History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 158

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 158

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exercise the utmost simplicity, and they voluntarily regulated their conduct by those formal rules which, in their day, constituted the Puritan's guide through the world. We are told, as an illustration of their character and manners, that by the laws of the colony in 1651 'dancing at weddings' was forbidden. In 1660, ' William Walker was imprisoned a month for courting a maid without the leave of her parents.'

" In 1675, because ' there is manifest pride in ap- pearing in our streets,' the wearing of 'long hair or periwigs,' and also 'superstitions ribands,' used to tie up and decorate the hair, were forbidden under severe penalties. Men, too, were forbidden to 'keep Christmas,' because it was a 'popish enstom.' In 1677 an act was passed to prevent 'the profaneness' of 'turning the back upon the public worship before it is finished and the blessing pronounced.' Towns were directed to erect 'a cage' near the meeting- house, and in this all offenders against the sanctity of the Sabbath were confined. At the same time children were directed to be placed in a particular part of the meeting-house, apart by themselves, and tithingmen were ordered to be chosen, whose duty it should be to take care of them. So strict were they in their observance of the Sabbath that John Ather- ton, a soldier of Col. Tyng's company, was fined by him 'forty shillings' for 'wetting a piece of an old hat to put into his shoes,' which chafed his feet upon the march, and those who neglected to attend meet- ing for three months were publicly whipped. Even in Harvard College students were whipped for grave offenses in the chapel, in presence of students and professors, and prayers were had before and after the infliction of the punishment. As the settlers of Swan- sea are described as being of 'sober and orderly con- ' versation,' we may suppose that these laws and cus- toms were in this town rigidly enforced.

" Perhaps a word upon the subsistence and diet of your ancestors may interest you here. Palfrey tells us that 'in the early days of New England wheaten bread was not so common as it afterwards became, but its place was largely supplied by preparations of Indian corn. A mixture of two parts of the meal of this grain with one part of rye has continued until far into the present century to furnish the bread of the great body of the people. In the beginning there was but a sparing consumption of butcher's meat. The multiplication of flocks for their wool, and of herds for draught and for milk was an important care, and they generally bore a high money value. Game and fish to a considerable extent supplied the want of ani- mal food. Next to these, swine and poultry, fowls, ducks, geese, and turkeys were in common use earlier than other kinds of flesh meat. The New Englander of the present time, who, in whatever rank of life, would be at a loss without his tea or coffee twice at least in every day, pities the hardships of his ances- tors, who almost universally for a century and a half made their morning and evening repast on boiled In-

dian meal and milk, or on porridge, or broth made of peas or beans and flavored by being boiled with salted beef or pork. Beer, however, which was brewed in families, was accounted a necessary of life, and the orchards soon yielded a bountiful provision of cider. Wine and rum found a ready market as soon as they were brought from abroad, and tobacco and legislation had a long conflict, in which the latter at last gave way.

"Population .- It is difficult to realize how feeble and few were the colonists at the time when this town was passing out of its confederation of farms into an organized corporation. There were then probably in New England from forty thousand to forty-five thou- sand English people. Of this number twenty-five thousand may have belonged to Massachusetts, ten thousand to Connecticut as newly constituted, five thousand to Plymouth, and three thousand to Rhode Island. They inhabited ninety towns, of which four were in Rhode Island, twelve in Plymouth, twenty- two in Connecticut, and the rest in Massachusetts. . . . Connecticut, according to the account sent home by the royal commissioners, had many scattering towns not worthy of their names, and a scholar to their minister in every town or village. In Rhode Island, they said, were the best English grass and most sheep, the ground very fruitful, ewes bringing ordinarily two lambs, corn yielding eighty for one, and in some places they had had corn twenty-six years together without manuring. In this province only they had not any places set apart for the wor- ship of God, there being so many sub-divided sects they could not agree to meet together in one place, but, according to their several judgments, they some- times associated in one house, sometimes in another. In Plymouth it was the practice to pursuade men, sometimes to compel them to be freemen, so far were they from hindering any. They had about twelve small towns, one saw-mill for boards, one bloomery for iron, neither good river nor good harbor nor any place of strength ; they were so poor they were unable to maintain scholars to their ministers, but were ne- cessitated to make use of a gifted brother in some places. The commodities of Massachusetts were fish, which was sent into France, Spain, and the Straits, pipe-staves, masts, fir-boards, some pitch and tar, pork, beef, horses, and corn, which they sent to Vir- ginia, Barbadoes, etc., and took tobacco and sugar for payment, which they often sent for England. There was good store of iron made in this province. In the Piscataqua towns were excellent masts gotten, . . . and upon the river were above twenty saw-mills, and there were great stores of pipe-staves made, and great store of good timber spoiled. In Maine there were but few towns, and those much scattered. They were rather farms than towns. In the Duke of York's province, beyond the Kennebec, there were three small plantations, the biggest of which had not above thirty houses in it, and these very mean ones too,

