USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Chelsea > Documentary history of Chelsea : including the Boston precincts of Winnisimmet, Rumney Marsh, and Pullen Point, 1624-1824, vol 1 > Part 16
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 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65
.
It is of interest to note that the allotments at Rumney Marsh were bounded by the beach, not by the sea. Thus, according to the terms of the original grant, the present Revere Beaeh did not pass into private hands. This the town of Chelsea elaimed by vote April 6, 1812, citing this original grant as barring private ownership, and the charter of the town in 1739 as evidence of the town's rights. The allotment to Governor Winthrop of what was later known as Point Shirley had the sea, not the shore, for its boundary. Other allotments in Winthrop, except those border- ing on the creek which separates Winthrop from Revere, were bounded by the shore, in several allotments denominated the " common shore." The first road from Pullen Point through Rumney Marsh to Lynn and Malden followed Revere beach to the modern Beach Street before turning westward, and as late as 1757 the beach to the north of this is described in a deed as the beach leading to the house of John Floyd.
From an early period in its history as a town Chelsea claimed apparently exclusive rights in the beach, and attempted to regu- late the taking of sand, seaweed, and the like therefrom. But it found this a task beyond its power. Hence the selectmen of Chelsea in accord with a vote of the town, February 12, 1798, petitioned the General Court to prohibit " all persons from taking from said beach any Stones, gravel, sand, manure, &c . . . reserv- ing only to the inhabitants of the said Town of Chelsea the right and liberty of taking Sand for the use of their own families and manure for their farms." The reason for this request, as stated
P
129
APPENDIX 1
CHAP. VI]
in the petition, was that sand, gravel, stones, and the like had been carried away until the beach was " now so much weekned & im- peared in diverse parts of it as to be obviously & eminently exposed to a breakage of the Ocean through said beach " to the destruction of " several hundred acres of valuable salt marsh." The petition was read in the Senate February 16, 1798, and in the House Feb- ruary 17, and referred to a joint committee. A hearing before the committee was appointed for the next session of the General Court, and the petition with the notice of the hearing was printed in the Massachusetts Mercury, November 27, 1798. Malden en- tered a protest, dated January 21, 1799. Many inhabitants of Malden, it recited, owned land in Chelsea, and paid for the support of the ministry there, etc. They insisted on the injustice of being " Prevented from taking even the Rakings of our own Marsh." They had never taken stones or gravel, but they wished sand, and the " Trash " cast up by the sea. Lynn also sent representatives to defend its protest before the committee. In rebuttal three resi- dents of Chelsea - Joshua Cheever, James Stowers, and John Low - signed a statement, January 28, 1799, that as owners of land adjoining the beach with thirty years of observation it was their " canded Oppinion that there is not a sufficiency of manure Collects on Chelsea beach for the use of the inhabitants of sd town." There appears also on file a paper to the effect that inliab- itants of Chelsea owned nearly as many acres in Malden as inhab- itants of Malden in Chelsea. The Committee reported to the House and Senate advising that the petitioners be given leave to bring in a bill for "prohibiting any person not an inhabitant of said town from taking from any of the beaches in said town any stone gravel or sand and for securing to said town a right to regulate the taking of stone gravel or sand thereon by their own inhabitants so as most effectually to prevent damage being done to the marshes thereby "; but that there should be " left at large as heretofore " the right of " taking sand from any part of the beach from the point of pines to a eedar post drove into the beach about three hundred and fifty rods southwest from said point of pines."" The report was read in the Council and accepted, February 7, 1799 ; the House concurred, February 8. A bill was brought in and read for the first time in the Council, February 13, 1799.7 It differed in essen- tial points from the report of the committee, yet there is no legis- lative action recorded authorizing the divergence. It prohibited any one, whether an inhabitant of Chelsea or not, from taking stones, gravel, or sand from the beaches, exeept near the Point
7 Mass. Archives, documents filed with chap. 73, Acts of 1798. VOL. I .- 9
130
HISTORY OF CHELSEA
[CHAP. VI
of Pines as provided for in the report. The penalty was to be two dollars for every ton of stones, gravel, or sand carried away, - one half to the prosecutor, one half to the town of Chelsea. The bill passed the Senate, February 15, and the House, February 19; the engrossed act was approved by the governor, February 28, 1799.8 Evidently the Legislature was willing to protect the beach from injury, but did not care to give its countenance to Chelsea's claim of exclusive ownership in the seaweed, the vegetable prod- ucts cast thereon by the tides.
