USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > East Boston > History of East Boston; with biographical sketches of its early proprietors, and an appendix > Part 43
USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > East Boston > History of East Boston : with biographical sketches of its early proprietors, and an appendix. > Part 43
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1 Mr. Marston.
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submission to it, was itself obliged to give way for the exten- sive hotel erected near its site. This the skilful mechanics of Boston projected, and with the labor of their own hands have constructed, in a manner equally evincive of the purity of their taste, and of their full expectations of the rapid progress of the settlement which they chose for its location. But although, in the spirit of the age, the old mansion has been removed, as the circumstance of its first occupation, which has been related, has furnished the East Boston Company with the emblem of a cor- porate seal, its impression, we trust, will ever revive the recol- lection of the interesting events with which, in every patriot's mind, it must always be associated.
" The first notice we find in the public records of Noddle's Island, is a vote of the government of the colony, in 1631 (July 5th), ' that all the islands within the limits of this patent, viz. Conant's Island, Noddle's Island, Thompson's Island, together with all other Islands within the limits of our patent, shall be appropriated to public benefits and uses, to be let by the Gov- ernor and Assistants towards the support of the public charges, and that no person shall make any use of said Islands, by put- ting on cattle, felling wood, or raising slate, without leave of the Governor and Assistants.' Thompson's island was called after the first occupant of it, and Conant's, it is presumed, was also; but why the Island we are upon was called Noddle's Island, neither history nor tradition informs us; and it is past my noddle to conjecture. The only one which I can venture to make is (and this would not be allowed on a less sportive occasion), that, as one of the islands in the harbor was called Spectacle island, from its resemblance on the map to the great- est of all optical assistants, this might have derived its name from that marked protuberance of the human noddle upon which the spectacles are usually surmounted. But whatever motive may have influenced our ancestors in giving it that appellation, those who have become interested will never have occasion to regret, I hope, that it entered into their noddles to purchase.
" On 3d April, 1632, it was ordered, 'that no person whatso- ever shall shoot at Fowl upon Pullen's Point or Noddle's Island ; but that the said places shall be reserved for John Perkins to catch Fowl with Nets.' This was the first game law of the
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1835.]
colony ; but whether the ducks or plover which frequent the Is- land were then caught here with nets, is more than I am able to inform you. It is, however, more probable that the wild pig- eons which frequent the first clearings in the woods were the fowl which Mr. Perkins had the exclusive privilege of netting. It does not appear on the face of the grant what consideration was paid for it, nor why Mr. Perkins should have had this ex- clusive privilege. I shall leave it to your own conjecture to determine whether, as the public always like a quid pro quo for all their grants, it is not more than probable that the grantee was the generous ancestor of a gentleman of the same name, who in our day has so distinguished himself by his munificent liberality. If so, the grant may be easily accounted for, as the public would have rested in security of receiving its considera- tion in the receipt of a full tithe of the earnings of his industry. However that may be, it appears that Mr. Perkins enjoyed his privilege but for a little time, as we find that on the first of April, 1633, ' Noddle's Island was granted to Mr. Samuel Ma- verick, to enjoy to him, his heirs and assigns forever, yielding and paying yearly at the General Court, to the Governor for the time being, either a fat Wether, or a fat Hog, or forty shillings in money, and shall give leave to Boston and Charlestown to fetch wood continually as their need requires from the southern part of the said Island.' Mr. Maverick, at this time, was the liberal entertainer of the court and assistants. Josselyn says ' he was the only hospitable man in all the country, giving en- tertainment to all comers gratis.' Mr. Maverick's grant had some relation to the facility with which he could furnish a good fat wether or a fat hog (it seems they went the whole hog in those days as well as these) for the governor's election dinner at the opening of the general court, although for one year, 1636, he paid his forty shillings into the treasury. The name given to the house, we hope, has no inapt allusion to the good things with which the public may be hereafter supplied at the bounti- ful board of its present occupant, the prototype of his generous predecessor, who is characterized in Prince's Annals as 'a man of a very loving and courteous behavior, and very ready to en- tertain strangers.'
