USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Rehoboth > Early Rehoboth, documented historical studies of families and events in this Plymouth colony township, Volume IV > Part 4
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
20
Early Rehoboth
required the maps of three towns to show the same territory that was included in the one 1795 Rehoboth map.
The Seekonk map reads: "A Plan of Seekonk made under the direction of the Selectmen in accordance with the resolve of the General Court of Massachusetts, by Joseph W. Capron, Surveyor, Church Prey, Esq., Capt. Simeon Walker, and Jesse Medbury, Esq., Selectmen of Seekonk. The Survey of Seekonk taken January AD 1831".
The Rehoboth map for 1830 has considerable detail, but seems to be unfinished inasmuch as it has no title, scale, or surveyor's name.
The map of Pawtucket for 1830 is a nice piece of draughtsmanship, the title of which reads: "A Map of Pawtucket, by Edmund Wal- cott, directed by Hon. Elijah Ingraham, Wellington Kent, and John Burbank, Selectmen, from a Survey made in 1827 by Seneca Sanford in accordance with a resolve of the General Court of Massachusetts. Scale, 100 rods to an inch".
This Walcott map, with much added detail, was made from a map of "Pawtucket, surveyed by Seneca Sanford, Ma[y] 19, 1827, Scale 100 rods to an inch", a photograph of which is shown in Field, State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (1902), vol. III, page 66.
A map of "Pawtucket Village, by L. M. E. Stone, Engineer, sur- veyed by order of the Town of Pawtucket, Mass., in July 1848", is illustrated in Grieve, An Illustrated History of Pawtucket, Central Falls, and Vicinity (1897), page 35. This map records a drop in the river of 15 feet at the bridge falls, and a drop of 6.89 feet at the "upper dam" above the bridge.
All of these maps of the Town of Pawtucket, Massachusetts, show the west boundary line of the town as the east bank of the river to the falls, thence in a line due north from the east abutment of the bridge at the falls.
There is nothing more about early Rehoboth town maps to be found in either the Rehoboth Town records or the Rehoboth Pro- prietors' records. Sprinkled through the Proprietors' records, how- ever, are many important small copy sketches of various lots, par- cels of land, street layouts, etc. Here the searcher working on Rehoboth families will find much valuable data.
CHAPTER II
THE 1790 MAP
At a Rehoboth Proprietors' meeting held at the inn of Dr. James Bliss on 15 Nov. 1790, a committee previously appointed to lay out highways, a training field, and enlarge the burying place within the "Ring of the Greene", made its report which was accepted with a further vote "not to Sell any of the Ring of the Greene". Refer- ence is made to "a map herewith presented and to be Lodged in the Clark office". The record of the meeting is set forth in great detail in the Proprietors' meetings book, but unfortunately the map had disappeared and its whereabouts was unknown until February 1940 when the writer found it among the papers in the possession of a descendant of one of the old Rehoboth Proprietors' Clerks-"A Plan of Several Rehoboth Highways, Roads, and Training Field, 1790"
This is the earliest known Rehoboth map and its discovery is one of the most important yet made in the unending search for known and unknown original Rehoboth documents. It is a survey of ap- proximately 175 acres of land originally laid out as a common pas- ture and variously called the "Ring of the Greene", "Ring of the Town", "Common", and still later "Seekonk Common", bounded by the fenced-in front ends of the original home lots which lines are now marked by four roads extending around the original Ring of the Green.
Besides being of great assistance in clarifying some of the original Rehoboth records, many of which are extremely vague and decid- edly not understandable, this map is the only known plan of the Ring of the Green. In addition to the roads, it shows the training field, cemetery, ministerial lot, town square and church, and defi- nitely pins them all down to specific locations with a degree of positiveness not found in the written records.
