History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 185

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 185

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" Timothy Fales, Esq., chosen Clerk of this Court and Sworn.

" Ordered by the Court that the School House in Taunton shall be for the present impressed for a Goal and that Samuel Leonard, John God- frey, and Samuel White, Esqrs., be a committee to see that said School Honse be made as secure as may be for the safe custody of all persons that may be committed thereto with the utmost dispatch, and that Seth Williams the second shall take care to secure the two prisoners now in custody and all others that shall be committed in the mean time.

" Ordered by the Court, that Seth Williams, George Leonard, Samuel Leonard, John Godfrey, and Samuel White, Esqrs., be a committee to look out a suitable place for the standing of a Goal and County house in the Town of Taunton, & know what the land for erecting said houses on may be purchased for and make report of their doings thereon at the adjournment of this Court."

At the adjournment on the second Tuesday of Jan- uary, 1747,

"The committee for looking out a suitable place for County house and Goal made their report as followeth to wit : We the subscribers appointed a committee as within mentioned to look out a suitable place for the standing of a Goal and County house in the Town of Taunton have pur- snaut to the within orders looked out a suitable place as we apprehend which is towards the upper end of the old Training Field a little below where they used to dig gravel and is to be sixty foot square which place we look upon to be the most suitable for setting a County house upon provided the Town Proprietors' Committee give a legal conveyance thereof with a suitable and convenient way to pass to and from said place. And also that the most suitable place for setting a Goal and Goal house be on the land of Samuel White and Mr. Simeon Tisdale at a place near the spring (so called) adjoining to the way that leads from said Tisdale's to Mr. Crossman's grist-mill provided the said White and Tisdale give a legal conveyance thereof.

" SETH WILLIAMS, " GEORGE LEONARD, "SAM'L LEONARD, " JOHN GODFREY, "SAMUEL, WHITE, " Committee."

Which report was approved of and accepted by the court.

" Ordered by the Court that John Foster Silvester Richmond Jr. and John Godfrey Esqrs. be a committee to provide materials and build a County house and Goal and Goal keeper's house with suitable dispatch. The Goal to be thirty foot long and fourteen foot wide two story high and fourteen foot stnd, to be studded with sawed stuff of six inches thick to be framed close together with a chimney in the middle suitable for a Goal. The house for prison keeper to be seventeen foot wide and twenty three foot long two story high besides the entry between the Goal and dwelling house and to be fourteen foot stud with a suitable chimney and cellar."

At an adjournment Jan. 28, 1747, Samuel White was appointed on the committee in place of Silvester Richmond, who was appointed sheriff.

"January 28, 1746-7. Ordered by the Court that George Leonard, Ephraim Leonard, and John Foster, Esqrs., be a committee to receive deeds of conveyance from the committee of the Town of Tannton, and proprietors of said Town, of the lands mentioned in the committee's report (as on file) for the use of the County of Bristol."

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The following appears in the records of the court in June, 1647 :

" Upon the Court's receiving a subscription of many of the inhabitants of the Town of Taunton, amounting in the whole to the sum of nine hundred twenty-two pounds, fifteen shillings, old tenor, from the sub- scribers' committee, for building a Court-house, ordered that the same shall be accepted, and that the committee appointed by this Court shall be joined with the aforesaid committee of the subscribers in building the Court-house as projected by the subscribers, and what further may be subscribed on the land given by the proprietors and inhabitants of the Town of Taunton, and as has been accepted by the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, holden at Taunton, by adjournment in January last."

At the March court, 1748-49, Seth Williams, Esq., was desired and empowered to procure, at the charge of the county, proper window-curtains for five win- dows, and five cushions for the court-house.

At the August court, 1749, it was ordered that eleven hundred pounds, old tenor, be paid to the committee for the "gaol," to enable them to com- plete and finish it.

At the September term, 1750, the court ordered the committee for the jail to deliver to the sheriff, or to his order, the northwest room below and room above it, and the southwest room below and the room above it, and the southeast room above, with one-half of the cellar under the other part of the house, together with the yard fenced in for the prison yard, and that the southwest room below and above, with the south- east room above, are determined for, and shall be known to be his majesty's jail in Taunton, in and for the county of Bristol, and that the northwest room, below and above, with liberty of using the stairs, be for the use of the keeper of said jail, during the court's pleasure.

