USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 1 > Part 48
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GROWTH OF OFFSHOOTS
turesome, or most desirous of bettering their condition, or most inconveniently furnished with outlying lots, would join with others in petitioning for a grant at some attractive place where they would set up a new planta- tion. On these lines followed the thrusting outward of the frontier, which was not completely within the corpo- rate area of Massachusetts till after the end of the Amer- ican Revolution.
The location of desirable tracts not yet occupied by white settlers; the negotiations with Indians for cessions; the application for a grant of the coveted land by the General Court; the transportation of families, stock, and household goods; the forming of a town government; the lay- ing out of communities; the distribution of land among the inhabitants-that process went on decade after decade.
GROWTH OF OFFSHOOTS (1620-1675)
Without going into too great detail, an attempt will be made to show something of the contribution of each of the principal mother towns to the setting up of other communities. It would make the picture clearer if it were possible to mark the contemporaneous radiations of each of the older communities on a single chart, which would show the scions of the old roots. A graphic repre- sentation might indicate also how in some instances sev- eral of the mother towns combined to the outfit of a common daughter community. Such a new shoot, un- regulated and often incompletely recorded, is too compli- cated for complete presentation in words. A further handicap is the want of exact information about many of the new plantations. The more desirable date for the present purposes, is that of the first permanent settle- ment; but available records do not always fix this, or supply conflicting information. The time of incorpora- tion is usually well established; but after the very earli- est years this is a doubtful index, because many towns were not incorporated until long after their founding. With the limitations thus imposed, we may consider the offspring of the more prolific mothers.
Plymouth is outstanding among the New England
528
EXPANSION AND KING PHILIP'S WAR
towns for its offshoots. From it Scituate was settled in 1633 or 1634, the name presumably derived from the In- dian Satuit, meaning a cold brook. From Scituate sprang Barnstable (1639), and from Barnstable, Falmouth, (1660). Duxbury, early called Duxburrow, was incorporated in 1637, and named from one of the Standish family estates in England. A writer with more inventiveness than knowledge of etymology has suggested that the town was named from the Latin dux or military leader, honoring Standish. Men of Plymouth also erected the first build- ing at Hull, as a trading post (1624) ; the town was not incorporated until 1644 and had long been a part of Mas- sachusetts.
Eastham was granted (1644) to settlers at Plymouth, after purchase from the Indians, and settlement com- menced the same year. Emigrants from Eastham and Plymouth settled Harwich in 1647, the site, according to Mather, being that of a considerable Indian town.
Plymouth also played a part in settling Bridgewater, purchased from the Indians in 1649 and incorporated in 1656. Middleborough, midway between Plymouth and the headquarters of Massasoit, was settled by Plymouth men and known by its Indian name of Namasket until its incorporation, 1660. Dartmouth, said to have been the scene visited by Gosnold in 1602, was incorporated in 1664. Emigrants from Plymouth, with others from Marshfield and Scituate, settled Freetown in 1659; this was the beginning of the modern Fall River. Abington was settled out of Plymouth in 1668. Wareham, having been sold by the Indians to the town of Plymouth in 1655, was by it sold in six shares (1682) to men from Plymouth, Marshfield and Dartmouth, and settlements commenced soon afterward, attracting people from Plym- outh, Sandwich and Hingham.
Weymouth, second of the mother towns, was respons- ible for the founding of Rehoboth (1644) whither Rev. Samuel Newman moved with a part of his church. There had been at least one earlier settler, and the land, a tract ten miles square, had been bought from Massasoit in 1641. To Weymouth, indirectly, credit must be given
MERRIMAC
NORTHFIELD
DUNSTABLE
GROTON
DEERFIELD
NASHUA CONCORD
ACANSTER
SUDBURY
BOSTON
YOWORCESTER
BROOKFIELD
MENDON
SPRINGFIELD
DUXBURY
WOONSOCKET
E BRIDGEWATER
PLYMOUTH
ÉWINDSOR SWINDSOR
PROVIDENCE
HARTFORD
BARRINGTON
JE.GREENWICH
WW. GREENWICH
MOUTH
WOODBURY
NORWICH
HADDAM
HOPKINTON NEWPORT
WALLINGFORD
CHARLESTOWN
KILLINGWORTH
NEW HAVEN
NEW
RWESTERLY
LONDON
SCALE
O
25 MILES
GREENWICH
NEW ENGLAND SETTLEMENT 1675
B
Adapted from Lois Mathews and from A. B. Hart
THE FRONTIER AT THE OUTBREAK OF KING PHILIP'S WAR
0000
529
GROWTH OF OFFSHOOTS
for Swanzey and Attleborough, both of which were set- tled out of Rehoboth. Obadiah Holmes and other Bap- tists of Rehoboth withdrew and set up their own church in 1649 at Swansea, which they named for a town in Wales. Capt. Thomas Willett of Rehoboth purchased land from the Indians in 1661; eight years later it was divided and 72 proprietors commenced the settlement of Attleborough.