" It is a little curious to observe, from the public records, how
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much every thing was made to give way, in the infancy of the colony, to the public necessities. Mr. Maverick's grant of the Island was from the colonial government, who alone had au- thority over it; yet we find on the town records, that the use of the land, for a time, was given to others.
"'9th February, 1634-5. At a general Meeting upon pub- lick Notice.
"' Imprymis, it is agreed by general consent, yt all the Inhab- itants shall plant eyther upon such ground as is alreadie broken up, or inclosed on the Neck, or else upon the ground at Noddle's Island from Mr. Maverick's Grant, and that every able man fitt to plant shall have allowed him two acres to plant on, and for every able youth one acre, to be allotted out by Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. Cogan, Mr. Sampford, Mr. William Cheeseborough, and Mr. Brenton, or any three of them.'
" On 7th December, 1636, the jurisdiction of the Island was laid to Boston; and on the 6th May, 1640, it was declared that ' all the Flatts round about Noddle's Island, do belong to Nod- dle's Island, to low water mark.'
" While, therefore, our respected guests who are on the com- mittee of the state authorities for defining the limits to which the projected improvements in Boston harbor shall hereafter be confined, are looking out to see how the presumptive titles of others can be limited, Noddle's Island, whose flats, in the whole extent of them, are as much a matter of irrevocable grant as the upland on which you stand, most respectfully says to them, Noli me tangere.
" It is to that condition of the grant which reserved to the inhabitants of Boston and Charlestown the liberty to cut wood upon the Island, that we are to attribute the present unshaded appearance of its surface. But the richness of the soil, and the few large trees which are now scattered over it, evince the cer- tainty with which the forests of the Island might be restored, if other destinies did not await it.
" The unconditioned title to the Island was obtained by the payment of THIRTY pounds sterling to the governor, in 1682, by Colonel Shrimpton, its then proprietor. I see a smile on your countenances at the inconsiderableness of the sum which was paid for its purchase. It so appeared to me until upon an ac-
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curate cast of compound interest upon that sum to the present period, I found it would be equivalent to a purchase, at the pres- ent time, of $2,000,000.
" It may not be an uninteresting digression for me to inform you that Lovell's Island was granted to Charlestown, provided they employ it for fishing by their townsmen, and hinder not others. Thompson's island was laid to Dorchester, Deer island, Hog island, and Spectacle island to Boston. Conant's (now Governor's) island was granted to the governor ( Winthrop), he paying an annual rent of a hogshead of wine that should be made thereon. Afterwards, at the governor's request, when his experiment of a grapery had failed we presume, the condition was changed from a butt of wine to two bushels of apples, one for the governor, and the other for the general court in the win- ter session. . You will observe from the terms of the grant that the wary governor took care to free himself from rent until his grapes produced the wine, and until his orchard bore, for the apples were to be 'of the best apples there growing.' As the governor secured one of these barrels to himself, and apples were very scarce in those days, it was fortunate that the general court consisted of but a few members ; for if there had been as many as at present, the representatives of the people would scarcely have had an apple apiece, unless they ate them at the governor's table.
" Of the islands in the harbor we find but little mention, after their respective grants were made, until a fort was ordered to be built on one of them, by the towns on the bay; and, to convey to our military friends here present some idea of the knowledge of our ancestors in engineering, I will mention the dimensions of the fortress, which was erected for the protection of the colony. It was required to be fifteen feet square and ten feet in thickness, and was to be garrisoned by twenty men. This fortress gave the name of Castle to the island on which it was situated. There are but few who now hear me that do not know that Castle island was ceded to the government of the United States in 1798, and the fortress upon it is now called Fort Independence.
" This, though the first work of the kind which was built by public contribution, was not the first place on which guns were
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mounted (if indeed they were there) ; for Mr. Maverick, so early as 1630, built a small fort on Noddle's Island, with four great guns, to protect him from the Indians. This also overlooked the anchorage ground of the ships of the company lying in the Winnisimet channel, between Noddle's Island and Charles- town; and hence the terms of the grant of a ferry in July, 1638, from Boston to Winnisimet, Noddle's Island, and the ships. The ships lying in the course of the ferry to Winnisimet, the ferrymen were authorized to take toll in carrying passengers to the ships, as well as to the main and the island, opposite to which they were anchored.
