History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 54

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

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Before undertaking the expedition Col. Pepperell, the amiable merchant who was placed in command, had consulted the celebrated preacher Whitefield, who gave his approval, and, after manner of the crusades, furnished a motto for the flag: " Nil desperandum Christo duce." The grand battery was captured with- out bloodshed in a singular manner. The warehouses in the northeast part of the town having been set on fire in the night, a strong wind drove the dense smoke into the battery, and caused such a panic among the French that they hastily abandoned the battery and fled into the city. In the morning, as a young lieu- tenant named Vaughan was reconnoitering with thir- teen men, he observed that there was no smoke issuing from the chimneys of the barracks, and that the flag- staff was without a flag. He thereupon bribed an Indian to climb in through an embrasure and open the gate. He thus found himself in possession of the works, and immediately sent the following report to the general in command : " May it please your Honor to be informed that, by the grace of God and the courage of thirteen men, I entered the Royal Battery about nine o'clock, and am waiting for a reinforce- ment and a flag." Before reinforcements could arrive the French had sent a hundred men in boats to retake the battery, but Vaughan and his baker's dozen of New Englanders gave them so warm a reception that

they were prevented from landing. Europe was as- tonished at this victory, and in England it was sought to claim all the glory for the navy at the expense of the provincial army.

After his return from the French war, Col. Rich- mond took a prominent part in town affairs, and was soon appointed high sheriff of Bristol County, hold- ing the office for many years. His father's name was Sylvester, and he had a son and grandson of that name. His wife's name was Elizabeth, and they had eight children. He was a justice of the peace, and married many couples in this town. Marriage was considered only a civil contract in those days, and justices enjoyed almost a monopoly of the splicing business. There is no record of any marriages by Rev. Nathaniel Fisher for many years after he was settled in Dighton. Col. Sylvester Richmond died in 1783, aged eighty-four years. His wife died in 1772, at the age of seventy-two.

Col. Richmond's house and farm were on the north slope of Richmond Hill, to which his ownership gave the name. Only a part of one of the chimneys of the house is now standing to mark its site. It was a pic- turesque, gambrel-roofed old mansion a generation ago, with an immense fireplace in the kitchen, where, it was said, the colonel's slaves were wont to gather in cold weather. For many years it was inhabited by two old maiden ladies, granddaughters of Col. Syl- vester, who made some pretence of carrying on farm- ing. The cart-path from the road to the rear of the house was a thoroughfare for the school children while going to and from the huckleberry pastures during the summer vacations, and they could not always resist the temptation to pocket some of the red-cheeked lady-apples and luscious sugar-pears that often strewed the path, for which pilferings they were generally roundly scolded by the watchful guardians of the premises, whose names were Sally and Nancy. In return for these jobations, one of the older boys, who had a reprehensible propensity for punning, was wont to speak of the scolding Sally as " Sally-rate-us," while an admonition from her sister was termed the " Edict of Nance," an allusion, probably, to the his- torical Edict of Nantes. The house had the reputa- tion in its later years of being haunted; stories of strange sights and sounds seen and heard by some of its tenants are still current in the neighborhood. One of these stories, related to the writer by an Irishman who is known by the sobriquet of "Sleepy Bill," and vouched for as true by his wife, was to the following effect. Let it be premised that the house stood six or seven rods from the nearly disused road that leads over the hill, and was approached by the cart-path already mentioned, which was closed at the road by bars. This cart-path ran along within a foot or two of the south side of the house, on the lower floor of which was the bedroom occupied by the Irishman and his wife Kate, the head of whose bed was against the south wall.

1 Lieut .- Col. Ebenezer Pitts, of Dighton, also was in the expedition to Louisburg, where he lost his life.

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HISTORY OF BRISTOL COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

The somnolent William said that one night about one o'clock he and his " old woman" were awakened by what seemed to be a long procession of carriages that appeared to come up the cart-path from the road, and go past the house down into the swamp at the rear. Having previously heard unaccountable sounds in and about the house, they were too much frightened to get up and see what was going on, while the twenty or more carriages rumbled and jolted along over the frozen ground close to their heads. They appeared to move slowly, like carriages in a funeral procession. Another night they were awakened by a terrible crash in the front hall, as if the whole staircase had fallen and been broken into fragments, but no assignable cause for the racket could be found in the morning. A boarder of theirs related that, coming home rather late one moonlight evening, he was astonished and very much frightened to see several people, dressed in the costume of long ago, dancing what he termed a " breakdown" in the front door-yard. He did not tarry to make the acquaintance of these ancient dis- ciples of Terpsichore, but beat a retreat in double- quick time, and found a lodging elsewhere.

