage, and returned again to Cape Cod. At Nauset they obtained more corn and beans; and at Mattacheesett an additional supply. While at Nauset their shallop was cast away, and they were obliged to stack and cover their grain, leaving it in charge of the Indians, since they had no means of getting it on board the ship. They procured a guide and set out on their journey of fifty miles on foot, receiving all respect from the natives by the way ; and weary, and with galled feet, arrived safely at Plymouth. Three days after, the Swan arrived, bringing the corn first obtained at Monomoyick.
In January, 1623, another joint expedition started, with. Standish in command, the weather being bitterly cold and stormy. They found at Nauset their cast-away shallop and repaired it, and the corn they had stored was also found and got on board. The Indians having, as Standish thought, stolen "some trifles," he demanded restitution in the most peremptory manner, which was complied with, and the sachem expressed great sorrow at the occurrence.
In February, their corn still running short, Standish went with six men in a shallop to Mattacheese, * to procure a supply. Their shallop was frozen up the first night of their arrival. The captain, for sufficient cause, became suspicious of the fidelity of the natives, and kept a strict watch over them; some few trinkets being missed he called the natives to account, and the missing articles were restored, and corn sufficient to load his shallop was afterwards easily procured.
The governor, with an Indian, Hobomoc, went soon after to Manomet, (now Bourne), twenty miles south of Plymouth, to procure more corn. He was entertained
*Mattacheese signifies old lands, or planting lands, and the terminal t or tt, as in Mattacheesett, means, on the borders of the sea. There is so much variation in the ancient spelling of all proper namnes that uniformity of orthography is difficult to attain.
MAYFLOWER COMPANY AND THEIR EXPLORATIONS. 31
hospitably by Canacum, the chief of this place, lodging here in a bitter cold night, and bought some corn which he was. compelled to leave in charge of the natives. In March, Capt. Standish went to Manomet to procure the corn the governor had left there, entering Seusset harbor, where he left the shallop in charge of two or three men, and with two or three more went inland to the habitation of Canacum. He had not been there long before he perceived he was mich less hospitably received than the governor had been. Pres- ently two Massachusetts Indians made their appearance, one of whom, Wittuwamet by name, the Plymouth men well knew. His demeanor to Standish was most insulting. He talked violently, though incoherently to Canacum, drew a knife which hung around his neck and presented it to his host. He was, it subsequently appeared, complaining of outrages committed by the English at Wessagusset, and urged Canacum to take advantage of this opportunity to cut off Standish and his party. Standish, knowing that these circumstances forebode danger, then made ready to return to his shallop. The Indian women, by some small presents, were induced to assist in conveying the corn to the landing-place, and there the party had to wait until next morning. It was an anxious night for Standish, and he did not close his eyes. With a mere handful of men, in an unfriendly neighborhood, the situation was critical. The sachem Canacum and his ally from the Massachusetts tribe were reinforced by a Paomet Indian, the oppressive friendli- ness of whose carriage was as suspicious as the open hostility of Wittuwamet. He not only insisted on coming down to the shore with the English, but had voluntarily carried some corn, an ignominions act for a male Indian warrior ; making a pretext of the cold he remained with them, crouching before their fire. All these things led
32
CAPE COD.
Standish to believe in the existence of a dangerous plot, and drove sleep from his eyes. When morning dawned the party embarked and arrived safely at Plymouth.