March 4, 1799, Chelsea appointed a committee of five to prosc- cute non-residents for removing manure from the beach. August 21, 1799, a writ was sued out against William Farrington of Malden, charging that " on divers days and times " from August 16, 1799, to the day of the writ, he broke and entered " a certain Close belonging to the Pltfs. situate in said Chelsea, and known by the name of Chelsea Beach," and " did forceably take & carry away from the said beach, four Cart loads of Rockweed Eel grass, & sea weed fitted for manure and the property of the Pltfs " of the value of $20. A similar writ was sued out against Winslow Seargent, Jr., of Malden on the following day. He had carried away "one ox cart load " on August 21. The suits of the Inhab- itants of Chelsea vs. William Farrington, and vs. Winslow Sear- gent, Jr., came up for trial at the October term of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas for Suffolk County. John Lowell, Jr., of Boston, was attorney for Chelsea ; Joseph Bartlett, for Farring- ton and for Seargent. Chelsea lost both suits and appealed. The case of the Inhabitants of Chelsea vs. Farrington was decided in the Superior Court at the February term in 1801. The trial was before a jury, and the judgment in the lower court was affirmed. The appellants prayed leave to discontinue the second suit. Exe- cution for costs was issued in both suits July 6, 1801. In the first, the attorney for the defense charged for twelve days attendance at the October term of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas in 1799; seventeen (or twenty-seven ?) days attendance at the Feb- ruary term of the Superior Court in 1800; five days at the August term, and twenty-nine days at the February term, 1801. Of the witnesscs, Amos Lewis, Ebenezer Payne, and Joseph Cheever were paid for one day's attendance; John Waite and Winslow Sargcant for two days; Richard Shute, Nailor Hatch, and David Sargeant for three days; Barnard Green, Esq., and Ezra Sargent, Esqr., for five days; and Jonathan Oakes for nine- teen days. Only two papers appear on file, - two copies of thic
8 Acts and Resolves of Mass. (1798-99), 98.'
--
131
APPENDIX 1
CHAP. VI]
charter of incorporation of the town of Chelsea; both of which appear on the bill of costs of the defense. Chelsea lost the suit; the arguments on neither side are known.9
Some thirty years after this, on December 16, 1834, John Sale, who owned the present Beachmont, where the highway to Pullen Point followed the shore, sued out a writ, which recited that Nathan Pratt, December 6, 1834, " drove a team of oxen there drawing a certain cart or waggon, and broke up the sand and loosened the same so that the same could by being so broken up be loosened, moved and carried about by the action of the sea ; and did also then and there with and by the feet of said oxen, so driven by the said Nathan, and by the wheels of said cart or waggon so drawn by said oxen loosen from the sand the stones then and there being in the Plaintiff's Close and subject them to be moved by the action of the sea within said close; and did also then and there load upon the said cart or waggon a large quantity of sea weed and other vegetable productions of the sea then lying and being within said close of the Plaintiff of the value of thirty dollars; and did carry the same away from the said close," etc. In this writ it is stated that the plaintiff's close was " bounded eastwardly by the sea." 1º Notwithstanding the fact that on April 6, 1812, the town of Chelsea had voted that the beach from its west side to low water mark was the property of the town, citing the allotments by Boston in 1637/8 and the town's charter of 1739, the defendant did not dispute the easterly bound claimed by John Sale, but rested his case upon immemorial custom, and on the claim " that some former owner of the Plffs. close by deed, which . has been lost, granted to the Inhabitants of the Town of Chelsea, in their corporate capacity the privilege that they and every inhab- itant of the Town should always have the privilege of going from the said Highway over and upon the beach lying within the Plffs. Close, to gather seaweed," etc., and offered witnesses "to prove the enjoyment of the privilege set forth in his 3ª Plea, for such length of time as would afford presumptive evidence of such a grant." 11 As all inhabitants of Chelsea were excluded from testi- fying on the ground that they were interested in the event of the suit this defense failed. John Sale won the suit. The only reminder of the earlier status, when the beach formed a boundary, and not a part, of the farm, was the offer of the defendant to prove
" Suff. Superior Court Files, February term 1801, Nos. 117, 118; Record of Superior Court, 126 et seq.
