USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Dedham > Dedham tercentenary 1636-1936 > Part 3
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River parts of Boston and reached Dedham from the present Spring Street section, strik- ing here at a point near Dwight's Brook (at the northeast abutment of the present rail- road bridge where East Street crosses High Street where they located John Dwight's house among their first houses).
In whatever manner they came, they were the first to penetrate and settle in the unknown wilderness south of the River; and their frontier situation was clearly recog- nized in the Town Records of November 25, 1636, when it was voted that the lots should be resided upon and "improved" before the next year, "our Towne of Dedham being far Remote from other Townes, soe that it is Requesite we should enioye what number of people we may for our better safety from danger as also for other comp- forts depending thereupon."
Such was this first penetration from Watertown into the wilderness south of the River; and thus early did our settlers furnish an example of that characteristic of Americans in all our history-the urge to move on and go elsewhere.
II.
What were Dedham's original boundaries?
Its northerly line was the southerly line of the towns of Newtowne (Cambridge), Roxbury, and Dorchester, the latter's southerly line extending straight from Roxbury corner to the summit of Blue Hill. (7) On the east, Dedham's territory would have included much of the present Milton, Canton, Stoughton and Foxboro. On the west, it extended to the Charles River and its five mile square on the other side of the River included the present towns of Needham, Wellesley, most of Natick and also Dedham Island. (8) Its territory to the eastward, however, was greatly diminished within two years, when on May 7, 1638, the General Court took away from Dedham and granted to Dorchester the lands east of a line running southerly from Roxbury corner and west of the Neponset River to the Plymouth Colony boundary, that is, practically to the present line between Norfolk and Bristol Counties near North Attleborough. (8)
But where was Dedham's southern boundary? It is an astonishing fact that no one, not even the General Court, knew in 1636 where that boundary was. And this for a very good reason-because neither the General Court nor anyone else then knew how far to the south the lands extended which the Massachusetts Bay Colony held under their Patent from the King. That Patent (granted in 1629) fixed the south boundary as a line which would include all lands extending three miles "on the south parte of the said Charles River or of any, or everie part thereof," and also all land three miles south "of the southermost part of Massachusetts Bay"; and the north and southern lines of the Colony were to extend "from the Atlantic and Westerne Sea and Ocean on the east parte to the South Sea (Pacific Ocean) on the west parte." At that time, "Massachusetts Bay" meant Boston Harbor and a line drawn due west from a a point three miles south of the southermost part of Boston Harbor i. e. in Weymouth, would run a little south of the present Canton Junction and the present Medfield. But where was the line located which would lie "three English Myles on the South parte of the said Charles River, or of any, or everie part thereof?" So far as now appears, at the time of the Patent there were only four maps in existence showing the Charles River-one, a map made by De Cham- plain on his explorations in 1605 and published in his Voyages in 1613; Captain John Smith's map made in 1614 and published in 1616; a Dutch map of about 1614; and Al- exander's map of 1624 in Purchas' Pilgrims. All these maps showed Charles River extend- ing due west from Boston Harbor, without any tributary from the south, and apparently having its source near Lake Champlain. No white man, prior to 1629, had ever pene- trated the interior from the coast so as to know actually the location of the River. None of the Massachusetts Bay colonists had ever explored the Charles River after 1629 much
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further than the present site of Dedham; for the only two maps made between 1630 and 1635 now known show the end of the River at about that location. (9) No one apparent- ly knew that the River, instead of extending to the west, turned south at Needham and that the main stream or one of its tributaries extended twenty miles to the south. Hence, the General Court, in 1636, probably believed that Dedham's southern boundary would not lie much further south than a line running through the present Medfield. And as, in 1636, no town had had a grant of land extending more than eight miles into the country from the town meeting-house, it is unlikely that Dedham's grant was intended to ex- tend over twenty miles. In 1638, however, owing to a dispute with the Plymouth Colony as to its boundary between Hingham and Cohasset, the General Court decided to find out how far to the south Charles River actually did rise, and where was, in fact, the point three miles from the River's most southerly part. (10) Accordingly, it ap- pointed two Commissioners who, with two appointed by Dedham (John Rogers and Jonathan Fairbanks), were "to go upon the discovery of Charles River." These Com- missioners reported (October 16, 1638) that they had taken an observation at a point 41 degrees, 49 minutes north latitude and that the River was there still running south- erly, "but wee for want of necessaries could not at that time try the utmost end of the River." It is a curious fact that they probably, in fact, reached the southermost part of the river; though they were poor surveyors and their figuring of latitude was wrong, as the actual location of the southermost point is actually nearly fifteen miles further north than at the point at which they took their observation. Four years later (in 1642) two agents of the Colony, Woodward and Saffery, made another survey and fixed the southern line of the Colony by driving a stake "on Wrentham Plain" at a point (41 degrees, 55 minutes) just about seven miles north of the point reached by the Dedham surveyors.