In answer to the "Braintry Petition" a grant was made (1660) and put in the hands of "the committee for Nip- mug." The settlement, accomplished by people from Weymouth and Braintree, was incorporated in 1667 as Mendon, probably after Menham, Suffolk, England.
The new town offspring of Salem were mostly close at hand; five of them were contiguous to the original town. Salem Village, settled by Governor Endecott and his associates in 1628, was later named Danvers, presum- ably "for Earl D'Anvers, a nobleman in the north of Eng- land." From Salem in 1630 removed John and William Woodbury with other companions of Roger Conant, to the north side of Bass river, where a branch of the Salem meeting house was set up, 1656, and the place named Beverly. Enon was settled, 1639, within the limits of Salem, and later became Wenham at its incorporation in 1643. Manchester was incorporated in 1645, having orig- inally formed a part of Salem known as Jeffrey's Creek. Marblehead was also originally a part of Salem, separ- ately incorporated in 1649 when it contained 44 families.
The only Salem offshoot that seems not to have been a part of the original town was Topsfield. Land was granted to inhabitants of Ipswich and Salem, and a settle- ment made in 1639, then called New Meadows. At its incorporation it was named for Topsfield, Essex, Eng- land.
Charlestown was the progenitor of three towns. The first was settled (1641) on land adjoining the original grant, and known as Charlestown Village until its incor- poration as Woburn in 1642. Malden, presumed to have been incorporated in 1649, was called Mystic Side and was also originally a part of Charlestown. Stow was first set-
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EXPANSION AND KING PHILIP'S WAR
tled, (1650), by men named Kettle and Boon, who pur- chased land from the natives and removed with their families from Charlestown.
Lynn was exceedingly active in mothering new towns; from it were settled, in part at least, Saugus, Lynnfield, Reading, and Sandwich and Yarmouth on Cape Cod. The two towns last named were founded in 1637, and most of the settlers of the neighborhood of Chatham, 1672, were from Yarmouth.
A considerable group of new towns were founded by the generation of the Great Emigration first settled in Boston. The first grant of land in a part of Boston called Romney Marsh was made in 1631 and the com- munity which grew up there was later incorporated as Chelsea. Boston men were the proprietors of Dunstable, incorporated 1673, and of Oxford, granted in 1682 to Governor Joseph Dudley and Lieutenant Governor Wil- liam Stoughton, with their associates. Here in 1686 the proprietors received thirty families of French Protestants but a disastrous Indian attack ten years afterward caused the survivors to retire to Boston; among them was Ben- jamin Faneuil, first to bear that historic name in this country. The town was resettled in 1713 by English colonists.
Men from Watertown had a part in settling Dedham, where land was granted by the General Court in 1635; this was, like its contemporary Concord, an inland town. From Dedham sprang Medfield (1650) Wrentham (1661) and Deerfield, granted to proprietors at Dedham in 1669. Sudbury was founded in 1638 by men of Watertown and others who came direct from England; and petitioners from Sudbury were granted in 1656 a tract which they settled as Marlborough. Sholan, sachem of the Nasha- ways, pointed out to Thomas King of Watertown what he conceived to be a good place for a settlement, and King with others purchased a tract of land in 1643 and had Lancaster incorporated, 1653, though it was not per- manently settled until later. Weston, first settled in 1673, was a part of Watertown.
Unquety was set off from Dorchester in 1662, incor-
531
GROWTH OF OFFSHOOTS
porated, and subsequently called by the name of Milton. Roxbury furthered settlements in the western part of the colony most notably Springfield, settled in 1635 as Agawam by William Pynchon and others who were given by the General Court the privilege of chosing land in the Connecticut valley. Springfield men settled Long- meadow (1644) ; helped in the founding of Northampton, where John Pynchon purchased land from the Indians in 1653 on behalf of a group of planters; and obtained a grant to William Pynchon and others (1661) which was incorporated in 1669 as Westfield because it was then the westernmost settlement in the colony.