The record of the Proprietors' meeting at which the 1790 map accompanying the committee's report was presented, follows:
15 Nov. 1790-An adjourned meeting of the Proprietors of the Common and Undivided Lands in Rehoboth was held at the house of Dr. James Bliss* of Rehoboth, Innkeeper. At the previous meeting, 29 June
* Dr. James Bliss's inn was on the "Redway Farm" near the present Rehoboth village and about a quarter-mile north of the "Yellow Meeting house". This farm, owned by the writer for the last thirty years, now includes the old training field called "Redway Plain" from the southeasterly end of which the land was taken in 1773 for the site of the yellow Meeting house and for the present village cemetery. See Early Rehoboth, vol. I, p. 148.
It is a curious coincidence that in 1948 this Rehoboth history is being written in this same inn and in the same living-room where that Rehoboth Proprietors' meeting was held in 1790. In front of the same fireplace, in which a fire is quietly burning, just as was a similar fire on that cold November day, the writer examines the records of that meeting and studies the same map that was passed from hand to hand in this room 158 years ago.
The old inn bar was located ten feet away from the fireplace, and it is probably not too much of a stretch of the imagination to picture the free circulation of hard cider stiffened by the dip of a red-
21
A facsimile of the Proprietors' "Plan of several Rehoboth Highways, Roads, and Training Field, 1790". This is a plan of the "Ring of the Green" and is the oldest known Rehoboth map. Compare this map with the present day map shown on the opposite page.
Early Rehoboth
wash
9 paill
S
620103
$ $42380
.
...
6
VE 225
out to the wings
8
..
5
3
22 0 90
7
6
7
..
..
REHOBOTH, 1790
2 40 2%
m4 a 622
3
~
,P. 38
him of The
NÃO 2 744
Juri 2 62.
22
23
The 1790 Map
AVENUE
BOURNE
A
ELM
Carpenter i cemetery 1
11. 39 Acres,
Lakeside Cemetery
MAN
40
ELJE
AVENUE
GREENWOOD
PAWTUCKET
STREET
IM
JL
3
PLEASANT
Built in 1767
UMOL
Hat!
+181
AN ENLARGEMENT OF
U.S.GEOGRAPHICAL MAP,1944 ED
A 1944 map of the "Ring of the Green", the same area as shown on the 1790 map on the opposite page. This map shows few changes in the principal street lines in the last 160 years. The writer remembers when the layout of Pleasant Street was the same as shown on the 1790 map.
Springvale. Cemetery 8.66 Acres
Hunt and Newman Cemeteries
10.25 Acres
24
Early Rehoboth
1790, a committee consisting of William Bullock, Esqr., Dr. John Wheeler, Lieut. Jeremiah Wheeler, Mr. Beniok Barney, and Ashael Carpenter had been appointed to lay out highways, a training field, enlarge the burying place, etc., on the common.
The committee presented a written report in which it stated that after "laying out suitable & sufficient highways both a Cross and Round sd Common, we find that after in Larging of the Burying place to where the fence now Stands and dividing a plott of 74 Rods by 25 [about 1112 acres] for a Training field there will remain at Least 136 acres of Common & undivided Land within Said Ring of Sd Greene . and that the Burying place be inlarged on the East side & on the North End & on the west side to where the fence now stands agreeable to a map herewith presented and to be Lodged in the Clark office". All of the committee except Mr. Beniok Barney signed the report "which was accepted by the meeting wich voted not to sell any of the Ring of the Greene" [Rehoboth Proprietors' Meetings, p. 226].
The 1790 map of the Rehoboth Ring of the Green accompanying the Proprietors' committee report undoubtedly shows the same layout as the original made 147 years earlier when the Seekonk (Rehoboth) common was staked out in 1643 with the meeting house "in the middle of the town".
HIGHWAYS
As already noted, the fences built on the front ends of each home lot formed a continuous fence around the Ring of the Green which was a central common, or pasture for cattle. All travel around the ring had to be on the common in front of the home lot fences. At first these traveled ways were paths made by horseback riders, but as the town developed, the use of carts widened these paths into roads which for 147 years followed the general fence lines. These roads were not always as straight as they are now, for the home lot owners were continually encroaching on the central common as shown by the many town orders directing them to move back their fences.
