History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 133

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1818


USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 133


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" This Monument by order of Government to per- petuate the place on which the late Station or Angle Tree formerly stood. Lemuel Rossick, Esq., was ap- pointed agent to cause this monument to be erected. By order of the General Court.


"The selectmen of the towns of Wrentham and Attleborough were present, viz., Elisha May, Eben- ezer Tyler, and Caleb Richardson, Esqs., of Attle- borough ; and Samnel Fisher, John Whiting, Nathan Hawes, Nathan Comstock, and Nathaniel Ware, of Wrentham. From this stone the line is east twenty degrees and a half north to Accord Pond.


" Done at Wrentham, Nov. 29, 1790, by Samuel Fisher & Son."


The stone is fourteen feet in height and two feet in width, and of great weight.


The whole area of the town, according to a survey ordered by the Legislature, is twenty-nine thousand acres ; by valuation, twenty-six thousand. When Attleborough included Cumberland it must have contained sixty thousand acres.


Number acres of woodland, 2158; fresh meadow, 1767 ; tillage lands, including orchards, 1205; pas- ture lands, 4703; unimproved and unimprovable 1 land, 12,740; covered with water, 360 acres.


Rivers .-- They are worthy of notice not so much for their size as for the valuable water privileges which they afford, and which are now occupied for manufacturing purposes. There are several streams of water in this town, the principal of which is the Ten-Mile River. It rises in the southerly part of Wrentham, on the farm of Mr. John Fuller, and running in a southerly course through this town and through Seekonk, empties into Seckonk Cove, an arm of the Narragansett. Its length in this town is thir- teen miles ; its whole length is about twenty-five miles. Its average width is two rods and a half.


This stream is exceedingly important to the inter- ests of the town, for on this are our principal manu- facturing establishments.


There is another stream of considerable size called the Seven-Mile River, which crosses the road near Newell's Tavern, and bearing a southerly direction unites with the Ten-Mile River a little above Kent's factory, near the line of Pawtucket. Its length is about ten miles.


Another small stream, called Abbott's Run,2 rises in the northeasterly part of Cumberland, and cross- ing the line several times between that town and this, falls into the Blackstone River just below the Valley Falls.


The third or fourth in size is Bungay (or sometimes Bungee) River, which has its source in the northerly part of the town, near Mansfield line, a little below the Witch Pond, and after a journey of about five miles over an unusually level bed, falls into the Ten- Mile River nearly in the centre of the town, between the Farmers' and Mechanics' factories. Originating in a number of springs, it is an unfailing stream at all seasons of the year. This pond (as it is called) is an extensive quagmire, including about fifteen acres, only a small part of which is covered with water. It is rather singular in its appearance, and may be justly considered a curiosity. A hard bottom has never been discovered in any part of it. In some places it will at first bear the weight of a man, but if he' stands for a time he will gradually sink till he is un- able to extricate himself.


The topography of the town contains nothing pe- culiar, and it is therefore needless to.enlarge upon it, as is often done in the sketches of our towns. Suffice it to say that, in this respect, it is similar to most towns in this vicinity -- that its surface presents the usual diversity of hills and vales, that its soil embraces much land that is poor and considerable that is good, and that its natural and agricultural products are the same as those of neighboring towns.


provable for purposes of agriculture, for tillage or grazing. There is, however, a large quantity which is not actually under constant cultiva- tion ; but there is only a small proportion of this which is not occasion- ally cultivated.


2 Said to have derived its name from one Abboti, a boy who was drowned there in the carly settlement of the place. It is supposed by some that the Indian name of this stream was Warrepoonseag, but this is doubtful conjecture.


1 This is a large estimate, doubtless more than truth will warrant. There is strictly but little land in this town which is absolutely unim-


554


HISTORY OF BRISTOL COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.


In the winter and spring of 1816 this town was vis- ited by a strange and the most fatal sickness ever known in these parts. It extended to several other towns adjoining, but did not prove so fatal as here. It swept off in the short space of ninety days about one hundred inhabitants, a large proportion of them heads of families, and many of them the most useful and respectable citizens of the town. It was com- monly called the cold plugue. It generally terminated in a few days. Very few who were attacked with it recovered. No discase of the same kind has ever been known here either before or since that period.


