USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Historical collections: containing I. The Reformation in France; the rise, progress and destruction of the Huguenot Church. Vol I > Part 13
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The American Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Among the Indians and Others in North America was incorporated in 1787. Governor James Bowdoin was the first president. The American Society for Promoting Knowledge, Piety, and Charity was incorporated in 1805-both in Massachusetts.
* The date of this letter, 1702, in which he says he removed fifteen years ago to New England, will make his settlement at Oxford in 1687, where he remained nine years, which gives 1696 the date the plantation was broken up.
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small allowance, promised me by New Rochelle, of one hundred pieces and lodging, with that of one hundred and five pieces which the Cor- poration continued to me until the arrival of my Lord Bellamont, who, after indicating his willingness to take charge of me and my canton, ordered me thirty pieces in the Council of New York, and did me the favor to promise me, that, at his journey to Boston, he would procure me the continuation of that stipend I had in times past. But having learned at Boston, through M. Nanfau, his lieutenant, that I annexed my signature to an ecclesiastical certificate, which the churches and pastors of this Province had given to Sieur Delius, minister of Albany, who had not the good fortune to please his late lordship, his defunct Excellency cut off his thirty pieces which he had ordered me in the Council at York, deprived me of the Boston pension of twenty-five pieces, writing to London to have that deduction approved, and left me, during three years last past, in an extreme destitution of the means of subsistence.
' I believe, my lord, that in so important a service as that in which I am engaged, I ought not to discourage myself, and that the Providence of God which does not abandon those who have recourse to His aid by well-doing, would provide in His time for my relief.
' Your Excellency's equity, the affection you have evinced to us for the encouragement of those who employ themselves constantly and faith- fully in God's service, induces me to hope that I shall have a share in the dispensation of your justice, to relieve me from my suffering, so that I may be aided and encouraged to continue with my flock, and to pray God for the preservation of your person, your illustrious family, and the prosperity of your government.
' Remaining your Excellency's humble and respectful servant, * ' DANIEL BONDET. ' "
This letter was referred to Colonel Heathcote for examination into the merits of the request, who made a favorable report. The substance was as follows :
" His field of Christian labor among the Indians was at a place called New Oxford, near Boston, with a salary of €25 per annum. During, this mission Gov. Wm. Stoughton, Rev. Increase Mather, with others certify that he, with great faithfulness, discharged his duty, both in
* The Huguenots bought 6,000 acres of land at New Rochelle, in Westchester county, in September, 1689. Their meeting-house was built in 1692-'93, and their first minister was Rev. David Bonrepose, D. D .; the Rev. Daniel Bondet was his successor.
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reference to Christians and Indians, and was of an unblemished life and conversation."*
In 1705 Colonel Heathcote recommended him to the friendly notice of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. He styled him
" A good man, who preaches very intelligibly in English, which he does every third Sunday in his French congregation, when he uses the liturgy of the church. He has done a great deal of service since his first coming into this country, and is well in the thoughts of the society."
This religious society, in New Rochelle, in 1709, changed from the forms of the French Protestant church, essentially of the Presbyterian order, to that of the English church, as then established by law in the colony of New York. Mr. Bondet showed himself a sensible man in conforming to cir- cumstances in matters of form in worship, where there was no violation of principle.
In 1710 Governor Hunter gave license for building a new church edifice, for this society, which was constructed of stone. Rev. Daniel Bondet died in 1722, greatly lamented by his people, and was buried beneath the chancel of his church. He served here nearly twenty-five years, and, including his service at New Oxford and Boston, thirty-five years. He gave his library, of 400 volumes, to the church."t
* Colonel Caleb Heathcote was for many years an influential man in the colony of New York; he came into the colony in 1690, was a member of Lord Cornbury's council in 1693, and Colonel of Westchester county militia. It appears that he was a merchant of distinction, and active in the cause of religion. He was active in establishing Trinity church, the first of the order of the church of England in New York.
The first house of worship for Trinity church, New York, was erected in 1696. The service of the church of England was introduced here by the chaplain of the English governor, im- mediately after the surrender of the Dutch, in 1664. It being simply a government estab- lishment, and not favored by the old inhabitants, this order gained but slowly.