In 1790 the Proprietors ordered that these four roads around the Ring of the Green be laid out as highways .* The first of these is now Hoyt Avenue on the northwest; the second, Pawtucket and Bishop Avenues on the northeast; the third, Pleasant Street on the southeast; and the fourth, Greenwood, Elm, and Bourne Avenues on the southwest.
In order to travel from one part of the town to another, the Ring of the Green was crossed diagonally by two roads, one, running north and south, now called Pawtucket Avenue, and the other, running east and west, now called Newman Avenue. The map shows that these two roads were first laid out as highways in 1790. At that time highways were usually of two widths-three rods (49.5 feet) for minor roads, and four rods (66 feet) for more im-
hot poker, or even rum, for the day was so cold that the meeting was adjourned from the meeting house to the tavern. It was not every day that the inn had so many potential customers.
Also, as still another coincidence, Leonard Bliss, Jr., grandson of Dr. James Bliss, wrote part of his History of Rehoboth (1836) in this same living-room 112 years ago
* The next changes in street lines from the locations as shown on the 1790 map are found on J. N. Cunningham's 1856 map of Seekonk Common. No important changes have been made since that date. See footnote, p. 36.
25
The 1790 Map
portant roads. The two roads crossing the common diagonally seem to have been of the wider width, four rods.
GATES
To keep the cattle in the pasture and still not obstruct travel, four "great gates" were placed in the angles of the fence at the four ends of these two cross roads at the junctions of what are now Hoyt and Pawtucket Avenues; Bishop Avenue and Pleasant Street; Pleasant Street and Greenwood Avenue; and Elm and Bourne Avenues. From the beginning of the settlement these gates are repeatedly mentioned in the town records.
Seven years after the founding of the town, a town meeting held 9 Sept. 1652 "ordered that 4 gates should be made by these: the gate leading to the mill [by] George Robinson and Philip Walker , that towards Clifton's lands [by] William Smith & Robert Titus; that leads to Walter Palmer's house [by] Richard Bowen, Walter Palmer and Robert Martin and to be payed out of the rates that shall be made for Town business. That which is to be by John Suttons [by] Mr. Peck, John Sutton and Henry Smith" [Rehoboth Town Meetings, Book I, p. 100].
These gates were continually in need of repairs and the 1652 order shows that at this early date all four had to be replaced by new gates. In this town order the location of the gate leading to "Walter Palmer's house" is not clear, for in 1645 he was living in a house next to the grist mill on what is now Roger Williams Avenue. The gate leading to the "Mill" is evidently the gate located at the intersection of the present Elm and Bourne Avenues.
In 1681 a fifth gate was added to the common fence near George Kendrick's home lot, at a point which is now the intersection of Bourne and Hoyt Avenues, for on 4 May 1681 the selectmen "granted Libertye to George Kendrick to fence in the heade of The Lane by his house He then promised and Ingaged to make set up and Maintaine a greate Gate for carts and cattel to passe within one months tyme after the date hereto: and at the same tyme the Said George Kendrick disclaimes any partikiller right titell or in- terest in the said Lane and swamp or in the feede or hearbedge thereof" [Rehoboth Town Meetings, Book II, p. 33].
TRAINING FIELDS
While the records contain numerous references to training fields, none of these give the location of the first and oldest which was located in front of the home lots on some part of the common.
At the proprietors' meeting held 15 May 1738 it was voted "that all the common, or green within the ring of the Town should lay for a training field and highways as long as the Earth Endureth". Of course this whole tract of land was far too large for the use of a company of soldiers whose training consisted simply of exercises in the manual of arms and a few simple field maneuvers.