Paul and William Dudley of Roxbury were among the first proprietors of the town of Dudley (1660) and in 1686 a group of Roxbury men purchased land where Lambstown was settled, subsequently granted by the General Court and incorporated in 1738 as Hardwick. Billericay, England, gave its name to Billerica, where land was granted (1637) to Cambridge "provided they would make it a village to have ten families settled there within ten years." Settlement actually commenced in 1653.
The mother towns founded after the Great Emigra- tion were less prolific. People of Ipswich were permitted to remove in 1635 to Quafcacanquen, and the place was later incorporated as Newbury; and the General Court in 1640 granted land to men of Newbury, where Haverhill was settled. Inhabitants of Ipswich were also the grant- ess (1660) of Brookfield, then far to the west.
About twenty persons from Woburn and Concord pe- titioned the General Court (1652) for land where they founded Chelmsford. Raynham was settled out of Taun- ton. A settlement within the town of Rowley, com- menced in 1669, was called New Rowley until its incorpo- ration as Georgetown in 1838. Roxford was also a part of Rowley, but was separately incorporated in 1685.
A few other towns, settled prior to 1689, are not trace- able to particular older communities within the colony. Among these is Hadley, founded in 1659 by sixty persons from Wethersfield, Connecticut. From Hadley, Hatfield
532
EXPANSION AND KING PHILIP'S WAR
was set off and incorporated (1670) ; and Hadley and Hatfield, with Northampton, contributed the first settlers of Northfield (1672). Also in the group of towns of mixed ancestry are Worcester and Rutland, commenced respectively in 1684 and 1686, each drawing its founders from six or eight other towns, and neither of them suc- cessfully established until after 1720.
STATE OF THE FRONTIER (1675)
This steady and systematic setting out of civic plants which grew to be great trees was not a simple matter. It was almost everywhere conditioned on Indian rights and wrongs. Before we consider the relations between the colonists and their Indian neighbors, a summary view must be had of the arrangement of settlements as they appeared at the most critical time within the years covered by this chapter. First came the original English settlements along the shore, only two of them away from tidewater. Each of these was circumscribed by fixed boundaries; each of them within a few years of its found- ing, began to extend itself by successive grants of adja- cent land, until it might be said that the nominal boun- daries of the towns included the greater portion of a strip extending very irregularly about 25 miles inland from the seacoast. Each of them earlier or later consented to the setting up of new lines in the old areas; and to mov- ing of inhabitants beyond the settlements. Thus Concord was entirely surrounded by Indian lands at the time of its granting. Other purchases and grants were for a time in like case, though for the most part the incursion of settlers into the wilderness was not so rapid or so extended that the gaps behind them were long in filling. The frontier of actual settlement was ragged, communication was difficult, and there was little cohesion among the towns. The early settlements in the Connecticut valley were dangerously isolated, and paid dearly for the difficulty of transit to the military establishments maintained by the capital towns in the East.
This frontier was not so conceived that, under any cir- cumstances, it could present a solid front. It was a struc-
533
EARLY INDIAN RELATIONS
ture of straggling villages, in a country not too hospita- ble. Its defenses were negligible. Repeated urging was often necessary to persuade communities of the import- ance of building a blockhouse or stockade, or at least taking precautions to make some one house in the vil- lage a more than normally secure place of refuge in event of hostilities. Military matters were not in the minds of those who built this frontier. The settlers were men who wanted to own land, till it and build homes upon it. If they had to fight in defense of those homes they would do so, but it was an unpleasant, vexatious business, to be avoided rather than anticipated, if possible, but prose- cuted with vigor, if essential.
EARLY ENCOUNTERS WITH INDIANS (1614-1635)
The first Indian experience with Englishmen was not calculated to inspire the confidence of the aborigines. One Thomas Hunt, in command of one of a group of ships employed by Capt. John Smith in explorations along the shore of New England in 1614, was left by Smith to complete the loading of a cargo of furs and follow him home. Hunt enticed 24 Indians aboard his ship on the" representation that he desired to trade with them, then confined them below decks and carried them to Spain where they were sold for slaves.
This conduct seems to have been bruited about among the natives, and to have given rise to some feeling of un- fairness, which expressed itself in unpleasant yells and several volleys of arrows during the night which fol- lowed the landing of the Pilgrims. One of Hunt's vic- tims in some way reached England, where he is supposed to have been well treated by a merchant and finally en- abled to return to his home. This was Squanto, who in- structed the colonists in Indian methods of agriculture and was otherwise valuable to them. Another Indian friend, the first interpreter, was Samoset who had had some contact with English fishermen along the coast, and who greeted the Plymouth colonists about three months after their arrival, with "Welcome, Englishmen!"