In consequence of information received from Massasoit, imparted to Hobomoc, of a plot against the English, in which not only Wittuwamet and others, but the Cape Indians at Manomet and Paomet were implicated, Standish was authorized to proceed to deal with the conspirators, which he did in his usual prompt and sanguinary manner. Proceeding to Weymouth, he summarily dispatched Wittuwamet and several of his followers, bringing the head of the former as a trophy to Plymouth. The news of this massacre created dire consternation among the Indians along the sea-coast. They forsook their homes, ran to and fro in bewilderment and fear, and living in swamps and deserts, contracted diseases of which many of them died. Thus miserably perished Canacum, sachem of Manomet ; Aspinet of Nauset : and the courteous and hospitable Iyanough, of Mattachcese, whose fate is the more to be deplored because there seems to be no evidence to connect him with the plots in which the other sachems were involved. More than two and a half centuries after the death of Iyanough, the remains of a chieftain were exhumed near a swamp, in what is known as Iyanough's town, in ancient Mattachcese (East Barnstable village, ) and the circumstances under which these relics were found, point irresistibly to the conclusion that they were the remains of Iyanough. They were gathered up with tender care, enclosed in a case, and deposited in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, side by side with relics of Standish and others of the Pilgrims, who brought him to a tragic and miserable death.
The transactions for some time after the sanguinary events related, naturally interrupted the trade and intercourse
MAYFLOWER COMPANY AND THEIR EXPLORATIONS. 33
between the English and the natives. Some further efforts in that direction were attempted, but resulted in disappoint- ment and failure.
In December, 1626, the ship Sparrowhawk, with a considerable number of passengers, from London, bound for Virginia, was stranded upon a flat at what was then styled Monomoyick, but which is now the easterly part of Orleans. The master being sick, they had lost their way and had neither wood nor water on board, had steered for the shore,
THE SPARROWHAWK.
and had run over the shoals, they knew not how. They came directly before the small harbor at Potanumaquut, and run on a flat close to the beach, not knowing where they were. The savages on shore came to them in their canoes. The Englishmen were at first inclined to be guarded in their intercourse, but the Indians disarmed their fears by asking if they were "the Governor of Plymouth's men " and offering to assist them and carry letters to Plymouth. The Indians,
31
CAPE COD.
according to their ability, supplied the strangers with all they needed. The governor of Plymouth, having received the intelligence, came, with others, to their aid, bringing all the materials asked for. The season being unpropitious for going around the Cape he landed near the bottom of the bay, at Namskeket Creek, between the present towns of Brewster aud Orleans, whence it was not more than two miles across the Cape to the bay where the ship lay. The Indians carried the things he brought over land to the ship. The governor bought of the Indians a lot of corn to supply the needs of the ship's company, and also to load their boat before returning home. The Sparrowhawk being repaired and ready to proceed, a great storm arose and drove her further on shore, by which catastrophe she was so badly shattered that she was rendered unfit for sea. The result was that all came to Plymouth, whither also their goods were transported, and where they remained until the next spring. Two hundred and thirty-seven years after the wreck of the Sparrowhawk, by one of those geological changes on the coast which are the characteristic features of Cape Cod, her hull, in a remarkable state of preservation, was uncovered from the drifting sand and afterwards removed, together with a number of articles which were found, in or near it, such as a quantity of beef and mutton bones, several soles of leather, shoes, a smoking pipe of the kind used by smokers of opium, and a metallic box. These interesting relics are now deposited in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth. The spot where this ancient hulk was exhumed had from time immemorial been known as "Old Ship Harbor," for what reason the present generation, until this time, was unaware.
In the year 1627 the Plymouth colony company built a small pinnace at Manomet, a place within the present town
MAYFLOWER COMPANY AND THEIR EXPLORATIONS. 35
of Bourne, situated on a river running into Buzzards Bay, on the southern bank of which they also built a house, and kept some servants, who planted corn and reared swine, and were ready to go with the bark at any time on the trading expeditions in which the colonists were engaged. Here for many years a profitable traffic with the Indians was maintained, and from this point the intercourse with the Dutch settlers at New York was first opened. From Plymouth to Scusset Harbor was an easy voyage by water, and from this point to the navigable waters of Manomet River was only three or four miles. By this route, in the language of Governor Bradford, they were enabled to "avoid the compassing of Cape Cod and those dangerous shoals, and so make any voyage to the southward in much shorter time and with less danger." From that time to this, the route through the Manomet valley has been associated in the minds of men with the project to construct a canal, and thus to avoid the dangers of navigation around the Cape. Here, in September of 1627, came Isaac De Razier, secretary of the Dutch government of New Amsterdam, with a vessel laden with sugar, stuffs, etc., and Governor Bradford sent a boat to Scusset Harbor to convey him thence to Plymouth. He wrote an account of the Plymouth colony which has come down to us, and which is the best picture extant of the place and the people. After this, the Dutch came often to Manomet, and a profitable trade was for some years carried on between them and the Plymouth people.