Up to the time of King Philip's War, Rehoboth had only one military company known as "a leftenant's company". This was
26
Early Rehoboth
under the command of Lieut. Peter Hunt who lived a short distance north of the spot which the proprietors in their meeting of 15 Nov. 1790 set off as "a plott of 74 Rods by 25 [about 1172 acres] for a Training field". The map accompanying the proprietors' report locates this field at the junction * of what are now Hoyt and Paw- tucket Avenues. Without the map it would be impossible to lo- cate this training field.
There was another training field in the eastern end of the town, as shown by the record of a meeting of the "proprietors of the com- mon and undivided land in the Town of Rehoboth", held 1 Dec. 1738. At this meeting Daniel Carpenter, James Redway, and Sam- uel Bullock were chosen a committee "to Settle the bounds and take a plat of the tract of Common Land Lying near Seth Bullocks at Palmer River in order that it might be devoted for a training field ".
At an adjourned meeting, held 26 Feb. 1738/9, the committee reported that it had laid out a tract of "17 acres of land (with the highways crossing them)" and brought in "a Plot of the Training Field by Seth Bullocks Taken on ye 29 Day of December 1738 by Daniel Carpenter, Surveyor, the lot Laid Down by a Scale of 16 Rods to an inch". The meeting voted to accept this layout for a "Training Field to Lye for the use for Ever hereafter".
This training field was a triangular piece of land near Henry Smith's house, one course running N 16° E 57 rods with his land, and another running S 47° E 64 rods towards Seth Bullock's House. A copy of this plat of land is incorporated in the records of this meeting [Rehoboth Land Records, Book II, pages 144, 145].
In later years there were training fields in other places in the old town. "Redway Plain", so-called, east of the village cemetery in the present town of Rehoboth was a training field (see Early Reho- both, vol. I, page 142). Here regimental musters were held so late as 1821, 1825, 1827, and the last on 16 Oct. 1833 under the command of Col. Lyndal7 Bowen.t He led his famous old 1st Regiment (2nd Brigade, 5th Division of the Massachusetts Militia) escorting President Andrew Jackson when he passed through the town of Pawtucket, Massachusetts, on 21 June 1833. Organized in 1690, the regiment was disbanded by general order 24 Apr. 1840 after an existence of one hundred and fifty years. Colonel Bowen pre- sented the regimental flag and other properties of this regiment to the Rehoboth Antiquarian Society where they are now pre- served.
* About the middle of the nineteenth century the very crooked road on the northwest end of the common, now known as Hoyt Avenue, was relaid. The exact location of this training field is better understood by an inspection of J. N. Cunningham's 1856 map of the Seekonk Common, which is the first to show this road change. See footnote, p. 36.
+ COL. LYNDAL 7 BOWEN (Nathan 6, Nathan 5, Jabez', Joseph ", Obadiah 2, Richard 1) was born 9 Aug. 1804 and died at Rehoboth 11 Sept. 1890 at the age of 86. When 26 years old he was Colonel of the 1st Regiment. The writer has in his possession Colonel Bowen's commissions signed by Gov. William Eustis and Gov. Levi Lincoln-Ensign, 7 Sept. 1824; Lieutenant, 4 Nov. 1826; Lieut .- Col., 22 Aug. 1828; Colonel, 23 Oct. 1830; and his honorable discharge (at his own request) as Colonel, 16 Dec. 1833. Also, the writer has his sword presented to him by Colonel Bowen's granddaughter, Mrs. Alice Briggs Chase.
# Tilton, History of Rehoboth (1918), p. 152.
27
The 1790 Map
MINISTERIAL LAND
To the surveyor, the outstanding feature of this 1790 map is the ancient boundary monument represented by the Pastors' Lot. This is the tract of land designated on the map as the "6 acre Lot Laid out to the Ministry". Set off in 1682, this small area of land, now the "Hunt Cemetery", has been kept intact for 266 years. Years ago it was enclosed on all four sides by a stone wall, but within the memory of the writer the wall on the north end separating the lot from the old burying place (now called Newman Cemetery) was removed, but enough of the foundation wall still remains to mark clearly its original position
When the Seekonk home lots were laid out in 1643, provision was made for three six-acre home lots "near the meeting house", one each for the pastor, teacher, and schoolmaster. These home lot records were entered in the first town meeting book and again in the first Rehoboth land book (1664-1667) as follows:
"The Pastor-Six Akers on the Greene near about the meeting house not yet Layed out" [Rehoboth Land Records (1644-1667), Book I, p. 56].