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and spread over eight miles at least. Those people were, for the most part, fishermen, and never had any government among them ; most of them were such as had fled hither to avoid justice.

" In Boston, the principal town of the country, the houses were generally wooden, the streets crooked, with little decency and no uniformity; and there neither months, days, seasons of the year, churches, nor inns were known by their English names. At Cambridge they had a wooden college, and in the yard a brick pile of two bayes for the Indians, where the commissioners saw but one. They said they had three more at school. It might be feared this college might afford as many schismatics to the church, and the corporation as many rebels to the king as for- merly they had donc if not timely prevented.

"As a part of the social and civil organization which I have described, the old town of Swansea is full of interest and significance; but as the home of the Rev. John Myles, it is connected with some of the most important religious movements of a time made illustrious by its great protests, and by its heroic de- votion to freedom of conscience in matters of church and state. John Myles was a Baptist, born in a re- gion which had long afforded protection to the perse- cuted and oppressed, and which was the birthplace of Roger Williams and Oliver Cromwell. A leader of his denomination in Wales, he exercised great power among the churches there and in England ; was among the first to suffer from the tyranny of Charles II. after the restoration, and also among the first to seek freedom to worship God on these shores. With Nicholas Tawner, Obediah Brown, John Thomas, and others, he came to America, bringing with him the doctrines of his church in Wales, a devoted heart, and a calm and undying courage. Taught by the experience of Obediah Holmes, who was excommunicated by the church in Salem in 1646, who was cruelly condemned by the court at Boston to suffer punishment with thirty lashes from a three-corded whip for preaching heresy to the brethren in Lynn, but who when complained of before the Plymouth Court was simply directed to ' refrain from practices disagreeable to the brethren,' taught, morever, by the similar experience of Roger Williams that the rights of conscience were not uni- versally respected even in New England, he betook himself to this region of liberality where we now sit, and founded here the second Baptist Church in America, the first having been gathered not long pre- vious at Rehoboth, in the house of John Butterworth. It was, however, from the church in Swansea that the first Holy Covenant emanated, a broad and liberal document, in which, with profound piety and the warmest Christian charity, it is declared that, "So we are ready to accept of, receive to, and hold com- munion with all such as by a judgment of charity we conceive to be fellow-members with us in our head, Christ Jesus, though differing from us in such