10 Suff. Superior Court Files, March term 1837, No. 103, Sale vs. Pratt.
11 Ibid., Bill of Exceptions.
132
HISTORY OF CHELSEA
[CHAP. VI
by witnesses " that several years since a survey of the Town of Chelsea was made by order of the select men . . . and that the PIff. at that time stated to one of the Select men, that the beach in front of his land did not belong to him, & should not be included in the survey as part of his farm." 12 This testimony was also ex- cluded because the witnesses, as inhabitants of Chelsea, were inter- ested parties. B. R. Curtis, attorney for the defendant, excepted against the ruling out of this and the foregoing testimony, but the Supreme Court sustained the ruling, on the ground that sueh testimony "had no tendency to prove the issue tendered by the defendant," for "however strongly the fact that certain indi- viduals, however numerous, had been in the habit of taking sea- wced from this beaeh for their own use, might tend to show a grant to themselves, or their aneestors, . . . as a personal privi- lege, . . . it would have no tendency to prove a grant to the town as a corporation." 13 In the lower court " the defendant requested the judge to instruct the jury, that the plaintiff's close being bounded upon the open sea, he had not the right of property in the soil below high-water mark ; but the judge instrueted the jury, that the plaintiff, being the owner of the upland, was also owner of the flats (not exceeding one hundred rods) to low-water mark." The defendant's counsel entered an exception to this charge of the judge, but it was sustained in the Supreme Court.14 The ruling requested by the defendant was based on the theory that the " Colony Ordinance of 1641," as it has sometimes been called, applied only to creeks, eoves, and rivers, and not to the open sea. Seetion 16 of the Body of Liberties of 1641 provided that every householder should have free fishing and fowling in any " Bayes, Coves and Rivers, so farre as the sea ebbes and flowes within the presincts of the towne where they dwell." 15 The compilation of the laws in 1647 limits this right by providing " that no man shall come upon anothers propriety without their leave. . . . The which clearly to determine, It is Deelared, That in all Crecks, Coves and other places, about and upon Salt-water, where the Sea ebbs and flowes, the proprietor of the land adjoyning, shall have propriety to the low-water-mark, where the Sea doth not ebb above a hun-
.
12 The witnesses who signed for pay were Joseph Stowers, John Tewks- bury Isaac Pratt, Abner Gay, John W. Tewksbury, David Floyd, James P. Sale, Frederick Sale, John Pierce. Court Files as above.
13 19 Pickering, 191. Chief Justice Shaw delivered the opinion of the Court in the case, which came before it on a bill of exceptions.
14 Ibid.
15 Colonial Laws of Mass., reprinted from the edition of 1660, etc., and the Body of Liberties of 1641 (Wm. H. Whitmore, ed., 1889), 37.
133
APPENDIX 1 .
CHAP. VI]
dred Rods. and not more wheresoever it ebbs further." 16 To de- cide under this so-called law that when the sea was a boundary the proprietor owned to low-water mark was one thing; to decide that he so owned, when his boundary was expressly stated to be the beach, would have been quite another. This latter point was not brought to the attention of the court.