"The Teacher-A home Lott upon the Greene on the south syed layed out by Robert Martin cont six akers bounded by the swamp runing down by the Meeting house to the bridg commonly called the Cow bridg on the west syde, north syde & Est syde bounded wth the greene or Commons "[Ibid., Book I, p. 55].
"The Schoolmaster-Home Lott six akers on the common about ye meet- ing house not Yet Layed out" [Ibid., Book I, p. 56].
Although provision was made for a Pastor's and a Teacher's lot near the meeting house, Mr. Samuel Newman, the town's first teacher, did not live in the Ring of the Green. He had a twelve- acre home lot in the tier of lots on the southwesterly side of the town, on the westerly side of what is now Greenwood Avenue, and south- westerly of the meeting house in the middle of the Green. The town built a house on this twelve-acre home lot and gave it to Mr. New- man. At his death the property came into the possession of his son, Deacon Samuel Newman. Thirteen years later, in 1676, the house was burned by the Indians. The "Phanuel Bishop" brick-end house now stands on this Samuel Newman home lot, erroneously called in the history books the site of the Newman garrison house.
2 Mar. 1663/4-At a town meeting a committee consisting of Goodman Payne, John Allen, sen., Lieutenant Hunt, Mr. Browne, Anthony Perry, Goodman Walker, Thomas Cooper, jr., and Henry Smith was "chosen and empowered by the town, either to buy Joseph Peck's house * and house-lot, and to set up an addition to it, to make it fit for the ministry, if they judge it convenient for such a use, or to build a new house upon the town's lands, whether they in their wisdom shall judge to be the most convenient:
"At the same time it was voted, that a rate should be made to raise charges for to build a house for the ministry, when the townsmen shall call for it; and that the price of corn for the carrying on of the building of the public house shall be,-Indian corn at 3s., rye at 4s., and wheat at 5s .; and what cattle are paid towards it is to be good at May-day next, or thereabouts, all horse kind and hogs being excepted against" [Rehoboth Town Meetings, Book I, p. 154, 155].
* This was Joseph Peck, Jr., and his house stood on the north side of the railroad cut on the east side of the present Pawtucket Avenue.
28
Early Rehoboth
20 June 1664-At a town meeting it was voted "that the public house in- tended for the ministry shall be set on the west side of the run in the middle of the common, being the place appointed for a teacher's lot, being six acres" [Ibid., Book I, p. 159].
At a town meeting held 13 May 1668 it was "voted that the town house shall be finished to make habitable and Comfortable for the Ministry" [Ibid., Book I, p. 175]. A town meeting held a year later, 14 May 1669, voted that Mr. Newman should enjoy the house built for the ministry "as long as he continue in the work of the Ministrye amongst us . .. also the lands meadows & com- monage of the pastors and teachers ... excepting that [if] there should be another officer chosen and settled amongst us and then Mr. Newman to have one of the accomidations and the other officer joined with him to have the other" [Ibid., Book I, p. 183].
The new house for the minister, located near the present New- man Avenue and a short distance from the Cemetery Pond, was finished late in 1668 and given by the town to the then teacher, Mr. Noah Newman. The house was probably the largest and best in Rehoboth at that time and contained several fireplaces finished with chimney breasts. In 1670 the lot was fenced in with more than one hundred rods of five-rail fence within which the town planted sixty apple trees at a cost of ten shillings each.
Mr. Noah Newman's house was the principal of four garrison houses and was the town's military headquarters during King Philip's War. The Rehoboth town meetings were held in this house during those troublesome times.