Having erected their church edifice, and finished it at the close of 1696, Rev. William Vesey, a graduate of Harvard university, was their first rector. He performed divine service in the new building, the first time, February 6, 1697, and continued the rector till his death, the 11th of July, 1746, during a period of fifty years.
t See Weiss, vol. II, pp. 304-308; also, Smiles' Huguenots of America-the latter part, by G. P. Disosway, p. 432.
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The evidences, at this day, that exhibit traces of the labors of this small colony of French exiles, while residing at Oxford, are but few ; and those the mounds upon Mayo's hill, repre- sented by tradition as the remains of earth-works that formed, in their time, a fort, erected for a defense against the encroach- ment of the natives, or other enemies. Besides the remains of this fort, a few grape-vines, and some ancient fruit-trees, supposed to have been placed there by their hands, there is nothing now to show that such a people were ever here as inhabitants.
Their dwellings, their water-mills, the meeting-house, where these exiles assembled to hear their pastor, the pious Bondet, speak of spiritual affairs, and those things which concerned their present and future welfare, all, like themselves, have passed from human vision, and whatever pertained to their labors here is now incorporated with the soil, which, at one time, they claimed as their plantation. Even the mounds that once indicated the place where they deposited their dead have ceased to mark the place where those once living and loved ones were laid to rest.
The ploughman has passed his share over these once sacred grounds, and nothing appears, save the common field of the husbandman.
Tradition points to the place of the ancient meeting-house and the lot set apart by them as the burial-place for their dead, and that is all the evidence that such were ever in existence.
The hill, where are some mounds that indicate the remains of what are supposed to have once been part of a work of defense, called "The Fort," located on a farm called Mayo's, is about one mile from the railroad depot in Oxford village, in a southerly direction.
The late Mr. Andrew Sigourney, living at the time Dr. Abial Holmes visited here to procure facts for his memoirs of
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these exiles, represented to him that he thought this Fort Hill farm was once the property of his ancestors .*
Dr. Holmes measured the fort, and found its length thirty- tive paces, and breadth twenty-five. Within the fort on the east side, he discovered signs of a well, and, on inquiry, was informed that a well had recently been filled up there.
On a second visit to the fort, in September, the same year, he was accompanied and aided in his researches by the Rev. Mr. Brazer, then a professor at Harvard university. "They traced the lines of the bastions of the fort, and were regaled with the perfumes of the shrubbery and the grapes, then hang- ing in clusters on vines supposed to have been planted by the Huguenots."
Everything here, Mr. Mayo informed them, had been left as he found it. They next went in search of the " Johnson Place," memorable for a massacre in the year 1696. Mr. Peter Shumway, a very aged man of French descent, who lived about thirty rods distant from the location of the "John- son House," showed them the spot. It is a considerable dis- tance from the village, on the north side of the road to Dud- ley, and is now overgrown with trees. There were no relics
* This Mr. Andrew Sigourney was born at Boston, November 30, 1752 ; he was married to Elizabeth Wolcott (probably danghter of Josiah Wolcott, resident at Oxford, who married the daughter of Rev. John Campbell, the first minister), July 26, 1787 ; she died at Oxford, March 20, 1829, aged sixty-seven ; and her husband, Mr. Sigourney, died, April 16, 1838, aged eighty-seven. He came from Boston to Oxford in 1784, and engaged in trade with Mr. James Butler, his brother-in-law, who had married his sister, Mary, the daughter of his father by a former wife (Mary Waters). He was in business with Mr. Butler ten years, in a store near the present Town House. He then moved to Oxford Plain, and continued business about thirty years longer. His ancestor, who came from France, was named Andrew, (and his son, Andrew, married Mary Germaine, and had five children-three sons-Andrew, Anthony, and Daniel, and two daughters; one married Martin Brimer, of Boston, and the other, Samuel Dexter;) his daughter, Susan, married John Johnson, killed by the Indians, with his three children, at Oxford; she escaped, and married for her second husband, Daniel Johonnot, her cousin, of Boston, and settled there.