The uneanny reputation given to the old house by these stories and others of a similar nature, together with its dilapidated condition, made it difficult to ob- tain tenants who would stay in it long, and it rapidly went to ruin. While it was tenantless the cellar was dug over more than once in the night-time by parties acting under the direction of clairvoyants, who pro- fessed to see large sums of money buried there. Whether any pot of doubloons or of Spanish dol- lars ever rewarded the diggers is not known, but, judging from the ill success that has attended the long-continued search for Capt. Kidd's buried treas- ure, it is probable that the search in the old Richmond cellar was unsuccessful.

in their opinion, the new house should be built. The place chosen was about a mile westerly from where the first house stood. There were but few houses in the immediate vicinity. Nature has not been lavish in her gifts to that level portion of the town known as Buck Plain. The land is not remarkable for fer- tility, and the plain is chiefly covered with a low growth of scrub-oaks, and such was undoubtedly the case in the early settlement of the locality.

The origin of the name is said to have been as follows: In former times there were three distinct families bearing the name of Briggs in the town, and to distinguish them they were called respectively the "Stout Briggses," the " Buckhorns," and the " Whip- poorwills." What was the signification of the latter appellation is not, perhaps, known at the present day. Possibly some members of the family lived in the woods, and were nocturnal in their ways. The " Buckhorns" were so called from certain curious protuberances like budding deers' horns that ap- peared on the heads of many of that branch of the name, even down to a late period. The "Stout Briggses" were distinguished for great bodily strength, the word stout being here used in its original sense of strong, and not in the later sense of corpulent as Washington Irving used it in his sketch of the " Stout Gentleman." According to the story which has been handed down, one Samuel Briggs, of the Buckhorn branch, lived not far from the locality that is now called Buck Plain ; how long ago the tradition does not state, but it was some time, probably, in the first half of the last century. Samuel was crossing the plain one day when he came upon a large buck lying under a rock among the scrub-oaks fast asleep. Being an active young man he determined, as he had no gun to shoot the animal with, to attempt to cap- ture it alive. He therefore crept cautiously up to the sleeping deer, and sprang upon its back, seizing one of its horns in each hand. The astonished and frightened buck leaped to its feet, and made off at a headlong pace in the direction of the river, which was more than a mile distant, Briggs clinging to his back as best he could. On they tore through bushes, briers, and scrub-oaks, and reaching the river at last, the panic-stricken animal plunged in with its rider, who managed to drown and capture it. According to the tale, when Briggs reached the river he was very nearly in puris naturalibus, all of his clothing having been torn off excepting his shirt collar and wristbands. Mazeppa's famous bareback ride was a tame affair compared to Samuel Briggs' ride on the buck. Although the Cossack hetman's condition as to clothing was much the same throughout his invol- untary ride as Briggs' condition was at the end of his, yet, unlike the latter, his clothes were not torn from him piecemeal by cruel thorns, nor was he in danger of falling off, being securely tied to his horse's back. While Mazeppa's ride has been the theme of poets

In 1767 the meeting-house on the hill was destroyed by fire, the work of an incendiary. The building of a new meeting-house had been agitated for some time. The old house was found too small for the increasing congregation, but there was a division of opinion as to the proper location for the new one. Some thought the old place the best situation that could be found ; others preferred Buck Plain, as that would be nearer to their own homes, while a few were in favor of en- larging the old house. One dark night there was a blaze upon Meeting-House Hill, and the question of repairing and enlarging the primitive structure that stood on its summit was decided beyond reconsidera- tion in the negative. After the fire the dispute about the site for the new house still continued to agitate the community, and there being no prospect of agree- ment, it was found necessary to call in referees from another town to settle the vexed question. The names of five men were drawn from the juror-box in Attle- borough, and the referees thus called upon, after a careful hearing of all parties in the dispute, decided to stick up a stake on Buck Plain as the spot where, . like Lord Byron, of novelists like Bulgarin, and of