Later, after the Colony of Rhode Island was chartered, a dispute arose between it and Massachusetts over their dividing line; and Commissioners of the two Colonies, in 1718, relocated the Woodward and Saffery line, but found that its latitude had also been incorrectly surveyed and that its true latitude was 42 degrees, 3 minutes. In 1750, Rhode Island, having made another survey, rejected this line, claiming with some jus- tice that the southermost part of the River had been fixed five miles too far to the south, owing to a mistake made by the Commissioners in deciding that a tributary brook was to be considered as the River. At last, eighty-four years later, the dispute was brought into the Supreme Court of the United States in 1834; and it was not until the year 1846, that that Court upheld the claim of Massachusetts; and thus, after a lapse of two hundred and ten years, it was finally decided where the southern line of Dedham had been in 1636. (12) And so it happened that our Town's southern boundary was the cause of one of the most important of all the decisions ever rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States, namely that which established the right of the Court to determine boundary lines between States of the Union.
III.
How did Dedham receive its name? When the first settlers under the Massachu- setts Bay Colony landed in Salem in 1628, there was in existence (so far as now appears) only one map which portrayed with any degree of accuracy the New England coast. (13) This was a map drawn by Captain John Smith when he made his exploration in 1614, and published by him in 1616 in his Description of New England. On this map, at the time of making, he had set down the Indian names of all settlements which he then found here; but on his return to England, he petitioned Prince Charles (second son of King James, the First ) "to change their barbarous names for such English as posterity might say, Prince Charles was their Godfather." In compliance with this request, the Royal youth of fifteen years of age affixed English names to the Indian locations; and at
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the top of the map as published there appears the inscriptions; "the most remarquable parts thus named by the high and mighty Prince Charles, Prince of Great Britaine." Had the early settlers followed the names so placed on the map, the present town of York in Maine would have been named Boston; other Maine towns further eastward would now be named Edenborough, Hull, Ipswich, Cambridge, and Dartmouth; our Massachusetts town of Hingham would now be named London, and Marshfield would be Oxford; the Blue Hills would be known as the Chevyot Hills, and Cape Cod would be Cape James. The early settlers, however, disregarding the opportunity of having Charles known to posterity as "the Godfather" of their towns, used none of the names so carefully assigned by their King, with the sole exceptions of Boston, Cambridge, and Ipswich; and even those names they transferred from the places where he had located them on the coast of Maine to that of Massachusetts.
When the General Court, in its order of September 10, 1636, gave to our Town the name of "Dedham" (spelt "Deddam," it should be noted, in the original MSS Court records), they probably desired to solace the feelings of the emigrants from the English town of that name (John Dwight, John Page, and John Rogers). Whether in England the name was originally Delheim (the house in the dale) or Diddham (the home of the Didd family), the English town had many romantic historic associations; for the manor to which it was attached had been part of the marriage endowment of three queens of Henry VIII-Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour. While the name was hardly euphonious, we can, at least, be thankful that the General Court did not attach to our town here and to the other new settlements their early uncouth Indian names. Certaintly Concord is better than Musketaquid, Wrentham than Wolomonopog, Weymouth than Wessaguscus, Charlestown than Mishawum, Salem than Naumkeag, Medfield than Boggestow, Andover than Cochichowicke, Newbury than Wessacucon, Groton than Petapawag, Marlborough than Agaganquamasset; Deerfield than Pocump- tuck; and though the name of Dedham has not always been regarded as entirely pleasing, it is at least as attractive as the Indian name of Watertown which was Pigsgusset.