1169811
The Cape was often resorted to for years by the Plymouth settlers, particularly for the procurement of corn, for which its soil was well adapted, and somewhat bitter controversies arose between the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonists, in regard to this traffic, the latter claiming the right to the
36
CAPE COD.
trade in this territory, as being within the exclusive juris- diction of their government. In one of these expeditions, Richard Garrett and his company, from Boston, were cast away on the Cape, and some of them died from hardship and exposure. The Indians buried the dead with great propriety, to save the bodies from being devoured by wild beasts, although the ground was deeply frozen, requiring great labor in digging the graves. The survivors were literally "nursed back to life," so nearly perished were they ; and when they were sufficiently recovered, the Indians kindly conducted them to Plymouth. These circumstances indicate the pacific character of the natives after the tragical events of 1622-3.
Among the memorable events of this early period was the great storm of 1635, such, says Bradford, "as none living in these parts, either English or Indians, ever saw, causing the sea to swell above twenty feet right up, and made many inhabitants climb into the trees. It took the roof of a house at Manomet, and put it in another place." "It blew down many thousands of trees, breaking the higher pines in the middle, tearing the stronger ones up by the roots. The wrecks of it" says the writer, "will remain for a hundred years. The moon suffered a great eclipse the second night after it." It was in this storm that Anthony Thacher, one of the future settlers of Yarmouth, was shipwrecked at Cape Ann, at what was henceforth known as Thacher's Island, north of Boston Harbor, and his wife and children were engulfed in the raging waters.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS.
Declaration of Rights-Settlement of Sandwich, Yarmouth, Barnstable and Eastham-Disputes on Theology and Division of Lands-Mr. Hull and the Yarmouth Dissenters-Representative Government Adopted-General Court holds a session in Yarmouth-Warlike Indians-Military Movements-Rates of charges for the several towns.
O the year 1637, no organized settlement had been effected on the Cape. The court records and incidental writings of the time give evidence that the region was consid- erably resorted to by fishermen, traders % and roving adventurers, and it seems probable that residents had in a few cases established themselves in some parts of the county. Those who did so, acted without the authority of the Plymonth magistrates, and were regarded as intruders and trespassers. An exception to this remark was the occupation, in 1627, of the southern shore of Manomet river, for a trading post.
The laws and governmental institutions of the colony were not at this time adapted to a community of separate municipalities under a central head. The limits of political rights or authority were not defined. A few regulations, called for as the exigencies arose, had been temporarily made, and though the colonists were supposed to be governed by the laws of England, they were not very well understood; and the code of Moses was followed, rather
38
CAPE COD.
than that of James. But as the colony expanded and as new settlements were contemplated, the inconvenience of this state of things was apparent. It became evident that the civil power must be invoked, and the laws administered with some degree of stability and regularity. Therefore, Nov. 15, 1636, the Court of Associates promulgated the following declaration :
"We, the associates of New Plymouth, coming hither as frec-born subjects of the state of England, and endowed with all and singular the privileges belonging to such, being assembled, do ordain that no act, imposition, law, or ordinance, be made or imposed on us, at the present or to come, but shall be made or imposed by the consent of the body of associates, or their representatives, legally assembled, which is according to the liberties of the state of England."