No bills of mortality have been regularly kept till recently, and the average age of the inhabitants in any given period cannot be ascertained. There have been. several instances of very long lives. Deacon Elkanah Wilmarth died at the age of ninety-nine years and seven months. Mary Freeman, relict of John Freeman, died March 4, 1762, aged about one hundred years.


Widow Sarah Claflin, relict of Antipas Claflin, died in September, 1777, supposed to be one hundred years and six months old. Capt. Samuel Robinson lived to approach very near the age of one hundred. Zeph- aniah Robinson also reached a very advanced age.


John Shepard (who was a native of Foxborough, where he lived till a few years before his death) died in this town on April 5, 1809, at the extreme age of one hundred and five years and twenty-nine days. He retained all his faculties of mind and body, ex- cept his eyesight, to the last, and was just able to walk, with a little assistance, till a few days before his death.1 He lived over a hundred years on his native spot. He was a man of pious character, cheer- ful in disposition, jocose, witty, and of a quick under- standing. He was deprived of his eyesight on a sudden during the night, and was not himself aware of it until the next morning, when he sought in vain for the light of day. He could distinctly recollect events which had occurred a century before.


He had one son and several daughters. Two of his daughters lived to upwards of eighty years, and an- other, Mrs. Mary Mann, wife of Jason Mann, of Wren- tham, who died in -1828, lived to the age of ninety- seven years. She retained all her faculties and usual cheerfulness and vivacity till the last fifteen years of her life. She abstained almost wholly from animal food, and never was in the habit of drinking tea or coffee, and wondered how people could relish either. Her most common food was milk. She adhered to the same fashion in dress during life.


The original title to the North Purchase, as already stated, was derived from Alexander, the son of Mas- sasoit, and the elder brother of the celebrated Philip, sachem of Pockanoket. His original name was Moo-


anam, afterwards Wamsutta or Wamsitta, and finally Alexander Pockanoket, which last name was be- stowed upon him, and that of Philip upon his brother, by the Plymouth Court on occasion of the death of their father, Massasoit. It appears to have been a custom with the aborigines in this part of the conn- try, at least with their chiefs, to assume new names on the decease of any one of the family to which they belonged. This custom may perhaps be traced to some Eastern origin, as many of the Indian cere- monies have already been by historians.


On a visit which these two sons made to Plymouth, June 10, 1660, during a session of the court which commenced June 6th, their English names, by which they were generally known to us, were bestowed upon them.


A record of this ceremony is preserved on the Old Colony Book, which is here copied. This record clearly proves that Massasoit (concerning the time of whose death there has been much controversy) died a short time previous to June 10, 1660 :


"June 10, 1660. At the earnest request of Wam- sitta, desiring that, in regard his father is lately de- ceased, and he being desirous, according to the custom of the natives, to change his name, that the court would confer an English name upon him, which accordingly they did, and therefore ordered that for the future he shall be called by the name of Alexander Pockano- ket; and desiring the same in behalf of his brother, they have named him Phillip."


This is the origin of his modern name; with the honor of being called after the great warriors of an- tiquity the two were greatly pleased.


The colonists, during this friendly intercourse with the two sons of the faithful Massasoit, could not have anticipated that, in the course of a few years, the younger brother, upon whom they were then confer- ring the name of an ancient conqueror, and who pos- sessed all the natural talent and ambition of his great namesake, though not his power or good fortune, would soon become their most dangerous enemy and the terror of all New England.


It appears that among some tribes of the natives the custom prevailed of changing their habitations as well as their names on the decease of a member of the family. I have learned from a reliable source the following instance : On a part of the farm of the late Ebenezer Daggett, previous to its occupation by the whites and for some years after, resided several families by the name of Read, who were said to be of a mixed race, Indian and negro, and who were al- ways observed to change the location of their huts on the death of any one of their number. This oc- curred several times within the observation of the early settlers. This custom they probably derived from their Indian descent.