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DIGHTON.

painters like Horace Vernet, Samuel Briggs' exploit has been celebrated neither in poesy, fiction, nor art.1

The meeting-house that was built on the plain was much more capacious than the one that was burnt. It was fifty-five feet long by forty-five wide, and with twenty-four-feet studs. The sum of five hundred pounds was appropriated in town-meeting for build- ing expenses. While it was building meetings were held at the house of Samuel Whitmarsh, nearly oppo- site. In after-years this Buck Plain meeting-house was cut down to one tier of windows, and used ex- clusively for a town hall. When the present town- house was built a few years ago the old house on the plain was sold at auction, and torn down by the pur- chaser.

Among the names that are prominent in the records of vital statistics of the period before the Revolution- ary war are those of Shove, Walker, Talbot, Gooding, Hathaway, Pitts, Stephens, Atwood, Deane, Ware, Briggs, Pool, Whitmarsh, Waldron, Jones, Andrews, Fisher, Paull, Williams, Westcoat, Austin, Bobbitt, afterwards Babbitt, Goff, Wide, afterwards Ide, Burt, Nichols, Crane, Hoar, afterwards Hoard, Smith, Perry, Baker, Simmons, Phillips, Pierce, Shaw, Luther, Cleveland,2 Tuels, afterwards Tew, Vickery, Link- horn, afterwards Lincoln, Peck, and Francis. The number of children to a family at that time would probably average more than twice the number of the average family of to-day, twelve to fourteen being not uncommon in the days of our great-grandfathers.3

1 It is no more than just to state that there are some reasons for doubting whether the honor of this exploit belongs to Samuel Briggs or to one Matthew Gooding, it having been claimed by some that the laffer was the hero of the affair. The writer does not pretend, in the absence of authentic data, to decide to which party the credit belongs, but when the above account was written he had not heard the Gooding side of the story. It is evident, however, that there would scarcely be two claimants to an apocryphal exploit, so it may be set down as toler- ably certain that either Samuel or Matthew performed the feat above related. Perhaps as much controversy will be excited in the future over the question, " Who rode the buck ?" as has been caused in the past by such unsettled problems as who the "man in the iron mask" was, who wrote the "Junius" letters, who killed Tecumseh, and who was the author of " Beautiful Snow."

2 The name of Cleveland has been brought before the public lately by the election in New York of a Governor of that name. Moses Cleveland came to America from Ipswich, England, about 1635, and settled in Woburn, in this State. He had a family of seven sons and four daughters. He died in 1701. From him are descended all the Clevelands in this country who are of New England origin. The city of Cleveland, Ohio, was named after one of his descendants and a relative of the Dighton Clevelands. Winman, in his " Puritan Settlers," states that the family derived the name from Cleveland, in the county of Durham, England. Early in the thirteenth century, Sir Guy de Cleveland was present at the siege of Boulogne, in France, afterwards at the battle of Poictiers, where he commanded the spearmen. The name is a corruption of Cliffeland.

Coat of Arms .- Per chevron, sable and ermine, a chevron engrailed, counterchanged.

Motto .- " Pro Deo et Patria."

3 Children were so numerous in those days that it is probable they were individually less thought of by their parents than are the individual boys and girls of one of the small families of the present day. Thus it is stated in the records of the Walker family that Capt. Elijah Walker, born in 1730, and who married Hannah Pigsley, had fourteen children, of whom " two or three were drowned by falling at different times

The Revolutionary Period .- The town records of the Revolutionary period are, as usual, provokingly meagre and unsatisfying, being generally only brief entries of certain expenditures for war purposes, and mentioning only a few of the names of those who served in the army.

The first indication of the coming contest with the mother-country is found in the record of a town- meeting held Dec. 12, 1767. A town-meeting had just been held in Boston, at which resolutions to abstain from certain "foreign superfluities" had been passed, and copies of these resolutions had been sent by the selectmen of Boston to the select- men of Dighton, and probably to the selectmen of most of the towns in New England. The foreign su- perfluities mentioned were glass, paper, printers' col- ors, and tea, on which articles the British Parliament had recently fixed an import duty when brought into the colonies, thereby causing great indignation throughout the country.

