USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Duxbury > Historic Duxbury in Plymouth county, Massachusetts, 3rd ed. > Part 5
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Weston's Boston packet, but even to that honor I did not attain. So that I was "kep' down" in my very youth; thus were my ambitions crushed, while my youthful energies were directed to other channels.
The period of schooling was brief in those days for the sons of hard-working parents, and at a very early age I was released from the absorbing labor of fishing for minnows with a bent pin through the cracks of the schoolhouse floor, and set at the far more irksome task of "turning the wheel in the ropewalk."
This particular ropewalk was part of a system of industries carried on by the Westons, without a somewhat extended notice of which no account of Duxbury shipbuilding could be regarded as adequate. Ezra Weston, the second of the name, and inheriting from his father the popular title of "King Cæsar," was for the years 1820 to 1842 probably the most widely known citizen of Duxbury, and was considered to be the largest shipowner in the United States. Daniel Webster so rated him in his great speech at Saratoga during the Harrison campaign of 1840.
His ships were then to be seen in all parts of the world. He not only built his own vessels, but he controlled nearly all the branches of business connected with shipbuilding and the ownership of vessels. He had his own ropewalk, sparyard, blacksmith shop and sail-loft; brought his timber and lumber from Haverhill and Bangor in his own schooners, or from Bridgewater and Middleboro with his own ox or horse teams, and his supplies' from Boston in his own packet.
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His salt came from Cadiz, St. Ubes, and Turk's Island in his own brigs. He sent his schooners to the Grand Banks for fish in the summer time, and " out South " in the winter for corn.
He owned a large tract of land on Powder Point, and here, on the south side, where Bluefish River widens into the bay, with the outlook towards Captain's Hill and Plymouth, stood his dwelling-house. Here still remains "Weston's wharf," where his new vessels fitted out, and where his packets loaded and unloaded, but sparyard and sail-loft, blacksmith shop and ropewalk have all disappeared.
The old Weston homestead was destroyed by fire a few years since, and the more modern mansion built by him 1808-9 is now occupied by Mr. F. B. Knapp. Several miles inland towards Pembroke Mr. Weston owned an extensive farm, where his farmer raised a large part of the vegetables used on board his vessels, and of the beef and pork needed for sea-voyages.
In those days there was no water or steam power used in laying up rigging, but all was done by horse-power at one end and man-power at the other.
The spinning of the threads was done by hand. The men, usually six at one time, cach with a bunch of hemp fastened about his waist, all moved with slow step, backward :
" In that building long and low, With its windows all a-row, Like the port-holes of a hulk Human spiders spin and spin, Backward down their thread so thin, Dropping, each a hempen bulk."
It required a good deal of practice for a man to spin an
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even thread, with no weak spots or bunches in it. It was monotonous work, the spinning, and the boy turning the wheel that twisted the threads had a dull time of it; after the men had passed out of hearing he heard nothing but the rattle of his wheel for twenty minutes.
There is an old conundrum : " Why is a ship always called 'she'?" the correct answer to which is supposed to be : "Because it needs so much rigging." Not to dwell any upon " odorous comparisons," it is undeniable that the rigging forms a very important attribute to a vessel that is
" To feel the stress and the strain Of the wind and the roaring main."
The first Ezra Weston, although quite an extensive vessel- owner, and with various branches of business on his hands, managed to have a sort of superintendence of his ropewalk until about 1819 or 1820, when he engaged my father, Ephraim Bradford, to come over from Plymouth (where he was foreman in the ropewalk of Salisbury Jackson), and he remained in charge of the concern until they gave up business, about 1848 or '50, and the ropewalk was torn down about the latter year.
" At the end an open door : Squares of sunshine on the floor Light the long and dusty lane ; And the whirling of a wheel Dull and drowsy, makes me feel All its spokes are in my brain."
When one length had been spun the boy must take the separate threads off the wheel, splice two together, and hook them to a big post amidships of the walk, and then walk down
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the entire length (about three hundred yards), taking in a crotched stick the threads that had just been spun, from the small hooks overhead where the spinners had put them, and laying them all together over into large hooks in the middle, just clear of a man's head.
Then the boy must carry a fresh supply of hemp to his wheel for the men to use for the next thread. From " sun to sun" this dull work went on, and that in the longest sum- mer days meant from 4.30 A.M. to about 7.15 P.M., with half an hour allowed for breakfast and one hour for dinner. How many boys nowadays know what work like that is?