controversial points as are not absolutely and essen- tially necessary to salvation." It is difficult to realize in this day the difficulties which surrounded such generous sentiments as these, and the bitter persecu- tion exercised towards their advocates when John Myles sought shelter within the narrow domain of the Plymouth Colony, and availed himself of the only liberal jurisdiction then on earth-the Plymouth Court-for the protection of himself and his followers. And we are filled with wonder and admiration at the powerful influence exercised through all the ages that have followed by this narrow Pilgrim empire of inde- pendent conscience, religious freedom, and human ele- vation and equality. The pages of history are crowded with records of national power and renown, and of personal heroism, genius, and greatness, but they all surrender now to the immortal force of that little col- ony which set the first example of self-government, and in an age of various and constant persecution laid down the law of personal freedom and right. What a noble instance of true devotion to the high- est principle it was when the followers of John Rob- inson, of Leyden, Calvinists all, opened their doors to the followers of Roger Williams and John Myles, and manifested their grand conception of the true meaning of religious toleration ! What a lesson they taught the world ! And how, as by the guidance of the Divine Father, who 'maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good,' did they secure to themselves an eternal association with the radiant progress of civil and religious freedom! When the Pilgrim at Plymouth gave the protection of his little colony to the Baptist driven from his home among the moun- tains of Wales, he took to his heart the pioneers of human progress and assertion, and became one in an immortal copartnership engaged in liberalizing and humanizing and elevating the church and the state ; for of their associates in this great work, the friends of Roger Williams and John Myles, Sir Isaac New- ton says, 'The Baptists are the only body of Chris- tians that has not symbolized with the Church of Rome.' Of them Bancroft says, 'With greater con- sistency than Luther, they applied the doctrines of the Reformation to the social positions of life, and threatened an end to priestcraft and kingcraft, spirit- ual domination, titles, and vassalage. They were trodden under foot with most arrogant scorn, and their history is written in the blood of thousands of the German peasantry, but their principle, secure in their immortality, escaped with Roger Williams to Providence, and his colony is witness that naturally the paths of the Baptists are paths of freedom, pleas- antness, and peace.' Of them Mr. Locke has said, 'The Baptists were from the beginning the friends of liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty.' Of them Dr. Williams says, 'To this body English liberty owes a debt it can never ac- knowledge. Among the Baptists Christian freedom found its earliest, its stanchest, its most consistent,

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and its most disinterested champions.' Of them Judge Story says, 'In the code of laws established by them in Rhode Island we read for the first time since Christianity ascended the throne of the Cæsars the declaration that conscience should be free, and men should not be punished for worshiping God in the way they were persuaded He requires.' Of them the world may now say that their spirit has become the spirit of Christianity, and in the light of freedom which poured from their humble abodes all denomi- nations, all forms of faith, all believers walk, sup- ported and bound together by one sublime sentiment that they are all 'heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.'

"Casting our eyes now over the numerous colonies which two hundred years ago had been organized on this continent, and which were engaged in all the various enterprises for which colonies are founded, we should naturally expect for this fair section of the Old Colony, founded as it was on the doctrine of ' peace on earth and good will to men,' an immunity from those conflicts with hostile savages which per- plexed and distressed and threatened to destroy many of their less humane and more worldly-minded neigh- bors. The lands which the colonists occupied here had been secured by fair and honest purchase, and, with the exception of the natural antagonism be- tween a stern and high-toned and self-sacrificing and self-respecting form of humanity and a wild and abo- riginal and selfish and cruel and self-indulgent and low-minded and hollow-hearted product of a society without principle or regulation or thought or high purpose, with the exception of antagonism like this between man in the image of his Maker and man in the image of a beast, the relations existing between the early settlers of this town and their savage pre- decessors were such as seemed to promise long-con- tinued and unbroken peace. But to the wild man of the woods, who carried his law in his quiver, and toma- hawked his enemy with impunity, and knew neither hearthstone nor altar, and drove his squaw from the servitude and social vulgarity and filth of a wigwam to the toil and heat and weariness of the cornfield, the just punishment of crime and a rebuke for a mis- demeanor were equivalent to a declaration of war and an attack.

tribes were gradually being exterminated, he struck that fearful blow which fell two hundred years ago upon this devoted town. It was on a day of fasting and humiliation and of prayer to Almighty God that He would avert the horrors of the impending war, the 24th of June, 1675, that the savage made his second attack on the town. The people here had been lulled into confidence and repose by a consciousness of their own honest intentions, and by daily familiar inter- course with the aboriginal occupants of the wigwams which crowned these hills and sought seclusion and protection in these valleys. The old men here had taught themselves to believe that their gray hairs were safe and respected, the young men had con- fidently applied their strength to a better service than the work of war, the mother had long since laid aside all fear for the safety of her child, the child had not yet learned that the red-skinned maiden was her natural foe when the mask fell from the face of the savage and his cruel and infernal designs became manifest. The doors of the little church had just closed, and the worshipers were returning to their homes, heavy with the thought of the danger which hung over them like a dark and threatening cloud, when the attack was made. We are told that one was killed and others were wounded ; two men were killed who were sent for a surgeon, and near Bourn's garrison six more were murdered, upon whose bodies the savages ' exercised more than brutish barbarities, beheading, dismembering, and mangling them and exposing them in the most inhuman manner, which gashed and ghastly objects struck a damp on all be- holders.'