The survivors who lived till after the " East Bay road" was laid out, which passed near their dwell- ings, requested that, when they died, they might be


1 Il is of him that the well-known anecdote is told, that he lived in two counties (Suffolk and Norfolk) and four different towns (Dorchester, Stoughton, Wrentham, Foxborough), and yet never moved during that time from the spot where he was born.


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ATTLEBOROUGH.


buried near that road, with their heads towards it, " so that they could hear the newes when the great post- stage passed."


Their request was complied with, and they were buried a few rods from the route where the old road passed, with their heads in that direction. The place where they were buried is still pointed out in a small valley, on elevated ground. The hillocks over their graves (four in number) were distinctly visible within the remembrance of the author.


The postman's horn has never disturbed their slumbers, and the " newes" of the great post-stage, for which they longed, has never reached their ears. The plowshare of the husbandman has long since leveled the mounds that covered their graves. The postman's stage has long ago disappeared, and his horn has ceased its echoes over these hills and val- leys. The sleepers still wait for the coming of the "newes" from the changed scenes around them.


The circumstance of the bestowment of these names upon these brothers is mentioned by ancient historians, but not the occasion of it, and without fixing any precise date. They have usually assigned a date several years earlier as the period of Massa- soit's death ; but modern biographers and historians have generally supposed it several years later than the true period.1


In many of the ancient towns in the colonies there were occasionally found original and eccentric char- acters, who preferred the wilderness to the more cul- tivated parts of the country. Among the early in- habitants in this town was one Joseph Chaplin, who became a proprietor and a large landholder. He was of respectable descent. He came here from Rowley, Mass., and was a descendant from Rev. Hugh Chap- lin, who came over in 1638, and lived and died in that town.


He was a man of peculiar tastes and habits, and eccentric in his conduct. He laid out a large quan- tity of land (in the whole about seven hundred acres), including the most of that large tract of land called the "Half-Way Swamp," and his other lands were · located on the "East Bay road" and vicinity. His mania seemed to be the acquisition of land, but he could cultivate only a small portion of his extensive possessions, and could derive no profits from the rest. He lived alone a hermit's life, abjuring all society, especially that of the female sex. The cause of this seclusion is not positively known, but tradition says it was the faithlessness of a young lady to whom he was attached in early life. Chaplin was not morose, but naturally benevolent and kind. He planted sev-


eral orchards, and raised a variety of fruits. He would permit the neighboring women to come and partake the abundant fruits of his orchards, but was always careful to retire out of sight on the occasion, and so remained till they were gone. He kept a large stock of cattle, built his own house, cooked his own food, and made his own clothes. His only companions were a number of large cats, who lived luxuriously on his abundant stores. His name is found on several committees relating to the public lands, of which he was a shareholder. He died about 1750 at an ad- vanced age. His property was divided among his heirs-at-law, two nephews and a niece. They sold his estate here, and none of them remained in town.


In the most ancient burying-ground, laid out by Woodcock, and where the first interment was made the last of April, 1676, is the celebrated epitaph on Cæsar. He was given by his mother, while he was an infant, to Lieut. Josiah Maxcy. When the latter died, Cæsar came into the hands of Levi Maxcy. Being a waiter in the public-house so long kept on the site of the "Old Garrison," and which in those days was the resort of many travelers on that route, he was " known to all the region round." He was a member of the Baptist Church at North Attleborough. Tradition has preserved numerous anecdotes of him. He proved through a long life a remarkably honest and faithful servant in the family where he lived. He survived his first master, and after his own death, Jan. 15, 1780, was buried in the same yard. A decent stone was raised over his grave by his younger master, Levi Maxcy, in whose care he was left, with the fol- lowing inscription, which, in its graphie lines, will long preserve the memory of "Cæsar, the faithful Ethiopian" :


" Here lies the best of slaves, Now turning into dust; Cæsar, the Ethiopian, craves A place among the just.


His faithful soul has fled To realms of heavenly light, And by the blood that Jesus shed Is changed from Black to White.


January 15 he quitted the stage, In the 77th year of his age. "1780."