Nevertheless, it is a pity that the General Court did not see fit to grant the name which the pioneers requested; since "Contentment" (the place of content), like Salem (the place of peace) and Concord (the place of freedom from dissention), represented very fitly and appropriately the mood and sentiment of the early settlers of Massachusetts Bay. For content, in fact, they were -- content to escape from England to a land where they might be free to enjoy their own form of religion and where ample land and ample means of livelihood afforded relief from the serious conditions of unem- ployment then prevailing in the regions of Essex, Dorset, and Suffolk Counties whence they came. (14) And this content with their new conditions here was often emphasized by the pioneers. Thus, wrote William Wood in New England's Prospect in 1634: "They are well contented and look not so much at abundance as a competency. And Captain Roger Clap of Dorchester wrote (in 1676) as to his hard early days: "In those days, God did cause his people to trust in him and to be contented with mean things. I took notice of it as a great favor of God unto me not only to preserve my life but to give me content- ment in all these straits, inasmuch that I do not remember that ever I did wish in my heart that I had not come unto this country." Thomas Dudley wrote home in 1631: "If any come hither to plant for worldly end which can live well at home, he commits an error, but if for spiritual ends. . . . He may find here what may well content him." Governor Winthrop wrote home to his wife: "I thank God I like so well to be here, as I do not repent my coming. I would not have altered my course though I had foreseen all these afflictions. I never had more content of mind." And likewise the settlers in the Ply- mouth Colony when, in 1627, they first divided the land amongst them, ordered: "That whatsoever the surveyors judge sufficient shall stand without contradiction or opposition, and every man shall rest contented with his lot"-an order which my father used to say contained the first and only Pilgrim pun on record.
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And that civic concord and contentment were leading objects of our own pioneers, appears in the Covenant which they signed; for one of its three clauses provided that: "If at any time differences shall arise between parties of our said town, that then such party and parties shall presently refer all such differences unto some one, 2 or 3 others of our Society to be fully accorded and determined, without any further delay if it possibly may be." (15) And in our first Church records, it is written that, in 1637, the pioneers provided for weekly meetings, not only to "prepare for communion in a church society," but "lovingly to discourse and consult together such questions as should further tend to establish a peaceable and comfortable civil society."
It has been frequently pointed out that the pioneers of 1636 were not tolerant in religion. They did not pretend to be. "The design of our first planters," wrote Rev- erend Samuel Willard in 1681, "was not a toleration. . . . Their business was to settle and (as much as in them lay) secure religion to Posterity according to that way which they believed was of God." The reason for this lack of toleration was their desire for peace; they were risking their lives and fortunes in a distant wilderness and an instinct of self-preservation led them to avoid risks of discord arising from any source. As Rev- erend John White wrote in 1630, in The Planters Plca: "Ill humours soon overthrow a weak body and false stones in a foundation ruin the whole building; the persons, there- fore, chosen out for this employment ought to be willing, constant, industrious, obedient, frugal, lovers of the common good. . . . Care must be had . . . at least that they be willing to submit to authority; mutinies, which many times are kindled by one person are well nigh as dangerous in a Colony as in an Army." It was to keep out all elements of dissension, religious as well as civil, that our Dedham founders, in their Covenant of 1636, provided "that we shall by all means labor to keep off from us all such as are contrary minded and receive only such unto us as may be probably of one heart with us, that we either know or may well and truly be informed to walke in a peaceful con- versation with all meekness of spirit . . . seeking the good of each other out of which may be derived true peace." Whoever had views and objects so different from their own that his presence among them would be an occasion of weakness or strife had, in their judgment, no claim to fasten himself upon them. To use a phrase of Disraeli's, "those only were agreeable to them who agreed with them." For this reason, it was provided in Town and Colony laws that no settlement could be made without consent of the General Court, and that no person could be later admitted to a settlement with- out consent of the proprietors already admitted. (16)
It is to be especially noted, however, that none of the harsh, extreme, and narrow measures that were taken by the neighboring towns of Boston and Charlestown against those who differed in religious views were ever adopted in our Town of Dedham. And the best illustration of this is to be found in the preface to our early Church records in which it is stated, in substance: "The proceedings herein set down may be of some use in after times; no way intending thereby to bind the conscience of any to walk by this pattern, any farther than it may appear to be agreeable to the rule of the gospel."