In the direct tax of 1798 the eastern boundary of the farm was said to be " the Beach." When the farm was surveyed for the heirs of John Sale in 1838, it contained eight acres, three rods of beach.17 The farms of John Tewkesbury, Jr. (the Tuttle farm), and of James Floyd (the Cogan farm), and the salt marsh of James Stowers (Hasey farmn) and others were bounded in the tax list of 1798 easterly by the beach. When John Tuttle con- veyed his farm to Dr. Devereux, in 1772, he bounded it easterly on the beach. In 1714 Hugh Floyd bounded land at the Point of Pines " Southerly on ye Bank of sd pine Beach, and Easterly on the Bay so call'd." In 1750 John Floyd bounded land near there southerly on the sea. Ordinarily, however, farms in Revere were bounded easterly by the beach according to the early land con- veyances.18 James Floyd, son of John Floyd, owner of the largest farm abutting upon the beach, was the first named on the com- mittee that in March, 1766, paid into the town treasury about eleven shillings " wch they took for Sand " carried from the beach by non-residents of Chelsea. The orders under which they acted were based on the following report: "We the Subscribers being a Committee Chosen by the Town of Chelsea to make Enquire whether the Beech Commonly Called Chelsea Beech belongs to Said Town Report as followeth, - viz: That we have made Enquirey and by all we can find we look upon it that the above Said Beech is the Town's Property." 19 John Tuttle and James Floyd served on similar committees, which were chosen by Chelsca annually from 1765 to 1779, and intermittently later. The ques- tion in 1765 was not whether all the people of Chelsea had equal rights in the beach with the proprietors of the adjoining lands, but whether dwellers in neighboring towns had rights therein.]
16 Colonial Laws of Mass., 170.
17 Suff. Deeds, L 443, f. 96.
18 See infra, Appendixes 9, 11, and 12; also supra, p. 108.
19 Chelsea Town Records, March 18, 1765.
134
HISTORY OF CHELSEA
ICHAP. VI
APPENDIX 2
IN a letter to the Chelsea Gazette, May 29, 1897, Walter Ken- dall Watkins says, " Mr. Mcacom [a correspondent] is in error probably in stating the Pratt house to be 237 [245?] years old. He probably has in mind the old Pratt house occupied by the Thomas Pratt who died in 1732, the first of the family living at Winnisimmet. That house is not now standing. A portion of it was used in the construction of the former residence of Mayor Pratt, and the door-stone is incorporated in the wall of the park in Prattville. ; The present Pratt house is of later construction, at just what date is unknown, but probably it was built about 1700."
I have always understood that the Nathan Pratt house, which is still standing and of which a view is given, was the house standing on the estate which George Burden, in 1652, sold to Ireland and Way, and that their estate, by the deeds in 1696 and 1714, as mentioned in the text, became the property of Thomas Pratt. The house may have been another; but from the statements of Mr. John Low, the surveyor, and of other old citizens now dead, I came to believe, and have so recorded it, that the " Nathan Pratt House " was the " Way and Ireland " house.
[Two houses were standing on the estate when Thomas Pratt, the first owner of the farm bearing that name, died in 1732, as he bequeathed to his wife the life use of his dwelling-house, and to his son, Thomas, a house west of the road, in which the son was then living. Presumably Thomas Pratt, Sr., and his wife were living, in 1732, in the house which is still standing on Washington Avenue opposite Kimball Road, and Thomas, Jr., in the house mentioned by Mr. Watkins, which stood west of Washington Avenue near Fremont Avenue. (Infra, Appendix 4.) For a de- scription of the Way-Ireland house, see Suffolk Deeds, L. 15, f. 80. See also the perambulation of the bounds of Rumney Marsh in 1678, 1699, 1711, and 1726. There is no evidence that Parker or Burden lived on the farm. As the descriptions in the deed from Burden to Way and Ireland are formal, it cannot be stated with certainty that a house was standing on the farm in 1652. Ireland was living at Rumney Marsh in 1657, as he was appointed keeper of the pound. Parker came to New England in 1633, lived first at
THE PRATT HOUSE.
HELIOTYPE CO., BOSTON.