" The war became general throughout the Massachu- setts and Plymouth Colonies. Philip, subtile, vindic- tive, ambitious, and desperate, united all the tribes from the waters of the bay to the Connecticut River in what he called a desperate struggle for the land of his fathers. For a time the conflict was confined to the Plymouth Colony, and Middleborough, Taunton, and Dartmouth had suffered from attacks, but Philip's emissaries were everywhere. An attempt of the Eng- lish to treat with the Nipmunks resulted in a most bloody and disastrous fight at Brookfield. The In- dians in the valley of the Connecticut entered the field, and Hadley, Hatfield, and Deerfield, Long Meadow and Westfield, Springfield and Northamp- ton, all suffered severely. Even the 'Praying' Indians, who for a long time either aided the English or were neutral, began to join the warlike bands of Philip. The commissioners of the colonies found it necessary to issue a declaration of war, and agreed to raise a

" And so when Sausaman, an Indian of the Massa- chusetts tribe, a disciple of Eliot, was murdered and his body concealed beneath the ice in a pond at Mid- dleborough, and his murderers brought to justice, Philip, of Mount Hope, considered it a sufficient reason for a rapid development of the murderous hostilities for which he had long been preparing. . thousand troops, of which Massachusetts was to raise Loaded with broken promises, black with treachery five hundred and twenty-seven, Plymouth one hun- dred and fifty-eight, and Connecticut three hundred and fifteen. Plymouth promptly responded. Maj. Cudworth was chosen commander-in-chief. A com- of the war, 'the salaries of the commanders and and deceit, thirsting for the blood of those whose ad- vaneing civilization he saw was developing all the arts of peace and the health and joy and strength of civilized society upon the lands from which his own i mittee was appointed to take an account of the charges debauched and war-stricken and plague-stricken

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common soldiers' were fixed, 'and during the time of danger it was ordered that every one should take his arms to meeting on the Lord's day until further notice, furnished with at least five charges of powder and shot, under penalty of 20s. for every default.' The 2d of December, 1675, was designated by the several courts as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer throughout the colonies, and on the Sth the Massa- chusetts troops under Maj. Appleton, the Plymouth forces under Maj. Bradford, and the Connecticut forces under Maj. Treat set forth to unite upon an attack upon the Narragansett country, the home and head- quarters of the hostile Indians. The hardships of that winter march through deep snows, the murderous fire of the savages from their fort, in assaulting which Johnson and Davenport, two of the bravest officers from Massachusetts, fell, the deadly conflict within the walls of the fortification, the fiendish warfare of the savages, their desperate struggles, their final rout, the destruction of their entire settlement, in which five hundred wigwams were burnt, and their corn, stores, and utensils were destroyed, and many of their men, women, and children perished miserably, form a picture of colonial trials and distresses from which we turn our eyes in horror, and whose shadows still fall darkly across this fair land.

" The war was now transferred to the interior. The winter campaign was trying beyond words to express, the Indians declaring that they would ' fight to the last man rather than become servants to the English,' and the colonies feeling that they were struggling for their very existence. Lancaster and Groton became battle-grounds, Marlborough was burned, the un- speakable horrors of Long Meadow were enacted, the slaughter at Sudbury filled the colonies with dismay, sorrow returned to the homes of the Pil- grims, Plymouth was attacked, and the remainder of the village of Middleborough was devoted to destruction ; the valley of the Connecticut was again ablaze, the stream ran blood, and before midsummer of 1676, after less than one year of war, Massachu- setts and Plymouth presented one sad and sicken- ing scene of the atrocities of savage warfare. It is difficult now to describe it. A people thinly scattered over the pleasant land, exposed, feeble, and few, are suddenly swept by wild and raging war. The sky was red with the flames of burning towns and hamlets, the forests rung with the shrieks of agonized women, the piteous appeals of children torn from their mothers' arms, the yells of triumphant savages, all commingling to tell those dark and dis- mal solitudes the fearful story of man's inhumanity