534
EXPANSION AND KING PHILIP'S WAR
The first relations of the Plymouth men with their im- mediate neighbors were friendly enough. Presently, how- ever, there came rumors of a hostile design among the Narragansets, and early in 1622 a palisade and other im- provements were added to the defensive works about the settlement. Later in the same year some settlers at Wey- mouth took corn by force from Indians who declined to sell it; and when the Indians threatened retaliation, Capt. Standish came over and dealt so fatally with some of them that the survivors remained pleasantly tractable for a considerable time.
Meanwhile, Squanto had been the go-between in initiat- ing diplomatic relations between the English and Massa- soit, the principal Indian chief of the region. With him the colonists made a treaty providing for a defensive mili- tary alliance, somewhat presumptuously represented to be on behalf of King James; and providing also for the punishment by each party of any of its men who should do harm to the other. This was the beginning of a friendly relationship that remained undisturbed for more than forty years, and expressed itself in many gracious acts such as crude medical attention by some of the Eng- lish when Massasoit was ill, and warnings by the Indian chief when he learned that plotting was afoot against the settlements. Aside from occasional thievery and violence by some of the less honorable members of both races, there was no serious Indian trouble until 1636.
THE PEQUOD WAR (1636-1637)
In 1634, one Captain Stone, trading on the Connecticut river, was killed by Indians, and the authorities at Boston demanded the surrender of the guilty parties. Negotia- tions followed with Sassacus, head of the Pequods, and chief over some 26 lesser sachems, and led finally to a treaty with him and an explanation by the alleged mur- derers that they acted to rescue two of their fellows whom Stone had manacled and apparently treated as prisoners. This story was accepted at first, but later a different report gained currency. In 1636 another trader named John Oldham was very certainly and most indecently
535
THE APOSTLE ELIOT
murdered near Long Island by some Indians subsidi- ary to the Narragansets, who were not friendly to the Pequods. A punitive expedition went out under John Endecott, helped themselves to some Pequod corn which they wanted for provisioning and hurried away.
Pequod depredations followed at Saybrook and Weath- ersfield, Connecticut, the latter planted by the Hooker Company of Massachusetts men. A messenger came to Boston for help in the spring of 1637, and a month later an English force surprised the Indian village, near Long Island Sound at Mystic, fired it, and massacred about 600 persons with a loss of two white men killed and about 20 wounded. The Narraganset allies of the Eng- lish surrounded and held "some hundreds" of the Pequods until the English force could give them attention, and after- ward about 30 Indians were taken off shore on a boat and rather indecently disposed of overboard. Some 50 other seem to have been held for disposal as slaves, being women and children. The operation ended only when the tribe had been substantially exterminated.
The whole affair reflects anything but credit on Eng- lish honor, and is to be explained only by extreme blood- thirstiness among the colonial military, or by a panicky terror among the settlers of the new colony on the Con- necticut that convinced them that they must utterly destroy the Indian power or risk destruction for them- selves. It is hard to believe that the English were in se- rious danger from a savage and little organized foe, armed only with primitive weapons-except so far as European traders, French, Dutch, Plymouth and Massa- chusetts men-may have begun the insane practice of selling firearms and powder which could be used to destroy the whites.
THE APOSTLE JOHN ELIOT (1646-1675)
Another more pleasant side of Indian relationships is the persistent attempts to save the Indian souls and gen- tle their lives by Christian teachings. The chief and tireless leader in this process was that splendid, kindly, intelli- gent, earnest gentleman who has been called the Apostle
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EXPANSION AND KING PHILIP'S WAR
of the Indians. Born in Nasing, Essex, in 1604, he came to Boston in the Lyon in 1631, and was shortly afterward settled in Roxbury.
He early interested himself in spreading the gospel among the Indians, and promptly saw that he could not get far unless he could present his teachings in the In- dian language. Hence he brought an old Indian named Job Nesutan to live in his family, and within a few months he contrived to master the essentials of the language. October 28, 1646, Eliot first addressed the Indians with prayers and an explanation of the ten com- mandments in their own tongue, followed by a session of questions that, to the modern mind seem most amusingly pointed.