135
APPENDIX 2
CHAP. VI]
Roxbury, where he sold his house, July 18, 1639, and was later a merehant in Boston, owning a house on Milk Street. Burden, a shoemaker, eame to Ameriea in 1635, aged twenty, was disarmed in the outeome of the Antinomian controversy, November, 1637; but in 1641 bought a house on the peninsula of Boston. Seven months after he sold the farm at Rumney Marsh he sold a dwelling house in Boston. His wife Ann, in Bristol, England, gave her consent to the sale. She had been admitted to the Boston ehurch, November 6, 1636, and excommunicated September 28, 1651, five months before the sale of the farm, beeause she did not attend the communion, and refused to give a reason. (Church Records ; Suff. Deeds, L. 1, ff. 18, 114, 264, 265) ] When Ireland and Way divided their estate, March 25, 1691 (Suff. Deeds, L. 15, f. 80), it was bounded southerly by Richard Bellingham ; westerly by Whit- temore in part, and in part by Thomas Burden [in a later deed, Thomas Burditt]; northwesterly and northerly by [Job] Lane, and in part by the highway; northeasterly, in part by Mr. New- gate, and in part by land formerly of Parker, and then (1691) of Thomas Cheever. This estate, beginning at [ the] northwest eorner [of] the Carter Farm at the Everett line, ran northerly by that line aeross Mt. Washington, - but going westerly at some point so as to inelude thirty-five aeres in Everett, -to the Newgate farm in Revere; thenee easterly aeross the top of Fenno Hill to the Cheever farm, on the easterly end of said Hill; thenee south- erly aeross the marsh to Chelsea Creek; thence westerly by the Creek to the beginning. These bounds inelude that part of Pratt- ville which lies in Chelsea, with a part of the Fenno farm in Revere. [A subsequent examination of the deeds recorded at the Suffolk Registry of Deeds, and a careful comparison of the plans filed there, show that the Fenno farm was the Cheever farm, and ineluded no part of that of Way and Ireland. Anna Cheever, daughter of Deaeon Joshua Cheever, married January 8, 1789, Captain Thomas Pratt, who died at sea August 19, 1823. April 6, 1829, Anna Pratt, widow, conveyed 120 aeres to John Fenno et al., stating that the land was the Cheever farm less eight aeres set aside for the widow Julia Ann Cheever, and two lots belonging to Joseph Harris and John Wright. (See Suffolk Deeds, L. 335, f. 164; L. 613, ff. 221-224; L. 250, f. 115; L. 560, f. 304, ete., eited infra, Appendix 5.) March 20, 1762, Nathan Cheever sold Daniel Pratt two and one half aeres at the western end of his farm, ad- joining the land of Daniel's father, Thomas Pratt (L. 107, f. 243). Apparently this was not restored to the Cheever farm, and did not become a part of the Fenno farm; henee the latter contained fewer aeres than the original Cheever farm.] Ireland and Way
136
HISTORY OF CHELSEA
[CHAP. VI
paid Burden £230 sterling for this estate, as follows: £20 in hand ; £50 at times to be agreed; £75 on or before October 31, 1652; and £85 on or before October 31, 1653, - which last two payments were to be in corn, cattle, wheat [and] pease, at prices to be de- termined. [The wording of the deed is " at price Current." The £50 above mentioned was to be paid to Henry Evans, the first constable chosen specifically for the district of Rumney Marsh (1651). Evans lived later in Malden. See Corey, Malden, 373, 374.]