to man. The tale of suffering is sad indeed. At + midwinter, on frozen lakes, through ice-bound forests

least thirteen towns were wholly destroyed, more than six hundred stalwart and brave men of the colonists fell upon the battle-field, many of the sur- vivors were disabled by wounds received in the des- perate and bloody encounters, almost every family had a sufferer, more than six hundred buildings

were consumed by fire, and the feeble and exhausted colonies,-poor indeed before the war, but poverty- stricken after it,-were left with a heavy and bur- densome war debt. When, on the 12th of August, 1676, Philip fell and the war ended, a land bowed down with grief, and hung everywhere with the drapery of war, turned prayerfully to God, and en- tered once more upon its work of peace and progress.

" As we rehearse this story of suffering and valor, my friends, how our hearts are filled with respect for the high qualities which enabled the liberty-loving founders of this town to bear themselves with self- possession through such trying scenes. We muse upon a life like theirs, and we learn how heroes are made and sturdy and heroic people are born. The possession of those high moral and religious faculties which belonged to your ancestors seemed to be assur- ance enough that human rights would always find here warm and uncompromising defenders, and the highest doctrines of government and society would find able and fearless advocates ; but from the events which fill with romantic interest the early pages of your history we may learn once more how in every crisis American nationality and American institutions would find here eager and ever-ready defenders. And so it has proved. The experience of the old Indian wars has not been in vain. Do you turn with amaze- ment to that little armed band gathered at midnight on the green at Lexington? Are you filled with wonder and admiration at the calm courage of the men of action at the bridge at Concord ? Do you look with breathless astonishment upon the self-pos- session displayed by the patriots at Bunker Hill before the imposing approach of the veteran troops of Eng- land? Remember, then, that the citizen-soldiery of Concord and Lexington and Bunker Hill were heirs of the blood and traditions of the great Indian cam- paigns, and that many a Revolutionary soldier learned his lessons at Louisburg and Quebec. The land was filled with men who had seen service, or whose sires and grandsires had told them of the adventures, 'the hair-breadth 'scapes' of those wild, wintry forest cam- paigns. Were they the rangers of the old French war ?

" The half-tamed savage, borrowing from civiliza- tion nothing but its maddening vices and destructive weapons, was their sworn enemy. Huntsmen at once and soldiers, their supply of provisions on many of their excursions was the fortune of the chase and a draught from the mountain stream that froze as it trickled from the rocks. Instead of going into quar- ters when the forest put on its sere autumnal uniform of scarlet and gold, winter, Canadian winter, dreary from which the famished deer, chased by the gaunt wolf, was fain to fly to the settlement, called the poor rangers to their field of duty. ... Not only was the foe they sought armed with the tomahawk and the scalping-knife, but the tortures of the fagot and the stake were in reserve for the prisoner who, for wounds

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or distance, or any other cause, could not readily be sold into an ignominious slavery among the Canadian French. . .. There could not have been less than twenty or thirty of the citizens of Lexington who had learned the art of war in some department or another of the military colonial service. They had tasted its horrors in the midnight surprise of the savage foe, and they had followed the banners of victory under the old provincial leaders, Gridley and Thomas, and Ruggles and Frye, up to the ramparts of Quebec. No wonder they started again at the sound of the trumpet ; no wonder that men who had followed the mere summons of allegiance and loyalty to the shores of Lake Champlain and the banks of the St. Law- rence should obey the cry of instinct which called them to defend their homes. The blood which was not too precious to be shed on the Plains of Abraham in order to wrest a distant colony from the dominion of France might well be expected to flow like water in defense of all that is so dear to man. And so the sons of the old warriors of this town served their country well in the great war of independence.

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History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 158

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

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