Anthony, above, son of Andrew, the second, was born at Boston, August 17, 1713, and married Mary Waters, of Salem, April 10, 1740, and had a daughter, Mary, who married James Butler. This Anthony married, for his second wife, widow Elizabeth Breed; their children were-Andrew, born at Boston, November 20, 1752, the subject of this notice, and Anthony; time of his birth not given; but it appears there was a son by the first wife, Mary Waters, named Peter, who married a Miss Celia Loring.
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found here. Mr. Shumway informed Dr. Holmes, in 1825, that he was in his ninety-first year, that his great grand- father was from France, and that the plain on which he lived was known as "Johnson's Plain."
By information received from Captain Andrew Sigourney, they called on Captain Humphrey, of Oxford, who said his parents told him there was a fort on the land on which he now lives, and also a French meeting-house and burying- ground. He had seen stones lying on the top of graves there in the manner turfs are usually placed on new graves.
This Captain Ebenezer Humphrey pointed out to Dr. Holmes, in 1825, the place where this fort, the meeting-house, and burying-place, were located.
He said his grandfather was from England, and his father was from Woodstock, and came to Oxford to keep garrison. He himself now lives where his father formerly resided, which is about half a mile west from Oxford village.
His house is near a hill, standing upon a small stream that runs on the left, near the great road leading to Norwich. The fort stood about sixty rods from his house, and near it was the lot on which were the meeting-house and burying- ground. No remains of either were visible.
He pointed to a depression in the ground where a well once was, that had been filled up. It was at the place where formerly was the fort. In this lot was an apple-tree, which, he said his father told him, the French set out. His father was seventy years old when he told him this, and he himself, was then twenty years of age. He said one of his oldest sisters remembered seeing the old " Horse Block" that stood near the French church.
This Humphrey farm is near the foot of Mayo's hill, where were the ruins of the other fort.
Except the fort on Mayo's hill, there is nothing that now remains to bear testimony of this early colony, but the name
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of the stream of water that passes through this town, called " French River." The ever-destroying hand of time may ere long obliterate the remains of this ancient fort, the work of the hands of this interesting people; but so long as the de- scending rains continue to refresh and fertilize the soil which they once tilled, this stream will flow through this land, and its name, French river, will remain a perpetual memorial that these exiles, through persecutions, once dwelt upon its borders. The waters of Baggachoag, that rise in Worcester, together with other waters from Leicester, it is believed, form the principal sources of this river .* It passes thence through Auburn, Oxford, and Dudley, and, entering Connecticut, it soon unites with the Quinebaug river, which has its source in Brimfield and Wales, in Hampden county, Massachusetts, and Union, in Connecticut; and passing through Holland, Sturbridge, Southbridge, and Dudley, it enters the west part of Thompson, Connecticut ; and, receiving the French river, it passes south through several towns ; and at Norwich unites with the Shetucket, and forms the Thames, which enters Long Island sound at New London.
Dr. Holmes relates an interview he had with Mrs. James Butler, before mentioned (a descendant from the Sigourney family), to whom he had an introduction by her daughter, Mrs. Campbell, wife of the inn-keeper. Mrs. Butler was then in her seventy-fifth year. Her maiden name was Mary Sigourney, great granddaughter of the Mr. Andrew Sigourney, who came from the city of Rochelle, France.
" Her great grandmother died on the passage, leaving an infant only six months old, who was the grandmother of Mrs. Butler; and another daughter, Mary Cazneau, who was then six years of age."
* See the Worcester Magazine and Historical Journal, vol. I, p. 90. It is to be regretted that this valuable work extended to only two volumes, from October, 1825, to October, 1826. It was edited and published by Wm. Lincoln, Esq., the historian of Worcester, and Christo. pher C. Baldwin, then the librarian of the American Antiquarian Society.
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" This information Mrs. Butler received from her grandmother, who lived to about the age of eighty."
" The Refugees left France in 1684 or 1685, with the utmost precipi- tancy. The great grandfather of Mrs. Butler, Mr. Germaine, gave the family notice that they must go. They came off with secrecy, with whatever clothes they could put on themselves and children, leaving the pot boiling over the fire."