When we were laying up rigging there was more excite- ment, and though the work was harder, I liked it better. Down in the cellar of the ropewalk I rode astride of "old Dick," who, harnessed to a long bar connected by a central upright " drum" with the heavy machinery above, walked round and round in a circle, thus supplying the needed power. A fine old horse, old Dick well deserved the substan- tial monument which still marks his grave in the sunny pasture near the scene of his labors, and bears this inscription :
" All are but parts of one stupendous Whole, Whose body nature is, and God the soul."
Here lies buried honest Dick, who faithfully served three generations. This noble horse was born upon Powder Point, A.D. 1817. Here lived and here died 1846.
Always welcome were the occasional calls upon the " rope- walk gang" whenever extra help was needed elsewhere. Sometimes it was in unloading a cargo of salt, much harder
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work, but different. On one of these occasions the monotony of the ropewalk boy's existence was still further relieved when "old Juba," the horse who was doing the hoisting, stepped backward and planted each of his hind feet upon each bare foot of the small boy on the ground behind him.
As his father picked him up to carry him home, old Capt. Benjamin Smith, who happened to be near by, recommended the genuine sailor's remedy of "tobacco leaves soaked in rum."
Sometimes we had to help the farmers get in the hay, and all hands were needed to work the new vessels, after launching, from the shipyard down the narrow, shallow river, an under- taking which sometimes required three or four days and nights.
I think we were nearly a week getting the "Hope " down ; but I was no ropewalk boy then. I had been to sea two years, and was pretty " salt."
My little grandson asked his mother recently: "Didn't grandpa run away to go to sea ? " "Oh, no." " He didn't? most boys did." It is easy to imagine how he had picked up this idea from some of the stories he had been reading; but in Duxbury, in my day, the most natural step for a boy to take was from the ropewalk, or the wharf to the deck - or the mast- head -of a vessel, and in this way I graduated into the more exciting and absorbing career at the early age of fifteen.
As I look back now to those early days at home, I am impressed by the fact, usually evident in quiet country places, that these hard-working shipbuilders and mechanics, in their community of labor and of interests, were almost like one
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large family. The men who worked side by side in the yards lived in the same neighborhood, met again at " the store " after tea, and with their families walked together across the pastures to the church on Sundays. Their children sat side by side on the benches of the district school, and later bound the families yet more closely together by marriage.
There was the usual number of eccentric characters. I can seem to see " old Warren" now bending over his wheel- barrow. One of those unfortunates, born, as the Scotch say, " not all there," he was everybody's butt. How proud he was one day of the fact that the Rev. Mr. Kent had spoken to him ! And what did Mr. Kent say to him ? "Get out of the way with your old wheelbarrow!" He called Mr. Weston a " darned old rip-er-crip " (hypocrite) to his face once, because the old gentleman wouldn't let him take chips from the spar- yard.
It was " Aunt Reeny " Brewster who announced that the initials connected with the weather-vane surmounting the tall flagstaff on the Point stood for "Ezra Weston's New Ship."
It is worthy of note that during this period of industrial activity Duxbury furnished not only ships, but men to sail them. Nearly every Duxbury-built vessel was officered by men who had been born within the sound of axe and mallet, had served an apprenticeship at sea from boyhood, and knew a ship " from keelson to truck."
Mr. Weston's captains were mostly from Duxbury or the adjoining town of Marshfield. Of those in command of his ships when I began my sca life, I know of only two now
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living : Capt. Alfred Kendrick of Orleans, ninety-three years old, and Capt. Alexander Wadsworth of Duxbury, aged eighty- five years. Within two years was living Capt. Seth Sprague of Marshfield, who died at the age of ninety-three, having been retired from the sea fifty-two years. These captains belong to a " former generation." Of a later generation only two remain, that I know of - Capt. Elisha Sprague and myself; these out of thirty-three that I have known and talked with.
Here follows a list of names of Duxbury captains, or of the commanders of Duxbury ships, known to the writer, one hundred and nine in all, of whom only nine are believed to be living now, 1894.]