137
APPENDIX 3
CHAP. VI]
APPENDIX 3
WAY and Ireland were of Dorchester in 1652. In 1681 Wil- liam Ireland, senior and junior, witnessed Elias Maverick's will. Aaron Way, junior, married Maverick's daughter. There were Ways at Danvers who probably came from Dorchester, and may have been relatives of the Rumney Marsh family. William and Aaron Way [and William Ireland] are on the Danvers rate list for 1681. (Rice, First Parish, 29.) William Way and Persis his wife joined in the formation of the church there, November 19, 1689 (Ibid, 37-39). [They lived on land which Bray Wilkins purchased of Richard Bellingham, arc said by Upham to have been kinsmen of Wilkins, and as such were brought into close touch with the delusions of the Salem witchcraft. C. W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, i. 145, ii. 493, 177, etc.] The church records [under date of October 11, 1696] say, " The dismission of our Brethren and Sisters, Wm Way and Persis his wife, and Aaron Way and Mary his wife, together with their children to ye church of Christ lately gathered at Dorchester in New England, and now planted in South Carolina, whereof the Reverend Mr. Joseph Lord is Pastor, was consented to by a full and unanimous vote at ye motion and desire of ye Brethren and Sisters: and accordingly letters Dismissive were written, 17th instant." ('Rice, 234.) [Mary, the wife of Aaron Way, junior, had owned the covenant at the Charlestown Church, which her father, Elias Maverick, at- tended, and five of her children were baptized there between 1675 and 1685. (Wyman.) On November 1, 1696, Increase and Sam- uel Sumner, uncles of Aaron and William Way, were dismissed to South Carolina by the church in Dorchester. (N. E. Gen. and Hist. Reg., viii, 128 e.) October 31, 1698, it was recorded at the North Church in Boston that] "Job Chamberlain with his wife Jonna Chamberlain as likewise her mother Joanna Way, and her Sister, Mary Way have removed unto Dorchester in South Carolina and have requested letters of dismission." (N. E. Gen. and Hist. Reg., xxviii. 468.) The main expedition sailed in December, 1695, and made a settlement on the Ashley River, which they named Dorchester. But the location proving unhealthy, the larger part of the church removed to Georgia in 1752. They numbered
138
HISTORY OF CHELSEA
[CHAP. VI
there 816 people of New England origin, and had considerable influence on the later history of that colony.
[April 27, 1657, Richard Way was admitted as an inhabitant of Boston on condition that Aaron Way, his brother, became bound that neither he nor his family should be chargeable to the town. (Boston Town Records.) According to Savage, Richard Way was a son of Henry Way, who came to Dorchester in 1630 in the same ship with Rev. John Maveriek. In the list of freemen the name of William Ireland appears in 1650, and Aaron Way in 1651. The family of Aaron Way seem to have retained church relations with Dorehester for some time after the purchase of the farm in February, 1651/2, as it is recorded that his daughter Susanna was baptized April 1, 1660, " being about 2 or 3 months old at this time, but not baptized tell now, being borne at ye farme wher they now live." February 12, 1660/1, Aaron Way and his wife, and William Ireland were dismissed from Dorchester to the North Church in Boston, - the church of Increase Mather, - from which the widow Joanna Way and her two daughters were dismissed in 1698, as above stated. In 1656 William Ireland was eonstable for Rumney Marsh, and in 1662, Aaron Way. When it was de- eided to ereet a pound in the district, William Ireland was chosen, March 30, 1657, " pounder." Ireland, or his son of the same name, served frequently as surveyor of highways; and in 1676 was one of the tythingmen of the district, - an office which Aaron Way held in 1680.
Joanna, wife of Aaron Way, was the daughter of William Sum- ner, twelve years representative from Dorehester to the General Court. By his will, dated March 1, 1688/9, and proven March 24, 1691/2, she received one sixth of his lands. (Suff. Prob. Rec., L. 8, f. 72.) Aaron Way died in 1695. His will, dated August 25, was proven September 26. He appointed as overseers, his " Brothers," George and Increase Sumner, and " cousin William Ireland." The witnesses were John Smith, Paul Maverick, and Thomas Cheever. The children mentioned therein signed the deed to Thomas Pratt. They were, in addition to the executor and exeeutrix mentioned in the text, Aaron, William, and Mary Way, Johanna Chamberlaine, and Susanna Miller. At the Dor- chester ehureh a Mary Waye was baptized January 14, 1648/9; Aaron, October 6, 1650; William, January 30, 1652/3. On the Boston records, the birth of Joanna is recorded as March 5, 1663/4, and Moses, June 13, 1672. Two other children were there recorded to Aaron and Joanna Way, - John, born May 8, 1666, and Elizabeth, June 23, 1667. A child of Moses Way and chil- dren of Joanna Chamberlain are referred to in the will of Aaron
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.