At the December term it was ordered that the northeast room below and room above it, with the southeast room below, adjoining to the jail and under the same roof, be for the House of Correction for the county of Bristol, till the further order of the court. And it was further ordered that Jonathan Carver shall be the master of said House of Correc- tion till the further order of the court.

It seems that the jail, being a wooden structure, was not so secure as was desirable. At the June term, 1753, George Leonard, Timothy Fales, and Samuel White, Esqs., were appointed a committee by the court "to endeavor the more thorough strengthening and securing the Gaol, that, if possi- ble, prisoners may not be able to make their escape by reason of the insufficiency thereof."

From the court records this insufficiency of the jail seems to have been a chronic source of trouble, and committees were from time to time appointed to cure the difficulty.

In October, 1751, Robert Luscomb was allowed eight shillings for finding candles, ringing the bell and sweeping the court-house, and Daniel Shaw and William Andrews in June following were allowed a like sum for labor and trouble in hanging the court- house bell.

Timothy Fales was authorized at October term, 1752, to take possession of the county house as a court-house. This building also needed attention. At the October term, 1753, it was ordered "that the Hon. Seth Williams, Esq., be desired and is empow- ered hereby to endeavor to secure the roof of the county house from leaking, by covering the heads of the posts with sheet-lead given for that purpose, or by any other way or means that may be effectual for the purpose aforesaid."

At the March term, 1754, Seth Williams, George Leonard and Zephaniah Leonard, Esq., were ap- pointed a committee to finish the court-house in Taunton and arch the court-chamber overhead, fix the justices' seats on the north side of the chamber, and lath and plaster the same, and alter the stairs, if the committee shall think best.

The old jail stood about where the Bristol County Bank building stands. It was long ago demolished. The court-house occupied very nearly the site of the present one, and was removed to make place for a more substantial structure.

Here must end the general history of the town so far as the work of the present writer is concerned. In the chapters upon the ecclesiastical history, educa- tion, manufactures, the professions, etc., it is hoped a good idea of the progress of the town may be gained.

CHAPTER LXII.

TAUNTON.1-(Continued.)

The Farms of Mr. Hooke and Mr. Street-Notices of early Settlers.

NOTICES of Rev. William Hooke and Rev. Nicholas Street will be found in the account of ministers and churches. A notice of the large tract of land granted to them by the Plymouth Court may be of interest, and will properly find a place here.

No record of the farms laid forth to Rev. Mr. Hooke and Rev. Mr. Street is to be found in the court records of Plymouth Colony, or in the Taunton proprietors' records. There are two deeds, however, recorded in the Plymouth Colony Records of Deeds which contain a description of those lands, and as it has never been published it is here given. The first deed containing the description was given by James Wyatt and George Macey, by power of attorney from Mr. Nicholas Street, to John Hathaway, Edward Babbitt, and Timothy Holloway, all of Taunton, con- veying the 400 acres granted by the court to Mr. Wil- liam Hooke and Mr. Street, and was dated - day of --- , 1658. The deed was witnessed by William Poole, Walter Deane, and William Harvey. It is recorded in vol. iii., p. 189, of the above-named records.

The second is a confirmatory deed given Feb. 9,

1 By James Henry Dean.

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1688-89, by William Bradford, son of Governor Brad- ford, reciting that his father and associates in the year 1638 granted to Mr. Nicholas Street and Mr. Hookc jointly, a tract of land for a farm of 400 acres of up- land, and about 30 acres of meadow. And at the going away of said Hooke from Taunton, he sold his part of said farm to Mr. Nicholas Street. And when the said Street went from Taunton he sold the farm and aforesaid land to John Hathaway and Edward Babbitt, and Timothy Holloway, all of Taunton.

And in consideration of two pounds conveys to John Hathaway, Edward Babbitt, Samuel Holloway, and William Phillips, one of the heirs of the late deceased James Phillips, which said Samuel Hollo- way and James Phillips purchased Timothy Hollo- way's part of said lands, the lands aforesaid, " Bounded, lying on the east side of Taunton Great River, bounded on the south side in part by Assonet Neck, and in part by the line of Taunton, and on the north side by a black oak marked near a spring called the Iron Spring, one end butts in part upon the meadows of Capt. William Poole, Mrs. Jane Farwell, and William Hailstone, and in part by the Great River, running along by the river side as far as As- sonet Neck, and so running along by the side of said Neck until it comes to the head of a meadow called Smith's Cove to a marked tree by the side of said Neck, and from said tree to another white oak marked at the head of said cove, and from said white oak to run to Taunton River northerly, so that Taunton River and that line makes a square at the head of said Cove, and so to run by Taunton River to Assonet Way, and so to run upon a straight line a little above a pine tree now cut down, and so extends about three- quarters of a mile upon that line near John Rich- mond's field, and then turns the corner, and so run- neth down the plain along by a pine-tree fallen down, and from thence west and by north until it comes to said marked tree near the Iron Spring." Recorded in said records, vol. v. p. 459.