Winthrop S. Babbidge,
Allen Dawes,
Alvin Baker,
Josephus Dawes,*
Daniel Baker,*
James H. Dawes,*
Edward Baker,
Amasa Delano,
Otis Baker,
Samuel Delano,
Otis Baker, Jr.,
William Delano,
Daniel Bradford,
Alfred Drew,
Gamaliel Bradford,
Edward Drew,
Gershom Bradford,
George Drew,
John Bradford,
Joseph Drew,
Zadoc Bradford,
Joshua Drew,
Daniel Brewster,
Reuben Drew,
Job Brewster,
Wm. B. Drew,
Joshua Brewster,
Amherst A. Frazar,
Henry Chandler,
John Frazar,
James Chandler,
Benjamin Freeman,
Joseph Cummings,
Daniel Glass,
David Cushman,
Kimball Harlow,
Elisha Cushman,
Zara Higgins,
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Eben Howes,
Simeon Soule,
Walter Josselyn,*
Thomas Soule,
Alfred Kendrick,*
Jedediah Southworth,
Bailey Loring,
John Southworth,
Henry K. Loring,
Elisha Sprague,*
Geo. F. Nickerson,
Phineas Sprague,
Henry Nickerson,
Seth Sprague,
Joseph Nickerson,
Stephen C. Sprague,
Henry R. Packard,
Benjamin Taylor,
George Peterson,
Briggs Thomas,
Lewis Peterson,
Nathaniel Thomas,
Wm. Peterson,
William Thomas,
George Prior,
Alexander Wadsworth,*
Henry Prior,
Eden Wadsworth,
Geo. P. Richardson,
Martin Waterman,
Alexander Sampson,*
Robert Welch,
Alfred Sampson,
Albert Winsor,
Erastus Sampson,
Alexander Winsor,
Elisha Sampson,
Benjamin Winsor,
Gaius Sampson,
Chas. Frederick Winsor,
Perez Sampson,
Daniel Winsor,
Simeon Sampson,
Ezra Winsor,
Ichabod Simmons,
Greshom Winsor,
Nathaniel Simmons,
George Winsor,
Wm. H. Simmons,
Hosea Winsor,
Benjamin Smith,
Henry Otis Winsor,*
Jacob Smith,
Isaac Winsor,
Jonathan Smith,
Thomas Winsor,
Jonathan Smith, Jr.,
Zenas Winsor,
Sidney Smith,
Zenas Winsor, Jr.,
Charles Soule,
Church Weston,
Elijah Soule,
Gershom B. Weston, Jr.,
Freeman Soule,
John Weston,
Nathaniel Soule,
Nathaniel Weston,
Richard Soule,
WVm. Weston,
W'm. Weston, 2d.
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The lapse of years is marked no more significantly by these lessening numbers than by the decadence in Duxbury of her chief industry. Various were the causes which led to this decline : the shoal water of the harbor, running out dry at low tide, which became a more serious consideration with the steadily increasing size of vessels; the growing scarcity of ship-timber in the vicinity; the growth of the business in East Boston, which gradually supplanted not only Duxbury, but Medford; these, and perhaps others, combined, led to the abandonment of the yards by the proprietors.
Quite a little colony of the skilled workmen removed to East Boston, which still carries many Duxbury names on its roll of citizens.
A stranger visiting the site of those busy shipyards would find absolutely nothing to indicate that any vessel was ever built there; all is stillness, and we who remember the town in its prosperous days, when Duxbury ships were known the world over, have lived to see the time when a Duxbury skipper must go to the eastward of Cape Ann to have a twenty-ton fishing schooner built.
The contrast is well expressed in the words of the late Hon. George B. Loring, whose love for the town never grew cold :
"To my youthful ear the sound of a hundred hammers in the early morning hours, when a day's labor began at sunrise and ended with the summer sunset, was a music which I can never forget, and which we shall probably never hear again. A Duxbury ship was to me a barge of beauty, and whatever achievements may be made in naval architecture, the names
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of Sampson, and Weston, and Drew, and Frazar, and Loring, and Winsor, will outshine, in my mind, all the Mckays and Curriers and Halls that ever launched a ship on the Merrimac, on the Mystic, or on the shores of Noddle's Island, and will share with John Roach the fame of those American ship- builders whose vessels defied the storms of ocean and resisted the destructive tooth of time.
"But the music of those hammers is still. The old shipyard in which I used to play, not a chip, or timber, or spar, or plank there, but a luxuriant greensward where grass is growing for cattle, and herb for the service of man."
There have been three notable occasions of recent years recalling quiet Duxbury to the attention of the outside world. These were: the landing there of the French Atlantic cable in 1869 ; the laying of the cornerstone of the Standish monument in 1872; and the celebration, in 1887, of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town. In honor of these events her scattered children hastened home as to a Thanksgiving feast, held glad reunion, and spoke warm words of loving appreciation.