Many of the people of this town have emigrated to other parts of the country. Nearly a hundred years ago a company of young men from our town, called the "Nine Partners," went into the wilderness of Pennsylvania, and purchased a tract of land in Sus- quehanna County ; a number of families from this place soon followed, and thus they founded the town- ship of Harford, and the enterprise and the honorable career of their descendants have done no discredit to the town of their nativity.


Various families at different periods removed to Vermont, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Western New York, and some ninety years ago many emigrated to


1 B. B. Thatcher, in his " Indian Biography," lately published, main- tains that Massasoit's death must have occurred several years subse- quent to 1661. His words are, "Their father not being mentioned as having attended them at the observance of the ceremony (the confirma- tiou of a treaty, etc.) has probably occasioned the suggestion of his death. It would be a sufficient explanation of his absence, however, that he was now an old man, and that the distance of Sowams from Plymouth was more than forty miles." (Vol. i. chap. vii. p. 141.)


556


HISTORY OF BRISTOL COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.


different towns in Maine, and laid the foundation for some of them.


The first inhabitants of the town were a substantial and respectable class of persons. They were, like most of the settlers of the other towns in the Old Col- ony, emigrants from England, seldom any of them from Scotland and Wales. They were the right men and women to subdue and cultivate a new country, and plant the civilization of their native land in this wilderness ; to introduce here the institutions, polit- ical and religious, in which they had been educated at home. Many of the first planters had been pre- viously living in old Rehoboth. It would be inter- esting to dwell longer and more in detail on the ancient history of the town, to which I have devoted the most labor, and which is the most valuable to the present generation, and the most liable to perish unless rescued now, but that task must be left to another occasion, and avoid extending this article beyond the limits I had assigned myself.


At the time our forefathers took possession of the North Purchase it was almost destitute of population, there being only a small plantation of Indians at Sinnichitaconet, near the north line of Attleborough Gore, now Cumberland. The first white population were mostly engaged in agriculture, with only the mechanic arts necessary among such a people. There being so much vacant territory within reach of all emigrants, the population of the town at first increased slowly, but since manufactures were introduced and their kindred arts, with the inventive genius of many of its citizens, it has increased rapidly with its valu- ation and amount of business. But few towns have a more interesting early history, or a more honorable list of useful, learned, and distinguished public men, biographical sketches of some of whom have been already given in this history.


CHAPTER XLV.


ATTLEBOROUGH.1-(Continued.)


Schools-Industrics-Societies, etc.


Public Schools .- Among the early votes of the towns in Plymouth Colony we always find the record, "The meeting-house shall stand in the midst of the town." So it was in Rehoboth, whose inhabitants two hundred years ago were the lawful owners of Attleborough and Cumberland, and whose votes fur- nished all the schooling that the children enjoyed down to the incorporation of the town. Our ances- tors were determined to lay the foundations of a re- ligious commonwealth, and as often as they were with- out a pastor, so often they " voted and agreed to seek


an able man for the work of the ministry, such an one as may be satisfactory to the generality."


But our forefathers were no less earnest to found an intelligent commonwealth. Whenever lots were drawn for a division of land among the proprietors, the schoolmaster, as well as the pastor or teacher, had allotments assigned to him. Hardly did they fix upon the territory for their habitations ere they began to plant a college for the education of their sons. Rehoboth was not behind other towns in this respect, for we find one of her townsmen was instructed to write to the young gentleman at Dorchester "to sig- nify to him that it is the town's desire that he would be pleased to come up and teach a school." Not long after the townsmen acquainted the town that they had agreed with Mr. Edward Howard to teach school " at twenty pounds a year and his diet, besides what the court doth allow in that case." In the spring of 1699, Thomas Robinson kept a reading and writing school, it is inferred, for boys only, since in December following the selectmen agreed with Robert Dickson to keep school for six months, " he engaging to do his utmost endeavor to teach both sexes of boys and girls to read English and write and cast accounts. In con- sideration of such service the said selectmen, in the town's behalf, do engage to pay him thirteen pounds, one-half in silver money, and the other half in good merchantable bourd at the current and merchantable price."