It was from this garrison that Capt. Michael Pierce and his com- pany marched to meet death in "Pierce's Fight" on Sunday morning 26 Mar. 1676. Many of the important military commanders met in this garrison during the war, including Gen. Josiah Winslow, Capt. James Cudworth, Capt. Benjamin Church, Lieut. Nathaniel Thomas, and others of Plymouth Colony; Maj. Thomas Savage, chaplain Joseph Dudley (later governor), Capt. Samuel Mosely, Capt. Daniel Henchman, William Locke and Mr. Toten, surgeons, Lieut. Jacob Eliot, commissary, and others from Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The first meeting house stood a few rods southeast of the New- man garrison house and its proximity saved the meeting house (and the frame for the new second meeting house) from being destroyed by the Indians when they applied the torch to the town on 28 Mar. 1676.
Mr. Noah Newman died 16 Apr. 1678 and was succeeded in the ministry by Mr. Samuel Angier. As Mr. Newman owned the minister's house, the town was for the second time in the position of not having a house for the minister-just as it had been fifteen years earlier when Noah Newman's father, Samuel Newman, died owning the then minister's house.
In order to encourage Mr. Angier, the new minister, "to Settle amongst us in the work of the ministry", the town proposed to "give him £40 in money to be used to purchase the house and lot of Mr.
29
The 1790 Map
Noah Newman, or towards the building of another house if he saw fitt".
At the first settlement of the town, it was voted to lay out two home lots on the Green near the meeting house, one for the pastor and the other for the teacher, who was the pastor's assistant. The town never had but the one minister, however, and he ranked as teacher. As noted, the teacher's "six-acre home lot" had been given to Mr. Noah Newman, so that the only other ministerial land left on the Green near the meeting house was the pastor's "six-acre home lot", the location of which had not been previously deter- mined.
While the town carried on negotiations with Mr. Newman's widow for the purchase of her deceased husband's house to be used as a home for Mr. Angier, the new minister boarded around at various houses in the town. The pastor's six-acre home lot on the Green was not laid out until it seemed probable that it would be necessary to build a new house for Mr. Angier. At a town meeting, held 20 June 1678, it was "agreed upon that there should be a six aker lot in convenient tyme laid forth below the Buriall place for a building of a house for the ministerye" [Rehoboth Town Meetings, Book II, p. 24].
On 17 Jan. 1678/9 a town meeting voted "that if it please Mr. [Samuel] Angeir to build and not to buy Mr. Noah Newman's house, that out of forsaid proportion of land given him he should have six akers for a home lot upon the Common below the Buriall place" [Ibid., Book II, p. 26]. In a list of town debts for 1682 Capt. Peter Hunt is paid £2-00-08 for a journey to court, repairing a fence, and "laying out the pastors lot" [Rehoboth Rate Book, No. 2, p. 37.]
As the town later succeeded in obtaining Mr. Noah Newman's house for the ministry, Mr. Angier took up his residence in the Newman house and the six-acre lot "below the Buriall place" was never used as a building site but remained a planting field, a part of the "pastors lands" held by the town for the benefit of the min- istry.
THE SCHOOLMASTER'S LOT
As explained, provision was made at an early date for three six- acre home lots to be laid out on the Green near the meeting house at some future date; one each for the pastor, teacher, and school- master. The teacher's six-acre home lot was laid out in 1667; the pastor's six-acre home lot in 1682; but more than half a century elapsed before the schoolmaster's six-acre home lot was definitely located and set off in 1734.
This schoolmaster's lot is a part of the 11 acres and 71 rods (11.45 acres) of land shown on the 1790 map as owned by the heirs of Thomas Bowen, Esq. For more than ninety years it has been part of the site of the extensive manufacturing plant of the Rumford Chemical Works. In the whole tract of approximately 175 acres of common known as the Ring of the Green, this was the only privately owned land for more than two hundred years.
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.