And year by year the number grows of those who, knowing little or nothing of her years of toil, love her, as we said in the beginning, just as they find her now, and ask for no more charming place in which to spend a long summer's holiday.
But best of all, in true Duxbury homes the spirit of thrift and industry still lives; the sturdy qualities inherent in the Pilgrim stock have not become extinct, and thoughtful, earnest
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lives are working out the problems of today, and leavening with simple manly virtues the whole community.
JOHN BRADFORD, ELLEN BRADFORD STEBBINS.
These reminiscences were written by Captain Bradford almost entirely in 1891, but were arranged in practically their pres- ent form by his daughter in April, 1893, during which month Captain Bradford furnished the last of his memoranda.
On the first day of May, 1893, while on a visit to Duxbury, death came to him very suddenly, and he fell unconscious by the roadside, where in boyhood his feet must often have trod, on the way to or from church. E. B. S.
The writer had the pleasure of knowing Capt. John Brad- ford, who belonged to the second generation of the old sea captains, and bore a character of geniality and integrity worthy of any of them. He was buried in the Duxbury cemetery, where a handsome stone commemorates his memory, with the names of the vessels he commanded neatly cut on the back.
There are two anecdotes relating to two of the ship mer- chants mentioned by Captain Bradford worthy to be mentioned. The first Ezra Weston, styled King Cæsar, lived on what is now King Cæsar's road, in a cottage which was burned in 1886, of which I give an illustration on another page. He was one of the first to start the shipbuilding industry in the country, as his son was the largest one, as stated by Captain Bradford. Nevertheless, this King Cæsar was very ignorant outside of his special vocation. In the course of his business, which was that
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of storekeeper in addition to his shipbuilding operations, he had occasion to spell " coffee," which he did without using a single letter out of the word,- " kauphy."
The other anecdote relates to the large shipbuilder Ezra Weston, son of the above, that bears a moral that can readily be applied to matters outside of the shipping industry.
In those days among seafaring people there existed the notion that for one to be at all efficient he must have passed through the long routine from cabin-boy, through the several grades of sailors and ship officers, to shipmaster. To make any short cut was styled " getting in through the cabin windows."
It so chanced that Mr. Weston employed a certain cap- tain who the seafaring community thought had not passed through the afore-mentioned required lines of preparation, and sent a protest to the afore-mentioned Mr. Weston, who replied that it made no difference to him where his captains came from or what their training had been, or whether they had ever been to sea at all. If they could sail his ships to a profit he wanted them, otherwise he didn't.
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IX.
ROADS.
" As the veins and arteries are to the body, connecting all its parts, and supplying each with nourishment ; so are roads and paths, to all civilized communities."
A S the roads are about the first thing to which a new settle- ment is likely to give its attention, it therefore follows, if we can find out where they were, we have one of the means of tracing where the historical places existed; and this mat- ter of placing the roads is a question of how the wants of the community can be in the easiest way brought together,- the farming lands with the mill, and both with the church, and all with the water communication to more distant settle- ments. So if a topographic map was placed before us of a locality that was to be settled, we could beforehand tell very nearly where the roads would be.
A road once formally laid out is likely always to remain where it was originally placed, for the reasons that controlled its first location are liable to hold good until so many improve- ments are made along it, that to make any change would become too expensive an undertaking. As an illustration of this truth the writer would mention that he found in parts of the West still new, that some of the roads in use had been first made by the buffalo seeking the easiest way of reaching the river. The first comers naturally took these paths, and
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improved them gradually into roads, so their selection and growth became a matter of evolution. Very likely these buf- falo paths will sometime become the streets of thriving cities. We know that the first settlement of the town was from the end of Captain's Hill peninsula, called Brewster's Point, along the shore to the old burial ground, near the head of Morton's Bay, where stood the church. The first road or path was most likely along this route.
One of the first wants of the Settlement was a mill to grind the corn, and we are told that a grant for the purpose was given to Thomas Hilier and George Pollard - names now extinct in the town - on a very stony brook, later called Mill Brook, the pond and power being in existence today, but not in use. It is placed where it would naturally be, as near the sea marshes as the brook could be readily dammed. It is the brook nearest to Morton's Bay that has a good flow of water, and a road connecting the two places must have been at once laid out. This may have gone a little to the eastward of the present roads, but probably went nearly where they do; i. e., following the old cross-road from the old burial ground to Depot Street, thence along Depot Street to Tre- mont Street, and thence to the old mill at Millbrook.