At the Dighton town-meeting Joseph Atwood was chosen moderator, and it was voted to refer the matter to a committee of three, consisting of Ezra Richmond, Esq., Abiezer Phillips, town clerk at that time, and Capt. Stephen Beal.4 The meeting was then ad- journed. What action the committee took is not mentioned. It is probable that the people of this town were somewhat conservative at that time and not quite ready to follow the lead of the fiery radicals in Boston, and that nothing came of the resolutions that were sent to Dighton.

In 1771 a vote was passed to release " the Quakers and Anabaptists from all the charge relating to the meeting-house," and from all taxes to support the minister. This vote shows the advance in liberal ideas since the settlement of the Rev. Mr. Fisher, when Quakers and Baptists were obliged to con- tribute to his support.

In 1774 the town had lost some of its conservatism, and at a town-meeting, held July 18th, the following votes were passed :

" Voted, unanimously, that it is highly necessary at this time for this town to enter into an agreement not to consume any British manufac- tures which shall be imported from Great Britain after the 31st day of August, 1774."

" Voted, to choose five men to take into consideration and draw a cov- enant, or something similar to the Boston covenant, which should be proper for ye inhabitants to agree together in and sign, and the com- pany chosen was Doct. William Baylies, Capt. Elkanal Andrews, Syl- vester Richmond (3d), Deacon George Codding, David Walker."

into the well in the back-yard, the well having been left for years with- out a curb." In a family of fourteen children two or three down in the well would hardly be missed. Elijah Walker was captain of the Ninth Company, of forty-six men, of the Second Regiment of Bristol County militia in the Revolutionary war. He was a farmer, and was one of the selectmen in 1780. His children may have been drowned while he was away soldiering, and so unable to attend to having the well curbed.

4 Stephen Beal was made captain of the First Company of the Dighton militia in 1762. ITe lived on Richmond Hill, where the cellar of his bouse is still to be seen. He was pound-keeper for many years, the old pound being only a few rods from his house. It was owing to his own- ership that the picturesque piles of rock that crown the hill were named Bcal's Rocks.

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HISTORY OF BRISTOL COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

The following October another important town- meeting was held, of which the record is as fol- lows :

" At a Town-Meeting held at Dighton on Monday, the third day of October, Voted to choose Col. Elnathan Walker and Dr. William Baylies to represent the said Town of Dighton in the General Court, to be em- powered and directed to act at the Provincial Congress to be holden at Concord on ye second Tuesday of October, provided the business of the General Conrt will admit of their attendance." 1

It was then voted that the two representatives should draw the pay of only one, and they were instructed in their duties as follows :

"GENTLEMEN,-We have chosen yon to represent us in the Great and General Court to be holden at Salem, on Wednesday, the fifth of October next ensning.

" We do hereby instruct you that in all your doings as Members of the ITouse of Representatives you adhere firmly to the Charter of this Province, granted by their Majesties, King William and Queen Mary, and that you do no act which can possibly be construed into an ac- knowledgment of the validity of the act of the British Parliament for fettering the government of Massachusetts Bay, more especially that you acknowledge the IJon. Board of Councillors elected by the General Court at their session in May last, as the only rightful Constitutional council of this Province ; and we have reason to believe that a consci- entious discharge of your duty will produce your distinction as an House of Representatives, we do empower and instruct you to join with members who may be sent from other Towns in the Province, and to meet with them at a lime to be agreed upon in a general Provincial Congress, to act upon such matters as may come before you, in such manner as may be most conducive to the true interests of this Town and Province, and most likely to preserve the liberties of all Amer- iça."

The above instructions were read in town-meeting, and were voted without dissent. On the 26th of De- cember following another meeting was held, as the warrant set forth, " To elect and depute as many mem- bers as the town should deem necessary to represent them in a Provincial Congress, to be holden at Cam- bridge on the first day of February next . . . to con- sult upon such further measures as under God shall be effectual to save this people from impending ruin, and to secure those inestimable privileges derived from our ancestors, and which it is our duty to pre- serve for posterity."