The attitude which on its negative side has been termed intolerance had a positive side, namely, an ardent community spirit which was the salvation of the new settle- ments. No man was allowed to work for himself alone. Everything was to be done in and for the local community. This desire for the common weal appeared in the very petition for a town charter which our settlers presented to the General Court, September 5, 1636, in which they spoke of their task as being "the well-improving of what we are thus entrusted withal, unto our particular but especially unto the general good of this whole weal publick in succeeding times." Action for the common weal was the essence of the oath which every freeman had to take as follows: "I will give my vote and suf- frage as I shall judge in mine own conscience may best conduce and tend to the public
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weal of the body, without respect of persons or favour of any man." This sense that the vital need and the safety of their day was to work for the community is shown in almost every vote in the early Town-meetings-the first of which was "that there shall not any waters within the compass of our Towne become impropriated unto any par- ticular man but shall rest free for the common benefit of the whole Towne for matters of fishing." The common welfare was the object of most of the succeeding orders, pro- viding for fines for absence from Town-meetings, strict regulations as to cutting of trees, making of clapboards, and obtaining fire-wood (wood being a prime necessity), strict requirement of every man to construct fences and gates to protect the lands against roving cattle and swine, provision for common lands for crops and common lands for cattle "herd walks," requirement of work on highways by all inhabitants, provision for a Town training-field, establishment of a common school and teacher to be supported by taxation, common contribution to establish a blacksmith-and most im- portant of all-provision for a Town Meeting-house. Of the community spirit, the true symbol was this Meeting-house --- a word the meaning and significance of which is not always borne in mind by us of later days. To our forefathers, this building was not merely a place for religious service but in it were held the Town-meetings, the Court trials, the celebrations of public holidays, and the discussions of political events. The Meeting-house was the social center for the community; for, as John Adams said, "the New Englander was a meeting-going animal." Community spirit was especially pro- moted in New England by the fact that the Town was the normal unit, and the inhabi- tants had a sense of fellowship and common solidarity which did not exist in Virginia and other Colonies (and, later, States) where the civic unit was the County and not the Town.
After its settlement, the history of Dedham for the next one hundred and fifty years was that of a prosperous farming community, steadily developing as one of the prominent towns of the Colony. That it was in the forefront of Colonial intellectual life is shown, not only by the fact that it was the first to establish a public school sup- ported by taxation of all its citizens, but also by the notable assistance which it gave to the new institution of Harvard College; for on the list of subscriptions to the College by the Colony towns from 1653 to 1658, Dedham held third place; and it appears from the years 1673 to 1709, Dedham sent eleven students there (only four towns in the whole Colony sending more). (17)
Two things connected with Dedham's first one hundred and fifty years deserve notice-first, the steady process by which it gave birth to new towns, and its conse- quent loss of territory and restriction of its boundary; and second, the continual train- ing which its citizens had in military adventure.
IV.
