USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Watertown > Historical sketch of Watertown, in Massachusetts, from the first settlement of the town to the close of its second century > Part 7
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Gibbs was graduated at Harvard College in 1685, and in June 1692 was married to Miss Mercy Greenough. His situation at Watertown must have been, in many respects, difficult and trying amidst the strife with which the town was agitated, during a considerable part of his ministry. But it reflects no little honor on his firmness, prudence, and good sense, that he seems to have been held in high respect by all the inhabitants of the town, even by those who abandoned the old place of worship, to which he was attached. No com- plaint or reproach appears against him, in the midst of transactions which usually make it difficult for a cler- gyman to escape censure. This was not the result of calculating policy, or selfish pliancy of disposition on his part, but of real kindness of feeling and simple rec- titude of conduct. There can be no doubt that he was a devoted and faithful minister. His services were able and highly valued by his own parish, and among the neighbouring churches. Without any pretension to what are commonly considered great or shining quali- ties, he had, what is far better, sound sense, warm piety, and a well-directed zeal in doing good. Of his pecu- liarities and habits of life it is not easy, after the lapse of more than a century, to learn much. Tradition has preserved among his descendants the amusing, though trivial particular, that he was accustomed to write his sermons on the bellows in the chimney corner. The strange and melancholy infatuation about witchcraft prevailed in his time ; and of some of the scenes con- nected with this delusion he had an opportunity of being an eye-witness. His feelings on one of these occasions he recorded in the following passages in his diary ; and while they intimate the superstitious mis- givings, to which he in common with others yielded, they show at least that he was capable of holding his mind in suspense on the subject, which was a degree of moderation and good judgment not very common at that period, even among intelligent men : " 1692, 30th
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May. This day I travelled to Salem. 31st. I spent this day at Salem Village to attend the publick exam- ination of criminals (witches), and observe remarkable and prodigious passages therein. Wonder'd at what I saw, but how to judge and conclude I am at a loss : to affect my heart, and induce me to more care and con- cernedness about myself and others, is the use I should make of it." Mr. Gibbs was a benefactor both to his church and to the College. In his Will, which was proved November 11th, 1723, he made the following bequest, part of which still constitutes a portion of what is called the ministerial fund : " I do give and bequeath to the Eastern Church of Christ in Watertown, to which I have borne a pastoral relation, for the encour- agement of the gospel ministry there, my four acres of pasture land and three acres of marsh, situate in the East end of said town, for the use of the said church for ever. And I do give to said Church my silver bowl with a foot." His legacy to the College he devised in the following terms : " And further it is my will, that within two years after my youngest child comes of age, an hundred pounds be paid by my heirs for the use of Harvard College, forty pounds thereof by my son, and twenty pounds apiece by my daughters ; the yearly interests to be exhibited to such members of the College as need it, firstly to my children's posterity if they desire it."