"When they arrived at Boston, they went directly to Fort Hill, where they were provided for until they moved to Oxford. They built a fort on Mayo's hill, on the east side of French river, and tradition says another fort was built on the west side. She says she believes they had a minister with them. Mrs. Johnson,* the wife of John Johnson, who was killed by the Indians here, in 1696, was a sister of the first Andrew Sigourney."
" Her husband, returning from Woodstock while the Indians were massacring his family, was shot down at his own door. Mr. Sigourney, hearing the report of guns, ran to the house and seized his sister, pulled her out of the back door, and took her over French river, which they waded through, and fled towards Woodstock, where there was a gar- rison. The Indians killed the children by dashing them against the jambs of the fire-place."
" Mrs. Butler thought the French were at Oxford eighteen or nineteen years. Her grandmother, who was brought over an infant, was married and had a child while at Oxford."
" This fact would lead us to believe that the Sigourney family returned to Oxford after the fear of the Indians had subsided. It is believed in Oxford that a few families did return. These families may have returned again to Boston in about nineteen years from the time of their first settlement in Oxford, agreeably to Mrs. Butler's opinion, in which case the time coincides with that of the erection of the first French church in Boston, in 1704-'05. These relations of Mrs. James Butler were given in 1819. She died in 1823, aged eighty-one. Mrs. Butler resided in Boston until the American Revolution, and soon afterwards removed to Oxford. Her residence at both places rendered her more familiar with the history of these colonists. She says they prospered in Boston after they were broken up at Oxford." +
* Mrs. Johnson, widow of John Johnson (who, with his three children, were killed by the Indians), formerly Susan Sigourney, after they moved to Boston, married Daniel Johounot. Their children were: Andrew, who married the daughter of Anthonie and Mary Oliver, Huguenots, of Rochelle, and Mary Annie, who married James Bowyer ; also, Zachariah Johonnot, who became a wealthy merchant; died in 1784, aged eighty-three. Andrew died, June 1, 1760, and Mary Annie died, May 22, 1747. Thus the Sigourneys, Johonnots, Olivers, John- sons, La Barrons, and the Bowyers, were relatives and descendants of the Huguenots.
| Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, vol. II, 3d series, pp. 76-78.
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As a corroboration of Mrs. Butler's opinion as to the con- tinuation of the French Protestants at Oxford, after the murders by the Indians in 1696, there is the letter of Gov- ernor Joseph Dudley, dated at " Boston, July 7, 1702," ad- dressed to Gabriel Bernon, in which he says :
" Herewith you have a commission for Captain of New Oxford. I desire you forthwith to repair thither and show your said commission, and take care that the people be armed, and take them in your own house, with a palisade, for the security of the inhabitants; and if they are at such a distance in your village that there should be need of another place to draw them together in case of danger, consider of another proper house, and write me, and you shall have order therein.
"I am, your humble servant, J. DUDLEY."
This letter is ample evidence that a portion of the French colony did return to Oxford for a time. Both Dudley and Bernon had a direct interest pecuniarily for restoring that colony : Dudley, to advance the value of the 6,000 acres, his share in the division of lands there, as made by the several grantees and their associates in 1688. And Gabriel Bernon's interest was much greater, as, besides 2,500 acres he had given him in that part of the grant set apart by said grantees and associates, and called Oxford village, he had expended a large amount of money in the erection of several mills for different purposes, and thus he was induced to erect the block house for the protection of such of the colonists as he could induce to return, which house Dudley refers to when he says " take them in your own house."
This house was not for a personal residence of Mr. Bernon, as it appears quite conclusive that he never resided at Oxford, but acted as factor, and, no doubt, for a time regarded it an advantageous investment, so long as the colony remained there intact, up to the time of the massacre. Subsequently, by the entire abandonment of the plantation for a year or more, it became then an object of interest to protect and save, as far as possible, the large expenditure he had previously made ;
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thus, we find him now appointed a captain, with authority to use his efforts to provide for the protection of such of the colonists or others that could be induced to continue the set- tlement there; and, with this design, it appears he did much to encourage settlers to go and remain, and built for their protection a house surrounded with palisades ; it also appears by Mr. Dudley's letter that there were some of these settlers there in 1702; but whatever number might have returned for a time, it is clear, by the proclamation of Dudley and his associates in 1713, that when preparing for the English settle- ment, there was then an entire abandonment of this plantation by the French, as he says :
" The said French families have many years since wholly left and deserted their settlement in said village."