This document, it will be seen, is a virtual declaration of independence. The authority of the laws of England, "present and to come," were not only ignored, but Parlia- ment was by implication denied the right to legislate for the colony. It was there provided that an election for governor and assistants should be held on the first Tuesday of June annually, the choice to be exercised by such as should be admitted as freemen ; and none were to be admitted except such as were "orthodox in the fundamentals of religion," and possessed of a ratable estate of twenty pounds. The votes were to be given in person or by proxy, at Plymouth. Jurisdiction of cases under forty shillings was given to the governor with any two assistants, " to try and do as God may direct," not according to the common law of England nor any other statutes or regulations ; the trial of large cases or offenses was to remain with the whole body of freemen, by juries. No other executive officer was provided for but the constable, who was invested with large powers. No person
39
THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS.
was to be permitted to " live or inhabit within the government, without the leave and liking" of the governor and assistants. This assumption of the authority to exclude unwelcome visitors or residents, as we shall see hereafter, was the cause of much trouble in the future, and was exercised in such a manner as to lead to fierce controversy and civil commotion. It was derived from no charter or patent by any power entitled to exercise acts of sovereignty, but was assumed by the governing classes in the colony, at their own will and pleasure. The colony at this time consisted of three towns --- Plymouth, Duxbury and Scituate. Such were the legal conditions preceding the settlement of the Cape.
The first English settlement on the Cape was effected in Sandwich. April 3, 1637, liberty was given to the men of Saugus, viz. : Edmund Freeman, Henry Feake, Thomas Dexter, Edward Dillingham, William Wood, John Carmen, Richard Chadwell, William Almy, Thomas Tupper, George Knott, "to view a place to sit down, and have sufficient lands for threescore families," upon conditions propounded to them by the governor and Mr. Winslow. These men subsequently selected the region afterwards known as Sandwich, for the place of their location. With the ten men first named came fifty other "undertakers," as the new citizens were called, chiefly from Lynn, or Saugus, Duxbury and Plymouth, most of them bringing their families. The names of such of these as are still found in the town were, George Allen, Anthony Besse, Robert Bodfish, Richard Bourne, John Briggs, Thomas Burge, Henry Ewer, John Fish, Jonathan Fish, Nathaniel Fish, Andrew Hallet, William Harlow, Joseph Holway, Thomas Landers, Benjamin Nyc, James Skiff, John Wing, Peter Wright. A little later came John Ellis, Thomas Gibbs, William Swift, Thomas Tobey, William Basset, Ezra Perry. These men as a class
40
CAPE COD.
were of more tolerant and liberal spirit than characterized the governing classes of the Massachusetts settlers, a circumstance which probably had a controling influence upon the selection of this place for a permanent residence.
The settlement does not seem to have been completely effected until the subsequent year. Some preparation for the occupancy of the region was made. But this was done in the orderly, decorous way that met the approbation of the court. Two men who were laboring to elear up the ground for future use, but who had not received permission of the authorities, and were without their families, were presented " for disorderly keeping house alone."
In March of the following year Mr. John Alden and Capt. Miles Standish were directed to "go to Sandwich with all convenient speed, and set forth the bounds of the lands granted there." That the establishment of a church was coeval with the settlement seems evident, Mr. William Leverich being of that town in June, 1638. The court was disposed to exact of every community established by its authority, the most rigid compliance with the rules and regulations which had been ordained for the government of the whole, and the Sandwich settlers soon found that its recent occupation, and the unavoidable conditions of a new settlement would not be taken as an excuse for any delinquences. The record of 1638 informs us that several of the townsmen, among them some of the foremost citizens, were fined for not having their swine ringed, and for "being deficient in arms."
In March of the next year, by order of the court, the meadow lands in Sandwich, which had been previously laid forth, were again divided "by equal proportions, according to each man's estate," some of the townsmen being added to the committee in making the apportionment. It was an
41
THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS.
unequal system of division, founded upon the rule, "to him that hath shall be given," and it is not strange that in September following, complaint should have been made to the court. The cause of complaint was not, however, so much in relation to the inequality, as to the fact that they had received into the town divers persons, all but very few "unfit for church society ;" and the committee were summoned to appear and answer to the same, and, in the meanwhile, were ordered not to dispose of any more land there, nor to convey any of their own lands to any other person. At the ensuing October court the complaints were considered. Mr. Thomas Prence and Capt. Miles Standish were appointed to hear and determine the controversies among the committees and inhabitants of the town. No record is made that any one was dispossessed. One party, who was occupying a lot needed for "a public use," had his land taken, by giving him its full value.