His contemporary, Daniel Gookin, wrote: "The truth is, Mr. Eliot engaged in this great work of preaching unto the Indians upon a very pure and sincere account : for I being his neighbor and intimate friend, at the time when he first attempted this enterprise, he was pleased to communicate unto me his design, and the motives that induced him thereunto; which, as I remem- ber, were principally these three.
"First, the glory of God, in the conversion of some of these poor, desolate souls.
"Secondly, his compassion and ardent affection to them as of mankind in their great blindness and ignorance.
"Thirdly, and not the least, to endeavor, so far is in him lay, the accomplishment and fulfilling the covenant and promise, that New England people had made unto their king, when he granted them their patent or char- ter, viz. that one principal end of their going to plant these countries, was, to communicate the gospel unto the Native Indians; which in truth is a clause in the charter."
Some other missionaries reflected credit on their cal- ling. Mr. Bourne at Plymouth addressed the Indians in their language, as did John Cotton, sometime at Martha's Vineyard where also the Mayhews, father and son, devoted themselves to Christianizing the natives. Yet none of these men perceived, as did Eliot that if the In- dians were to be brought to an allegiance of complete
537
THE APOSTLE ELIOT
conviction rather than that of mere compliance they must be reached by missionaries of their own race.
With this idea firmly fixed, he undertook two stagger- ing tasks: the translation of the Bible into the Indian tongue, and the teaching of Indians to read in order that they, in turn, might become the teachers of their peo- ple. The translation required some years to complete, and was materially aided in its publication by an Indian known as James-the-printer who was able to act as com- positor and to correct the proofs. Several other volumes were later translated, but before the Bible was published in its entirety, Eliot had taught a hundred Indians to read, and to spread the word. The first edition was no sooner completed then he commenced a second, for his knowledge of the language had grown materially and he had discovered some amusing errors in the original translation. For example, at the passage in Judges where "The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice," Eliot had difficulty in asking the Indian word for lattice, and learned afterward that his careful explanation of the nature of the thing had got him a word meaning eelpot. The typographical result may be seen from the following passage in the Indian Bible, which is in fact the Lord's Prayer :
Noo-shun kes-uk-qut, qut-tian-at-am-unch koo-we-su-onk, kut-ket-as-soo-tam-oonk pey-au-moo-utch, kut-te-nan-tam-oo- onk ne nai, ne-ya-ne ke-suk-qut kah oh-ke-it. As-sa-mai-i-in- ne-an ko-ko-ke-suk-o-da-e nut-as-e-suk-ok-ke pe-tuk-qun-neg. Kah ah-quo-an-tam-a-i-in-ne-an num-match-e-se-ong-an-on- ash, ne-wutch-e ne-na-wun wonk nut-ah-quo-an-tam-au-o-un- non-og nish-noh pasuk noo-na-mon-tuk-quoh-who-nan, kah ahque sag-kom-pa-gin-ne-an en qutch-e-het-tu-ong-a-nit, qut poh-qua-wus-sin-ne-an wutch match-i-tut. [Eliot's Indian Bible, Luke XI, 2-4.]
In addition to his zeal in Christianizing the Indians, Eliot thought that some education was necessary to their being truly civilized. To this end he arranged to estab- lish a colony at Natick where instruction might be given and an experiment in democratic government carried on. A short and simple code of laws was adopted :
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EXPANSION AND KING PHILIP'S WAR
"1. If any man be idle a week, or at most a fortnight, he shall pay five shillings. II. If any unmarried man shall lie with a young woman unmarried, he shall pay twenty shillings. III. If any man shall beat his wife, his hands shall be tied behind him, and he shall be car- ried to the place of justice to be severely punished. IV. Every young man, if not another's servant, and if un- married, shall be compelled to set up a wigwam, and plant for himself, and not shift up and down in other wigwams. V. If any young woman shall not have her hair tied up, but hang loose, or be cut as men's hair, she shall pay five shillings. VI. If any woman shall go with naked breasts, she shall pay two shillings. VII. All men that wear long locks shall pay five shillings. VIII. If any shall kill their lice between their teeth, they shall pay five shillings."
The first four of these laws relate to matters covered by modern statutes, and the remainder seem to be mat- ters of scriptural legislation that have found their way into American codes ever since Eliot's day. Administra- tion was untrammeled by formality, if one may believe the report of the advice of Wauban, a "ruler of fifty" at Natick, in reply to a young Indian justice who asked how to deal with drunken quarrels: "Tie um all up, and whip um plaintiff, and whip um defendent, and whip um witness."
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