The writings of Mr. Gibbs bear a creditable testi- mony to his talents, piety, and sobriety of judgment. They have that natural and direct character, which indicates that the author's chief desire was to do good. While they are free from all affectation of style and extravagance of feeling, they breathe the warm and tender spirit that is so well suited for the purposes of . edification. In 1721 he published a treatise entitled " The certain Blessedness of all those, whose Sins are forgiven, considered, confirmed and applyed, from Psalm xxxii. 1, 2. Boston : printed by S. Kneeland
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for D. Henchman." It consists of a number of dis- courses condensed together in a systematical form. For this book a preface was written by the Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth, at that time minister of the First Church in Boston, and afterward president of Harvard College, who remarks, " The worthy Author of these Sermons needs no commendation in a pre- face ; being justly most valued by those to whom he is most known." A little volume, full of affectionate and practical counsels, was gathered from Mr. Gibbs's papers, and published after his death, with the title, " Godly Children their Parents Joy ; exhibited in several Sermons &c., Boston : printed by S. Kneeland & T. Green for D. Henchman. 1727." The preface was written by Dr. Colman of the Church in Brattle Square, Boston .* In 1704 Mr. Gibbs preached the Artillery Election Sermon : it was published with a title of somewhat formidable length, as follows ; " The Right Method of Safety, or the Just Concern of the
* Dr. Colman expresses his opinion of the book as follows : " But I forget that I am only writing a preface, and that but to a small book, and a very good one that needs nothing of mine to be added to it. The good people of Watertown, who press'd me to this service, will, I hope, easily forgive me the length I have gone; and having shown this re- spect to the labours and memory of their deceased pastor as to send this posthumous piece to the press, I trust they will now treasure it up in their hearts, put it into the hands of their households, and teach it dili- gently to their children, for whom, as well as for themselves, it is well adapted to make saving impressions, if God add his blessing. The very virtuous children of the deceased author will not need to be exhorted to receive these instructions of their father with a double-reverence, and teach their children after them to rise up and call him blessed. Yea I will presume to add my wish, that the students at Cambridge (where the learned author was so well known and honour'd while he lived) would wear this little book about them, and make it a Vade mecum ; study the plain and easy rules of it, and weigh well the powerful and strong motives in it ; till their whole soul receive the rich leven of it, and they go into that wisdome taught in it, which will render 'em the joy and crown as well of their country, as of their parents. Such are the sermons here commended to you ; and such sermons as these, in the ordinary course of preaching, will give a man character and praise eno' in the churches of Christ, as a wise and faithful pastor, and as a judicious and learned preacher. To say more of the gifts of one of the most modest and retir- ed men while he liv'd would be to offer some kind of violence to him now he is dead."
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People of God to join a due Trust in Him with a dili- gent Use of Means. As it was propounded in a Sermon preached at Boston to the Artillery Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, on the 5th of June, 1704, being the Day for their Election of Officers." The text was Psalm xliv. 6 .* These, I believe, are the only published productions of Mr. Gibbs's pen. He is said to have had a turn for poetry ; and a specimen of it is appended to a manuscript collection of his sermons, now in the library of the Essex Historical Society. It is an " Attempt at Versification on the Word of God," in twenty-four stanzas, and manifests the piety much more than the poetical gifts of the writer.t
The records kept by Mr. Gibbs are defective, extending only from 1697 to 1703. During this time, the number of his admissions to the church was 31, of marriages 21, and of baptisms 143.
January 14th, 1723, a committee was chosen by the town to address the General Court for the purpose of obtaining " the 2000 acres of upland and 1500 acres of meadow formerly granted to Watertown, and not yet taken up." It does not appear when, or for what purpose, this grant had been made. The land,
* Judge Sewall has recorded that, in 1720, he " propounded Mr. Gibbs for election preacher." This refers to the General Election ; but the proposal seems to have been unsuccessful, for Mr. Gibbs never preached the sermon on that occasion.
+ For many of the above particulars concerning Mr. Gibbs I am in- debted to the politeness of one of his descendants, Mr. William Gibbs of Salem, a diligent and careful antiquarian. It should also be men- tioned that Mr. Josiah W. Gibbs, Professor of Sacred Literature in Yale College, and distinguished as an Oriental scholar and Biblical critic, is among the descendants of this minister of Watertown. His daughter, Margaret, was the wife of the Rev. Dr. Appleton of Cam- bridge : she was married June 25th, 1719, and died January 17th, 1771. He had a son William, who was drowned in Charles River in Cambridge, where he was at school, August, 1715; of which event Judge Sewall has taken notice in his MSS. In a list of the eminent ministers of New England, made by the Rev. John Barnard of Marblehead, the name of Mr. Gibbs of Watertown is placed in the second class. Hist. Coll. 1st Series, Vol. X. p. 170. See Appendix I.