Mr. Bernon moved to Rhode Island in 1698, and he, no doubt, after considerable expense in his endeavors to save some portion of his investments here, found it to cost more time and money than all he could save was worth. Then, again, his distance from the plantation, and without roads, made it difficult for him to give the plantation such attention as was necessary to secure any reasonable degree of prosper- ity ; thus he, no doubt, came to regard the effort as a profit- less adventure, and finally abandoned all his expenditures at Oxford for improvements, and held simply the 2,500 acres of the land that had at first been granted him by the proprie- tors for his encouraging the original plantation. By this abandonment by Gabriel Bernon (which is clear, by his own representations, as related by Dr. Holmes in his memoirs of those French settlers), the plantation became wholly deserted, as set forth in the proclamation by Dudley and others.
When the few French planters did return, after their first abandonment, is not certain ; but it is inferred, from such facts as have been discovered, that it was in the year 1699, about two or three years after the massacre in 1696. That there
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was an abandonment for two years is evidenced by the letter of Rev. Mr. Bondet, addressed to his excellency, Lord Corn- bury, Governor of New York, in 1702, after he had settled with the French colony at New Rochelle, in Westchester county, New York, quoted herein, wherein he says :
" He remained at Boston two years, expecting a favorable season for the establishment of affairs, but seeing no appearance, and being invited to this province, " etc.
Thus, by this letter, there was no appearance of a return to re-establish the plantation in 1697 and 1698; but, from a letter to Lord Bellamont by the successor of Mr. Bondet, the Rev. James Laborie, setting forth that,
" The Rev. Mr. Bondet, their former minister, had not only left them, but carried away all ye books which had been given for ye use of the plantation, with ye acts and papers of this village," etc.,
it would appear that, if some of the first planters had not already returned, there was a design for its re-establishment ; and that, by the evidence of the letter of Mr. Dudley to Gabriel Bernon in 1702, it is clear that, for a time, some of these planters did return, and were under the care of Mr. Bernon, though what length of time they remained after this return, or what numbers were there for this attempt for its establishment, is not explained ; but it is sufficiently proved that there were none of the French planters on the Oxford plantation for some years before its resettlement by the thirty families of English settlers in 1713.
Dr. Holmes, after reciting all the incidents relating to the remains of the old fort, and the recollections of the Johnson House, the meeting-house, and the burying-ground, further adds :
" Of this interesting place we feel reluctant to take leave without some token of remembrance, besides the mere recital of facts, some of which are dry in detail, while many others are but remotely associated with it. Were any monumental stone to be found here, other memorials
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were less necessary. Were the cypress or the weeping-willow growing here, nothing might seem wanting to perpetuate the memory of the dead. Any contributions of the living, even at this late period, towards supplying the defeet, seem entitled to preservation."
In 1822 Dr. Holmes received a manuscript poem on the French exiles, superscribed " Oxford," anonymous, but appar- ently from a female pen :
" It was of considerable length, and not equally sustained through- out; but the tender and respectful regard shown by the writer to those excellent pilgrims, who left 'not a stone to tell where they lie,' and her just reflections upon the value of religious liberty, and the iniquity and horrors of tyranny, entitle her to high estimation. Many lines do honor to her genius, and all of them to her sensibility. If she is a descendant of the Huguenots, this is a tribute of filial piety ; if not, it is an oblation of generous sympathy. The same year a letter was also received from a lady, well known to our literary community, inelosing a practical trib- ute to the memory of the Huguenots of Oxford, which is not less worthy of her pen than of her connection. Her marriage with a worthy descend- ant of one of the first French families that settled in Oxford fairly entitles her to the subject, which her pen will perpetuate should the memoir be forgotten. A leaf of the grape-vine was inelosed in the letter, which has this conclusion :
" 'We received great pleasure from our visit to Oxford; and as we traced the ruins of the first rude fortress erected by our ancestors, the present seemed almost to yield in reality to the past.
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