The first territorial child of Dedham was the town of Medfield, in 1650. The fer- tile grassy meadows in that part of the original Town, though six miles away, attracted very early use for the pasturage of cattle (in what were known as herd walks). In 1640, Dedham granted to one of its citizens, Edward Allyne, 300 acres of upland and 50 of a meadow, in that region known as Bogestow; and in 1643, the General Court granted to Rev. John Allin of Dedham, 200 acres at "Boggestow on Charles River," which were laid out on the west side of the River. In 1649, Dedham petitioned the General Court for a further tract four miles by three, at the west end of their bounds next to Bogestow, and on the west side of Chares River, stating that "they are straight- ened at their doors by other towns, rocky land," etc. The reason thus given was singu- lar; for though they might be "straightened" by the proximity of Watertown, Roxbury, Newton and Dorchester, they certainly had plenty of land to the southward. The Gen- eral Court, however, October 23, 1649, granted Dedham's petition, on condition that
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a distinct village be erected within a year; and Dedham, on November 14, 1649, set apart the land to the new town, on condition that the grantees should pay for Dedham's rights in the meadows the sum of one hundred pounds (later reduced to fifty). In 1650, thirteen pioneers went from Dedham to settle; the next year, twenty six more from Weymouth and Braintree; on May 23, 1650 the General Court incorporated the new town, and on May 23, 1651 gave to it the name of "Medfield"-the forty-third town in the Colony.
In 1651, Dedham lost further territory by its free grant of 2,000 acres to the Natick Indians, and later by the possession taken by the Indians of 6,000 more acres east of the River. As a recompense, however, for this loss, the General Court gave to Dedham 8,000 acres of land in the Colony not before granted; and our Town had the foresight to choose some of the most fertile lands possible, by setting them out at Poc- umtuck (now the town of Deerfield). (18) In 1670, the Dedham proprietors with five others laid out this fine valley site in lots. As few, if any, Dedham men became per- manent residents, much of the land fell into the hands of speculators. Hence in 1678, the inhabitants there petitioned the General Court to be made a separate town, saying that nearly one half of the land and almost all the best "belongs unto 8 or 9 proprietors and many of which are never like to come to a settlement which we have formerly found grievous and do judge for the future will be found intolerable if not altered." In 1682, the town was incorporated under the name of Deerfield.
The third constriction of Dedham's territory occurred in the incorporation of the town of Wrentham by the General Court, October 17, 1673. The formation of this new town, like that of so many others in early days, was due to the laws relating to the religious system of the Colony. Under the law, residents of a town (whether actual members of the Church or not ) were obliged to pay in taxes their share for the support of the minister and of the school-teacher. Furthermore, by law all persons were obliged to attend Church services, under penalty of fine (though this statue was not always strictly enforced). These obligations naturally became very onerous, when homes were built at long distances from the Church in the original Dedham settlement. As early as 1649, the grassy lands in the neighborhood of the ponds of Wolomonopog (or Wollom- onuppoag ) (as Wrentham was then known) had attracted settlers from Dedham and two Dedham men (John Dwight and Francis Chickering) in 1647 had given notice of hope of a mine near the pond. In 1661, at a Dedham Town-meeting, it was voted to set up a plantation there and to assign 600 acres for its encouragement. After obtaining a release of title from the Indians, twenty-three men appeared willing to settle, in 1663; but failing to secure promise from Dedham of sufficient protection, they decided not to go so far into the wilderness, saying that "they did not wish to leave the world altogether, but are willing to proceed if the town will enable us to proceed in a safe way." Finally in 1669, the proprietors of land in Wolomonopog, less than a dozen in number, organized to build a separate meeting-house of their own and to settle a minis- ter; and in 1673, they petitioned the General Court for a charter. Evidently, Dedham was paying little attention to its citizens in this distant region; for they stated that the constables of Dedham were not willing to gather taxes to pay their minister, "so that," said they, "work is like to fail and we perish for lack of knowledge, unless it please God to move your hearts who are the fathers of our country, to take care for us, and not for us only but for the interest of God here" And evidently, believing that Dedham was trying to profit at their expense, they stated: "Some . . . that have rights here seem only to be willing that we should labor under the straights of a new plantation so as to bring their land to a great price, which no other can regulate (that we understand) but yourselves. . . . Dedham now advising us to be of ourselves, declaring that they cannot act for us as is necessary in divers cases, they living so remote." Wrentham was incor- porated, October 15, 1673.
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