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if obtained, was to be divided between Watertown and Weston, according to the proportion of each in the Province Tax. Their right to this grant, it would seem, had become obsolete, or was disputed ; for they speak of recovering it, in the records of the town meet- ings of 1725 and 1726, in which the subject comes up again more than once. They made but slow pro- gress in gaining the attention or consent of the Court to their petition. But that finally they did succeed, in part at least, we learn from the fact, that in August, 1728, persons were appointed " to seek out and survey the 2000 acres of land granted to Watertown and Weston," and likewise to procure a plan, or sketch, of the land under the hand of the surveyor, to be presented to the General Court, at their next session, for their confirmation. The next year, a proposal to sell the town's right in these 2000 acres was rejected by vote. In connexion with the abovementioned petition, it was voted (March 14th, 1726,) " to address the General Court for a suitable tract of land to settle . their young people on." About ten years afterward (December 1st, 1735), the representative of the town was instructed to bring the subject again before the Court, and to ask for a township, out of the unappro- priated land of the Province, to furnish a settlement for their youth, " for such reasons as may justly be offer- ed." How cogent these reasons were, we cannot judge ; for they are not stated. The necessity, whether real or imaginary, for such a petition, implies that the young men of the town were supposed to have become too numerous to find room at home ; but why a special provision was necessary to procure a settle- ment for them, instead of leaving them to take care of themselves, it is difficult to discover.
The successor of Mr. Gibbs in the ministry of the Eastern parish was the Rev. Seth Storer, who was ordained July 22d, 1724. Of the proceedings in rela- tion to his settlement nothing is said in the town
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records, since it was a concern belonging only to the precinct .*
In January, 1731, the representative of the town was directed to petition the General Court " to demolish the great bridge over Charles River in Cam- bridge, and to erect a ferry in lieu thereof, under such regulations as they shall see meet." The occasion or reasons for this petition are not assigned. It may be conjectured that the obstruction of navigation was the grievance, of which the Watertown people complained ; if so, their business on the river must at this time have been of considerable amount. A vote was passed in 1734, to ask of the Court a grant of some of the unap- propriated land belonging to the Province, " to enable them to support the bridge over Charles River in Watertown "; and it should be mentioned here, that about twenty years before this time they had applied to the Court for an order to have this bridge maintained at the expense of the whole county of Middlesex. These applications were doubtless unsuccessful. In 1734, also, another petition to the General Court was agreed upon, the object of which was to obtain a grant of land " to enable Watertown the better to support the two grammar schools in the town." This request, I presume, likewise failed of success. In order, as it would seem, to effect the same object (partially at least) in another way, certain tracts of land, lying by the highways and belonging to the town, were sold ; and in March, 1735, a vote was passed to create, out of the money accruing from these sales, a stock or fund, the interest of which should be annually appro- priated " for the support of the Grammar and English schools in the town." Whether this fund was in fact ever constituted, or, if so, how it was afterward dis-
* The following is Mr. Storer's own notice of his settlement, in the book of church records : "I was called to the work of the ministry by the church and congregation in the Easterly precinct in Watertown on February 3d, 1723-4, and was solemnly set apart for that work by prayer and the imposition of the hands of the presbytery on July 22d, 1724."
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posed of, are questions which I suppose we have no means of settling. There is no such school fund in · existence at the present time.
An ineffectual attempt was made by the Western precinct, in 1731, to obtain an incorporation, as a sepa- rate township. In April of that year, at a meeting of both precincts, agents were appointed to appear before the General Court in opposition to the attempt, and to show reason why the prayer of the petitioners should not be granted. An incorporation was not effected till seven years after this time.
A meeting of the town was called on the 10th of September, 1731, " to hear the representation of the honorable House of Representatives relating to the publick estate of the affairs of this Province now laboured under, which representation is recommended to the several towns by said House, for their serious consideration : and for the town to give their advice or directions with relation to said affairs laboured under." At the time here specified, the great and engrossing topic of public interest was the discussion between Governor Belcher and the House, concerning the support of the governor by a fixed salary; and to this subject, or to some question growing out of it, the representation mentioned in the above statement probably referred. It does not appear by the records, that the people of Watertown took any measures whatever in relation to the subject.
The jurisdiction, or at least the advice, of the Pro- vincial government seems to have been extended not only to meeting-houses, but to school-houses. In 1733, certain measures were recommended by the House of Representatives, to which the town gave their consent, for the purpose of having two school- houses, and employing two schoolmasters.