As Marshfield was settled only a little later than Duxbury in the neighborhood of Green Harbor, the road probably con- tinued from this mill up the hill where it now runs to Cox's Corner, as some of the houses along it at present are very old; then instead of continuing on to the Green Harbor rail- road station, it probably turned to the right, passed the house
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of Mr. E. F. Loring, and thence on to the foot of Duck Hill, where there is an old house owned by Mr. George Simmons, bordering on the salt meadows. From here there is a private road intersecting the regular road to Green Harbor, a short distance easterly from the railroad, which is probably nearly the same course the ancient road followed, and likely continued on to Green Harbor, about where runs the present road.
Turning now to the Plymouth side of the town, it is known where the ancient road crossed the Jones River, which is mentioned in the chapter on Kingston, as passing by the old Bradford places to the Boston road. This Boston road was not formally laid out as the king's highway till 1684, but we know a road was laid out from Plymouth to Duxbury in 1637, and this probably went to the east of the present road by the house, or near there, of the late Samuel Loring, but crossed Island Creek Pond Brook at the present crossing; for the Court gave permission in 1702 to one Seabury " to dam Island Creek Pond Brook, on the condition that a passage is made for the herrings to pass up and down, and also wide enough for a cartway." This was undoubtedly where the Loring tack factory is now, on Tremont Street; and although the fact is not stated, a mill was likely built here then; and from this crossing the ancient road probably followed Tremont and Chestnut streets to the old burial ground.
The settlement spread naturally along the shore to Powder Point, but the Bluefish River formed an obstacle to the con- nection of its parts, so each had to seek the county road by different ways. We know that as early as 1715 a road was
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regularly laid out from Powder Point to the Plymouth road, following about the route of St. George Street; and one was probably used long before this time. We also know that there was a large public landing-place on the Bluefish River, between the cable office and the Howard house. The village had also to seek its connection with the Plymouth or county road, and it is known where were two of the old roads, one south of where Harrison Street is today, and one where is now Surplus Street ; besides there were special roads to individual houses, which were quite common in the early times. Finally the want became too urgent to be longer neglected to connect Powder Point with the village shore, so a road was formally laid out in 1798. A bridge then became a necessity, and this was built in 1803.
It is likely that the first roads were really paths, and these in time became widened into roads; this we know to have been the case in some instances, and was very possibly so in all, and it is known the Indian paths were used in the beginning. One was called the Massachusetts path, that led from Plymouth to Boston, this being often referred to in the old records. There was also a Green Harbor path, that led from Green's Harbor to the Massachusetts path, near the Kingston line, being substantially over the track of the old road, as described above. Mr. Edward Willis of Kingston, who is an authority on such matters, tells me that this path was used by Greene, for whom Green Harbor was named, as early as 1623. That Green was a brother-in-law of Weston, who was settled at Weymouth in 1622, and caused the Plymouth Colonists some
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trouble by his unjust treatment of the Indians. Green and Weston had a boat which they kept at Green Harbor for cruising purposes. When they could not go to Plymouth by water or did not wish to do so, they would take this path to its intersection with the Massachusetts one, and so on to Plymouth.
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HISTORIC DUXBURY.
X.
MAPS,
T HE earliest map of this locality was made by Champlain on his voyage along the coast in 1605.
This is simply an eye-sketch, and is very inaccurate, but it is useful in establishing a few points of historical importance, the first being, that Brown's Island or Shoal, off the mouth of Duxbury and Plymouth bays, was much less a shoal in 1605 than it is today, instead of having once been a wooded island, as a tradition has it, and as the history of Duxbury maintains.
Another point decided by this map is, that our Duxbury beach was composed of sand-dunes, as it is today, with the Gurnet covered with a thick growth of trees, probably pitch pines, as it appears that there were no white pines hereabouts till the latter part of the seventeenth century. High Pines is not shown on this map, but there is little doubt but that it was also heavily wooded at that time. Saquish is shown as an island, and seems from the sketch to have been slightly wooded, as was Clark's Island. Rocky Point Bluff or Manomet in Ply- mouth is shown as thickly wooded, as would be surmised from its appearance today. Plymouth Town Brook is shown and Jones River is indicated, but Duxbury Bay is cut short and scarcely shown at all. Plymouth beach is shown much larger than at present, and slightly wooded, but conclusions of this kind in detail are little to be relied on unless supported by
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