Ten years afterwards the course of study was en- larged, since we find the record that " the schoolmas- ter agreed to instruct in reading, writing, grammar, and arithmetic." All these votes were in accordance with the law of 1647, providing for the taxing of the people of the towns for the support of free public schools, to which every child might have access,- the first legislative act in the world affording free public instruction, through a general taxation of all the people, to the children of all the people.


In 1744 it was made imperative on towns contain- ing one hundred families or more to support a teacher who, in addition to all the English branches, had a competent knowledge of the Greek and Latin lan- guages. This was the origin of the famous grammar school. Rehoboth complied with the law, and voted thirty pounds " for the upholding of a grammar school in town."


Thus far the history of our public schools is inti- mately connected with the ancient town once em- bracing Attleborough in its limits. The first record in relation to schools after the incorporation of the town is March 20, 1716, as follows : " It was voted and agreed upon that Deacon Daggett should be school- master." In the same year it is also recorded, " At a town-meeting Lawfully warned the 17th of December, 1716, for to Consider and Resolve what they will do with Respect to the Hireing of A School-master and see whether they accept of Mr. Josiah Jacques as school-master on any of those terms Mr. Freeman


1 By B. Porter, Jr.


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ATTLEBOROUGH.


has agreed for him the said Jacques, it was voted to hire Mr. Jacques of Mr. Freeman for one year for a School-master, and to pay Mr. Freeman twenty pounds, in current money of this province, or propor- tionably for less time, if he should not stay so long."" As the Mr. Freeman here referred to was David Free- man, who lived near the graveyard at South Attle- borough, it is evident that the school was kept in that section of the town. At this time, and for nearly one hundred years afterwards, the schools of Attleborough were kept, not in school-houses, but in the dwellings of the inhabitants.


During the year 1717, Thomas Cathcart, of Mar- tha's Vineyard, served the town as schoolmaster for thirty pounds, for which he gave his receipt, closing with the emphatic words of the time, " I say received by me, Thomas Cathcart." At this time the popula- tion of Attleborongh, including the Gore, as Cum- berland, R. I., was then termed, did not exceed five hundred, and only one school was kept. The records always speak of it as the school, and the teacher is invariably called the school-master.


Dec. 5, 1818, it is recorded, " The meeting then held to consider what may be done respecting the school, to see where the town will place it; whether by a committee that may then and there be chosen to manage that affair, or any other way that may be thought proper. The Town voted and agreed that ye school should be kept seven months in one quarter of ye Town at a time, and that Quarter shall have power to place the school as they shall think most proper and convenient." The town likewise chose a com- mittee of five men to divide the town into four quar- ters,-H. Peck, Ensigns Whipple and Read, John Lovell, and Samuel Day. This committee had power to order which quarter should begin, and which quarter next should have the school, till all have had their proportion, viz., seven months.


There is no record that this committee ever re- ported, and it is probable that no considerable change was made in the method of public instruc- tion until the year 1737, when the town was divided into four districts, Northwest, Southwest, Northeast, and Southeast. It appears from the records of the orders on the treasurer that George Allen was the schoolmaster during the years 1724, '26, '28, and '32, his compensation varying from thirty to fifty pounds. Besides, it is inferred that he was entitled to convey- ance to the scene of his labors, inasmuch as Mr. Eb- enezer Tiler was paid several times for "horse hire going to fetch ve schoolmaster." He had likewise "his diet," for the warrants for town-meetings in those days frequently called upon the town "to see if they will do anything towards boarding the school- master." What branches of study the youth pursued does not appear, but probably reading, writing, and casting accounts. Some years, notably in 1735-36, no school was kept, the record being, "In ye first place, it was put to vote to see whether the town will


hire a schoolmaster, and the vote passed in the neg- ative." The teachers at this time, as far as known, were John Gratrax, Benjamin Ide, and John Rob- bins, Jr. The latter was evidently a prominent man in his generation, as he held the office of town clerk and selectman several years.


The next advance in education in Attleborongh was in the spring of 1745. This was the year follow- ing the act of the Legislature authorizing the division of towns into school districts, and making it obliga- tory upon towns to provide a teacher for all English branches when the number of families equaled fifty, and adding Latin and Greek when the number of families reached one hundred.




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