In 1734, a singular and somewhat amusing inter- ruption of traffic, amounting to a sort of act of non-inter- course, took place between Watertown and the
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metropolis. There had been, till this time, no estab- lished and regular market in Boston ; but in' the spring of 1734 measures were adopted to provide three places for this purpose in parts of the town distant from each other .*. What there was in this proceeding, or in the arrangements connected with it, that gave offence to the country towns, we are not told. But, from some cause, the establishment of the Boston markets excited not a little indignation. On the 17th of May, the following vote was passed by the people of Watertown : "Whereas the inhabitants of the town of Boston, in the county of Suffolk, have of late set up a market in the said town, which by many is thought will prove prejudicial to people in the country : voted, that whatsoever person, or persons, belonging to Watertown, shall within the space of twelve months from the 11th day of June next presume to carry any wares or provisions from out of Watertown, and expose them to sale in the markets that are voted by the inhabitants of the town of Boston to be set up there, shall be subject to pay a fine of twenty shillings for each offence ; one fourth part thereof to the inform- er, and the remainder to be for the use of the poor of the town of Watertown, to be recovered by the Selectmen of said town before any of his Majesty's justices of the peace for the county of Middlesex." This vote was to be presented to the General Ses- sions of the peace for the county of Middlesex for their confirmation. The formal and strong manner, in which it is expressed, intimates the determined feelings of men resisting what they suppose to be an injurious oppression. It is not easy to perceive in what consisted the mighty grievance, which led to this interdict of traffic. Probably, the people from the country, having been before accustomed to sell their commodities wherever they pleased in the metropolis,
* See Snow's History of Boston, p. 225.
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regarded this restriction to certain places of sale as an infringement upon their rights, and resented it accor- dingly. This agreement, on the part of the inhabi- tants of Watertown, to suspend all intercourse of sale with the people of Boston at their markets, must have soon proved as ineffectual, as it wås foolish; for, in defiance of votes, people would not long refrain from selling wherever and whatever they found it for their interest to sell. It is to be presumed, that the prohi- bition shortly became a dead letter. Such a union among all the neighbouring towns, as would amount to a coercion upon the inhabitants of Boston, could hardly have been expected. The whole affair is an instance of that unwise jealousy, with which the country is apt to regard the city .*
A successful effort was at length made by the Western parish in Watertown to become a distinct town. At a meeting of the people of that precinct on the 8th of December, 1737, a committee was appoint- ed to petition the General Court for an act of incor- poration, chiefly on account of the difficulties and incon- veniences arising from the necessity of transacting the
* That some opposition or resentment was anticipated from the coun- try people, on this occasion, may be inferred from the pains taken to obviate any unfavorable impressions, in the following notice of the open- ing of the markets, in the News-Letter (a paper published at that time in Boston) of June 6th, 1734: " It's tho't the said markets, carried on conformable to the restrictions, limitations, and regulations of the said order, will by experience be found very beneficial, as to this great Town in general, and to our Country Friends in particular, in many res- pects, but more especially in having certain fixed places of resort both for selling and buying the necessaries of life from day to day : And the cheaper and better the commodities brought for sale are, certainly the more vendable they will be ; which no doubt will induce our Country Neighbours to endeavour to bring as good to the market as they can : their interest, as well as the town's, has been jointly consulted and aim- ed at herein." It may be added, that the abovementioned experiment in Boston was unsuccessful at that time, and seems indeed to have been nearly or quite as unpopular there, as in the country. In the course of three years, "the South End market was converted into shops, the North was taken down to be used in constructing a work-house, and the one at the Town-dock was demolished by a mob." Snow's History of Boston, p. 226.
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business of the two parishes together. The petition was granted, and the western precinct was incorpora- ted as a town, by the name of Waltham, on the 4th of January (corresponding in new style to the 15th), 1738 .*
Our narrative has now brought us to the period when the original territory of Watertown was divided into three towns. Notices of transactions resulting from their former connexion, or from the conditions on which they separated, frequently occur. That portion of the whole, which remains under the old name of Watertown, is of much smaller extent than Weston or Waltham.