The neck called Moonuscaulton was reserved to the town as a common, for the pasturage of young cattle; and also Shawme Neck, lying between the rivers of Shawme and Manuscusset, for a common, allowing the inhabitants to take wood therefrom. And it was ordered that no other inhabi- tants should "be received into town or have lands assigned them by the committee, without the consent of Mr. Leverich and the church had been obtained," and that none of the inhabitants should sell their estate to be occupied by any person except he be generally approved by the whole town. And for the preventing of "dangers, evils or diseords that may happen in the disposal of lands or other occasions within the town," it was agreed that in future some one of the assistants should be joined with the committees for advice and direction, Mr. Thomas Prence being appointed for the present. The division of the meadow lands was
42
CAPE COD.
made in April, 1640, five of the committee, five of the townsmen, with Mr. Prence, performing that duty, taking into consideration each man's "estate and quality," as well as his "necessity and ability." The assignments ranged from 42 acres to Mr. Edmund Freeman, to one acre each to various persons, 5 acres being assigned to Mr. Leverich, the pastor.
From this time forward until 1651 the annals of the town were uneventful. That year "the conditions on which the grant of the township was made, having been fulfilled, a deed of the plantation was executed by Gov. Bradford to Mr. Edmund Freeman, who made conveyanees to his associates." The records give indication of the prompt erection of a house of worship, for as early as 1644, a meeting was held to decide whether to build a new meeting- house or repair the old one, which latter course was adopted. At a still later period a levy of £5 was made to part off Mr. Leverich's house with boards, "which was long since promised him," This admission, and others of the same tenor, show some degree of remissness on the part of the people in the support of the minister. That such a state of things should occur in a new settlement, engrossed with many cares and anxieties, does not seem strange, and argues no permanent declension in the sentiments of the people towards one of the great objects which is supposed to have impelled them to seek an asylum here.
An attempt to effect a settlement in Mattacheese or Mattacheesett, was made in the fall of 1637-8, by Rev. Stephen Bachelor and several others, a large proportion of them, however, members of his own family, who were connected with some of the settlers of Sandwich. The spot which they selected for their location was in the northeastern portion of the present town of Barnstable, near the seashore, ..
43
THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS.
in a locality which still bears the name of "Old Town." Winthrop speaks of it as a portion of Yarmouth, and for two or three years after the settlement it did form a part of that town, until it was set off to Barnstable by a special court held in Yarmouth, June 17, 1641. The weather of the winter of 1638 was very severe, the settlement was undertaken withont due preparation, and was abandoned in. the spring. Mr. Bachelor, then recently the pastor of Lynn, at the advanced age of 76, travelled on foot the whole distance from Lynn to Mattacheese, more than a hundred miles, at an inclement season of the year. From Matta- cheese, early in the spring he went to Newbury, and fourteen years later, after a life of controversy and hardship, died in England, at the age of ninety years.
Early in 1639, permission having been granted, the preceding December, to Anthony Thacher, John Crow and Thomas Howes, who had associated with them Mr. Mardick (Marmaduke) Matthews, and subsequently Samuel Rider, Mr. Nicholas Simpkins, Giles Hopkins, Andrew Hallet and others, the settlement of Yarmouth commenced, under favorable auspices. Mr. Hopkins was a son of Stephen Hopkins, and came over with his father in the Mayflower, in 1620. The previous year the elder Hopkins was granted permission, by the court, to erect a house and cut hay at Mattacheese, and have a lot there with the consent of the committees for the place, and was in occupation when the settlement commenced. This settlement seems to have been effected without much controversy or any memorable incidents, and with the cordial cooperation of the court and authorities of Plymouth.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.