This large tract of land came to be designated almost from the first as " The Farms." It is so referred to in ancient deeds and divisions of land. In 1670 a jury was appointed to lay out a way to " The Farms." It is situated in the present town of Berkley, and the name of " The Farms" clings to it to the present time.

Elizabeth Poole, or, as she wrote her name, Pole, was one of the early settlers in Taunton, perhaps among the very earliest. There is record evidence that she was here early in 1638, for she was one of the appraisers of the estate of John Briant, of Taunton, who died April 28th of that year, and whose will was presented for probate to the Plymouth Court, June 4, 1638. She was born, according to an article pub- lished in Taunton, England, in 1879, by Edwin Slo- per, Esq., Aug. 25, 1588, being the third daughter of Sir William Pole, of Shute, in the county of Devon, England. William Pole, one of the original pur- chasers, whose name stands first in the list of the |

freemen of Cohannet in 1637, was her brother. She and her brother, with many others of the first settlers of Taunton, settled first at Dorchester. In the entire absence of definite information upon the point, it is most reasonable to suppose that she came here with her brother, for she was unmarried, and at that time near fifty years old. In the grant of meadow lands made by the Plymouth Court to the inhabitants of Taunton in 1640 occurs this passage : " And the Court doth further order, that they will see Mr. Hooke, Mr. Streete, and Mrs. Poole shall have competent meadow and uplands for farms laid forth for them about May next, by Captain Standish and such others with him as shall be especially assigned thereunto." From this it is to be inferred that she was an intimate friend of the two ministers, and interested with them in plant- ing a church of Christ in the new settlement. From other sources we have abundant proof that she was an ardent Puritan of deep and earnest piety. The lands promised to her above were laid forth to her subsequently, as follows :

" Those lands which by order of Court were by Miles Standish and John Browne assistants in the government of Plymouth, appointed to be laid out unto Mrs. Elizabeth Poole of Taunton, as followeth : May, 1639.

"Imprimis. At her farm of Littleworth forty acres of meadow, being at the end next unto her house there, lying at that end between the south and the southwest and so northerly.

"Item. Fifty acres of such upland which she will make choice of thereabouts.

"Item. Fifty acres of upland lying near the Two Mile Brook, joining to the marsh on the south side thereof, as also half of the same marsh for quantity and quality.

"Item. An hundred acres of upland lying on the other side of the Great River of Taunton.

" Item. For her home lot XV acres to be next unto Mr. Hooke's honse lot, as also to the mill six acres.

"Item. That these lands be measured out in a convenient time, by the freemen or some of them, and by a man well experienced in the meas- uring of grounds.

" MILES STANDISH.

"JOHN BROWNE."

Her Littleworth farm was in the extreme easterly part of the town, near the bounds of Middleborough, not far from Furnace Pond, so called. A stream or brook running from one of the ponds in that vicinity is still remembered as Littleworth Brook. The fifty acres near the Two-Mile Brook was near the Anchor Forge, in what is now Raynham. The one hundred acres on the other side of the Great River is not easily located at the present time. Her home lot, consisting in the whole of twenty-one acres, was on the south side of Main Street, extending westerly nearly to Winthrop Street, easterly to Mr. Hooke's house lot, near the east end of Main Street, and was bounded on the south by Mill River. She bought a small piece of ground of Mr. Hooke for a burial lot, which is thus described in the description of John Pool's lands, who was her nephew and devisec : " Item. A small piece of land, which his said aunt purchased of Mr. Hook for a burying place, joining to her said home lot on the east side of it by the road, and is bounded by a stake within the fence by the road, and from said stake to another stake towards

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HISTORY OF BRISTOL COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS. .

the river standing twenty yards from his orchard fence, just taking in a little thieket of apple-trees. This range is five yards distant from the eastward end of the tomb where Mrs. Pool lies buried."