At the meeting it was voted to choose a committee "to carry into execution the resolves of the Conti- mental Congress," and the following-named persons were chosen : Sylvester Richmond (3d), Rufus Whit- marsh, Peter Pitts, Joseph Gooding, Dr. William Bay-

1 Elnathan Walker was lieutenant-colonel of the Second Regiment in the Second Brigade from about 1760 to 1762. He was the son of Lieut. James Walker, of Taunton, the third of that name. Col. Walker's farm was in the northwest corner of Dighton. He had three wives, viz., HIannah Crossman, daughter of Robert, of Taunton ; Bethia Tisdale, daughter of Joseph, and Mrs. Phebe King, daughter of Deacon Samnel Leonard, of Raynham. Col. Walker's will was probated in 1775. The inventory amounted to four hundred and thirty-seven pounds. IJe had ten children. He was deacon of the First Congregational Church, and gave more towards the building of Buck Plain meeting-honse than any other person. The building committee consisted of himself, David Walker, and Dr. George Ware. He was one of the selectmen for sev- eral years, and was several times representative to the General Court. He was a justice of the peace, and was often chosen moderator of the town-meetings. His influence in town affairs was large, and he was a worthy and respected citizen.

lies, William Brown,2 Abiezer Phillips,3 George Cod- ding, David Walker, Samnel Phillips, William Good- ing, James Dean, John Richmond, John Simmons.

It was then voted that five of this committee should constitute a quorum, and that it should be continued and supported by the town.

In March, 1775, a vote was passed to raise minute- men, who were to train two half-days per week, and were allowed one shilling each for every half-day em- ployed in training. The town also assumed the cost of an instructor in military tactics. In May of the same year it was voted to hire one hundred and thirty- five pounds, lawful money, to be paid into the hands of Henry Gardener, of Stow, for the use of the province. At another meeting in May it was voted that the selectmen should purchase "twenty small arms for the use of the town," and a committee was chosen to see that the militia was provided with arms and ammunition. At that time the qualifications necessary to be a voter included the owning "of an estate of freehold in land of forty shillings per annum at ye least, or other estate to ye value of forty pounds sterling."

In October, 1775, a meeting was held "to choose a field officer," and Sylvester Richmond (3d) was chosen. In this year the sum of thirty-five pounds was raised for school purposes.

At a meeting held May 20, 1776, it was voted "that if ye Honorable Congress should for the safety of the united colonies declare them independent of the King of Great Britain, they, the said inhabitants, will sol- emnly engage with their lives and fortunes to support them in the measure." This vote, it will be perceived, was some six weeks before independence was declared. The town was now as radical as even Boston could desire. On the 22d of July it was voted "to give, as a bounty to each soldier who has enlisted, or shall enlist, to go to New York, ye sum of five pounds, ex- clusive of the province bounty." These men were enlisted for two months. At that time the prices of

2 William Brown was a merchant and vessel-owner. Ilis store was at the Four Corners, and he owned the house now belonging to the es- tate of the late Dr. Charles Talbot.

3 Abiezer Phillips held the office of town clerk for thirty-five years. He was a deacon of the church, was representative to the General Court for several years, and was several times chosen selectman. He was twice married, and had twelve children.

4 Silvester Richmond (3d) was son of Col. Silvester, who was at the taking of Louisburg. He was born Nov. 20, 1729. Silvester (3d) was major in the Second Regiment in the Second Brigade from Feb. 7, 1776, to June 9, 1778. IIe was then promoted to be lieutenant-colonel, holding the office till 1781. In August, 1778, he served under Gen. Sullivan on Rhode Island, having about one hundred and fifty men and company officers under his command. About nine hundred men from the Bristol County brigade were with Sullivan's expedition. After his return from the war, Lieut .- Col. Richmond was made a justice of the peace, and took a somewhat active part in town affairs until his death, which occurred near the close of the last century. Before bis death he gave a large tract of woodland to the Second Congregational Society, which had re- cently built a meeting-house at the Four Corners, for the support of a minister. Ile lived at the old homestead on the north slope of the hill. His wife was Abigail Nightingale, of Providence, and they had seven children, including Sally and Nancy, the two old maids previously men- tioned, and a son named Silvester.

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History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 54

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