In 1738 mention is made, for the first time, I believe, of an altercation resulting from conflicting claims about the fishery. In that year, two complaints, one from people in Newton, Needham, Weston, Medfield, and Sherburne, the other from the Indians in Natick, were presented to the General Court against the inhabitants of Watertown, for stopping the course of the fish in Charles River. The representative of the town was directed to defend their cause in opposition to these complaints. Instances of a similar difficulty, from the interfering claims of neighbouring towns in this busi- ness, have since been not infrequent.
About this time a proposal was under discussion among some of the towns in this vicinity, to combine for the purpose of making a joint provision for their poor. They appointed a committee to confer on the subject of building a work-house at the common charge and for the common benefit of the towns con- cerned. The report of this committee in favor of the project, when read at a public meeting in Water- town, was accepted, and a vote was passed to unite with Cambridge, Waltham, Newton, Weston, and Lexington in building such a work-house. The repre-
* For an accurate and interesting description of Waltham, see Hist. Coll. 2d Series, Vol. III. p. 261.
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sentatives of the towns concerned were instructed to apply for an Act of the Court, which should enable them to accomplish this object effectually and advan- tageously. Whether this plan was ever executed, I am unable to tell. Probably it was not; for, eleven years after this time, the people of Watertown appointed persons "to enquire of the neighbouring towns, and see who of them will come into the affair or scheme of the building of a work-house," an inquiry which implies, that the previous proposal had failed of success. And at a still later period, (March, 1760,) a vote was passed " to join with Cambridge, Newton, and Waltham in raising a sum of money, by lottery or otherwise, for building a work-house." But the project does not appear to have been accomplished. It has been thought by some reflecting men, that large establishments of this kind, in which several towns, perhaps a whole county, should have a common inter- est, would possess many advantages over the usual mode of supporting the poor.
The practice of arranging places for the people at public worship, by the authority of the town, still continued. May 15th, 1741, persons were chosen " to new seat the meeting-house forthwith by such rules as the town agrees on." In performing this duty, they were instructed " to have regard to age, honour, and usefulness, and to real and personal estate, as it stands in the last invoice." This deference to the distinctions of rank and property seems to us, at the present day, not a little singular. But it was then very common; and one instance of it may be · observed in the arrangement of the Catalogue of the graduates of Harvard College, till 1773, when the names began to be placed in alphabetical order. The business of seating the people in the meeting-house recurs, in the records, in 1748 and 1749.
At a public meeting in Watertown, June 29th, 1741, it was proposed "to know the mind of the
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town, whether they are willing to encourage the build- ing of a bridge over Charles River from Cambridge to Boston, and what they will do for that end." The proposal was rejected by a negative vote. From this record it appears, that the plan of a bridge between Boston and Cambridge was under consideration at a much earlier period, than is commonly supposed. The proposal for a bridge from Boston to Charlestown was made as early as 1720; but I am not aware of any account, which states one to have been distinctly projected from Boston to Cambridge at so early a date as the above mentioned notice .*
The people of Watertown regarded the support of their own bridge over Charles River as a burdensome grievance, and complained heavily of the expense. They made several efforts to obtain relief, in some way, from the government of the Province. In May, 1744, the town, in connexion with Weston and Waltham, voted to apply to the General Court for a grant of land, for this purpose. More than thirty years before, they had endeavoured to procure an Act requiring the whole county of Middlesex to support the bridge. These applications were unavailing ; but they persevered from time to time in their attempts to get assistance. It has been already remarked, that when the town claimed of the Court the fulfilment of certain grants of land, they obtained the 2000 acres of upland; but they do not appear to have been equally successful with regard to the meadow land. In May, 1752, they renewed their attention to this subject in connexion with the bridge. Their repre- sentative was instructed to join with the representa- tives of Weston and Waltham in searching the Prov-
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