She built a house upon her home lot, and lived there until 1653, the year before hier death, when she bought a lot with a house upon it of Robert Thorn- ton, to which she removed, and where she died May 21, 1654. By her will she gave the most of her real estate to her brother, William Pole, for his lifetime, and after his death to his eldest son, John Pole, whom she made executor. A few items from her will are here given :

" I give unto the church of God at Taunton, for the furtherance of any special service thereof, one cow whichsoever the overseers shall like best to take for that end.

" I give unto my kind and old friend, Sister Margery Panle, widow, one yearling heifer, if it be living at my decease, and appoint my over- seers to see it delivered unto her after my decease.

"I appoint and make my cousin, John Pole, to be my sole Executor, to receive all and to pay debts and any engagements, and so commend him to the blessing of the Lord.

" I appoint my kind friends, Richard Williams and Walter Dean, Dea- cons of the Church in Taunton, and Oliver Purchis, to be my overseers, to whom I commit my trust and care to see this, my last will, be ful- filled according, and as it is expressed in all the parts thereof, and herein I rest.

" This signed by me,

" ELIZABETHJ POLE.

" Witnessed by James Wiatt, Oliver Purchis, Richard Williams."

The lot bought of Robert Thornton is thus alluded to : " Also the house wherein I now dwell, which I bought of Robert Thornton, and the lot thereunto appertaining, which I bought of him therewith." By the aid of the proprietors' records this lot can be readily located. In the description of William Har- vey's lands his home lot is thus described : Four acres of upland, more or less, granted to him for a house lot, butted and bounded as followeth : By the highway southward, the town commons northward, the land that was Lieut. George Macey's eastward, the land of Hezekiah Hoar westward; also about one aere bounded by the highway north, the Great River south, George Macey's land east, Hezekiah Hoar's land west. Sold of these lands first to the town for a common way two pole in breadth, the whole length of the first-mentioned four acres, on the westerly side of said lot. 2d. Sold to George Macey a small quan- tity of it at the southerly end of it next the highway. The remainder of these parcels was sold to Walter Deane, of Taunton, aforesaid.

From subsequent deeds of these premises we know that the common way, two pole in breadth, on the westerly side of the first described lot, was called Hoar's lane, now known as Winter Street. Hezekiah Hoar owned the lot on the west side of the lane now owned and occupied by Mr. N. Bradford Dean.

From the description of George Macey's lands : Imprimis, his home lot four acres, more or less, bounded by the lands of William Harvey on the westward side, and by the land of Capt. William Poole (formerly) on the eastward side, the highway

on the southward end, and the commons on the northerly end. Also one acre, more or less, on the other side of the highway, bounded by the land of William Harvey on the west, Capt. Poole on the east, the Great River on the south, and the highway on the north.

In 1686, Robert Thornton gave a confirmatory deed to John Pole, of Boston, whom he acknowledged as the right heir and successor of Elizabeth Pole, re- citing that in or about the year 1653 he sold said Elizabeth Pole one four-acre house lot, lying between the lands of William Pole on the east, and Walter Deane on the west, headed by the Great River on the south, and by the commons on the north, together with one house thereupon being; the deed, if any was given, being lost.

The lot thus described was the home lot of George Macey, including the land on the south side of the highway and the small piece on the southerly end of William Harvey's lot next to the highway. This piece was on the easterly corner of Winter and Dean Streets, and joined Macey's original home lot on the east. How far the whole lot extended on Dean Street from the corner cannot be exactly determined, as measure- ments are not given, but probably somewhat beyond the middle of the lot owned by the heirs of the late Mrs. Fanny Dean. Capt. William Poole's lot was the next on the east, and extended to the brook which crosses Dean Street just east of the residence of the late Capt. Ezra T. Howland. Somewhere on the lot thus conveyed by Robert Thornton, and most proba- bly near its Winter Street boundary, stood the house in which Elizabeth Poole died.

Her remains rested in her own tomb until 1771, when they were removed by John Borland, Esq., her next of kin, to the Plain burying-ground, and a large slab was laid upon the grave bearing an inscription written by Hon. Robert Treat Paine, who was for several years a resident of Taunton. This inscription is here given,-

" Here rest the remains of MISS ELIZABETH POOL, a native of Old England, of good Family, Friends, and Prospects, All which she left, in the Prime of her Life, to enjoy the Religion of her Conscience in this distant Wilderness ; A great Proprietor in the Township of Taunton; A chief Promoter of its Settlement, and its Incorporation, 1639-40, About which time she Settled near this spot; And, having employed the opportunity of her Virgin state, in Piety, Liberality, and Sanctity of Manners, Died, May 21, A.D. 1654, aged LXV., To whose Memory this Monument is gratefully erected by her next of kin, John Borland, Esquire, A.D. 1771."

Mr. Baylies, in his "History of Plymouth Colony," claims for Elizabeth Pool the great honor of being ·

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TAUNTON.

the foundress of Taunton, and the first purchaser of in which deputies were sent instead of the whole body of the freemen, and again in the years 1641-43. its territory from the Indians. "Dux fremina facti" is the motto with which he honors her achievement. | In 1646 he was chosen one of the Council of War, He claims for her the greater honor of being the first of the English who practically admitted the force of that moral obligation which requires the consent of the owner before property can be taken from his pos- session and appropriated to the use of another by paying a fair equivalent for her lands before occupa- tion.

Resting upon the great reputation of Mr. Baylies as a conscientious and accurate historian, these claims have only recently been questioned. The Hon. Henry Williams, of Taunton, made a most thorough and ex- haustive examination into the historical basis for these claims in a very able paper read before the Old Colony Historical Society Jan. 12, 1880, in which the conclusion is reached that the evidence fails to support the claims. This paper was pub- lished in No. 2 of the collections of that society. There is no need to re-examine the question here. The present writer will only add that his investiga- tions have strengthened the conclusion that there is an entire lack of evidence to warrant the claims.

The propriety of honoring the alleged foundress of the town by some suitable memorial was suggested to the women of Taunton by the publication of Mr. Baylies' memoir, and through their efforts a comely marble monument was erected in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, then recently consecrated, for which Mr. Baylies is understood to have furnished the inscrip- tion, which is as follows :

" The females of Taunton have erected this monument in memory of ELIZABETH POOL, Foundress of the town of Taunton, in 1639, Born, before the settlement of America, In England, 1589. Died at Taunton May 21, 1654."

The halo of romance encircling her name as the virgin foundress and mother of our fair town may fade away in the light of better information ; but it will leave to her the substantial honor belonging to an intrepid Christian woman who cheerfully bore her part in the perils and privations of a new settle- ment undertaken for the love of religion in the fear of God.

William Pool, whose name stands first on the list of freemen, was born in Shute, in Devon County, Eng- land, Dec. 4, 1593, according to the authority already cited in reference to his sister, Elizabeth Pool. He settled first in Dorchester, but came to Taunton cer- tainly as early as 1637. In 1639 he is called Capt. Poole, and ordered to exercise the inhabitants of Cohannet in their arms. He was one of the depu- ties to the Plymouth Court in that year, the first year

and again in 1658. In 1657 he is named as one of the selectmen. During all this time he was the prin- cipal military officer in town, and is always referred to as Capt. Poole. Nov. 18, 1667, an inquest was held upon the body of his son, Timothy Poole, aged about twenty-five years, who was found drowned in a pond, whither he had gone to shoot some fowl. His home lot was on Dean Street next east of George Macey's, and extended to the brook crossing the street just beyond the residence of the late Capt. Howland. Late in life he returned to Dorchester, and died there. In Blake's " Annals of Dorchester," under date of 1674, is this notice,-

"This year died Mr. William Pole, of whom ye records thus speak : 'Mr. William Pole, that sage, revered, pious man of God, departed this life Feb. 24, 1674.' He was clerk of ye writs and register of births, deaths, and marriages in Dorchester about ten years ; and after school-master in Dorchester."

He composed an epitaph for himself, which was in- scribed upon his tombstone. His son, John Pool, married Elizabeth Brenton, the daughter of William Brenton, Esq., who was a prominent proprietor in the South Purchase, and afterwards removed to Bristol. John Pool became a merchant in Boston. In the easterly part of the town a large farm was laid out and received the name of the "Shute farm," doubt- less in memory of the town of Shute, in England, from whence the family came. A large plain in that part of the town was quite early called "Mrs. Pool's plain." The name still clings to it as " Pole Plain," taking the original form of the family name.

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History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 185

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