" We find mention of several Mavericks in the early history of our colony. There was a family at Dorchester of that name, Mr. Moses Maverick, who married Mr. Allerton's daughter, at Marblehead, where he obtained leave to sell a butt of wine a year. The like license was granted to Samuel. The Mave- ricks were among the first freemen admitted in the colony. John was admitted a freeman in 1631, Samuel and Elias in 1632; and in that year we find that Mr. Maverick, Jr., who might have been Samuel's son Nathaniel, was appointed to settle the difference between two of the most important towns in the colony, Charlestown and Cambridge, then called the Newtown. Mr. Maverick, Sen., was appointed to take deposi- tions. Hence we presume they were a family of talents, wealth, and influence. Of influence they must have been, or they could not have obtained licenses to sell wine, when the rest of the colony were prohibited from drinking 'strong water,' - and of wealth, or they could not have purchased so heavy a stock as a whole butt at a time.
" Mr. Samuel Maverick, under the protection of his great guns, and having liberty to sell wine when the drinking of strong water was prohibited, soon felt his independence of the colonial authority. His island was a place of resort for those who, like himself, lived freely, in despite of the puritanic man- ners of the times. We often find him, therefore, obnoxious to public censure. For though, in 1633, he received a grant of this Island upon which he lived, and the year following of the ferry to Winnisimet, yet he was such a high liver that the general court took him in hand in March, 1635, and ordered
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1835.]
him, under the then enormous penalty of £100, three times as much as was paid for the Island half a century afterwards, to move his family to Boston, and in the mean time, that he should not give entertainment to any strangers for more than a night at a time, without leave of one of the assistants. In 1639, we find he paid in £5 of his recognizance for the appearance of Edward Saunders ; and in 1641 he was found guilty of a con- federacy with Thomas Owen to break prison, and concealing him on his island, and fined £100. In 1642, he was found guilty of laches in not paying his fine, and he was ordered to pay ££30 presently, and £30 more in six months, good pay. Having learned wisdom from experience, Mr. Maverick's rent was probably paid in kind after this, as we find in 1739 he was more in favor ; for the record says, being bound in £20 for the good behavior of a person by the name of Hogs Flesh, and said bond being forfeited, upon his petition to the court, his engage- ment was remitted. As he so liberally dealt in that article for the benefit of the general court, I presume they got their pound of flesh before he was released from his fine.
" The rulers of those days were very provident of their own interests, as will be seen by several grants of ferries, in which they reserved to the magistrates and deputies a free passage. This was not thought of in some of the early grants, but was corrected in the order of 1744, as far as it regarded those grants in which the ferriage was not reserved, by a direction that their own passages with their necessary attendants should be paid by the country.
" The title to the Island passed from Mr. Maverick and his son Nathaniel to Capt. Geo. Briggs in July, 1650. In their conveyance, mention is made of the mill, mill-house, and bake- house. This is the earliest reference I can find to the mill, which undoubtedly stood on the old dam across the east bay, the foundation of which is now observable at low-water. This was probably the first mill which was built in the colony. The deed was in consideration of the payment of 40,000 lbs. of good white sugar; which, not being paid, it afterwards become ques- tionable whether the title passed. The jury being unable to agree, in an action which was brought by Col. John Burch, as assignee of Capt. Briggs, the great and general court took it in
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hand, and decided 'that possession of the Island was to be delivered to Col. Burch upon the tender of £700 sterling, at the storehouse next the water's side, at the Bridge in Barba- does, in good merchantable sugar, at prices current, as for Bills of Exchange, payable in London at 30 days' sight.' So it seems that the Island was considered as a sweet morsel, even in that early period of our history, and was then as readily con- vertible as now into bills of exchange at thirty days' sight. What remarkable changes have since taken place in the rela- tions of things! Instead of Noddle's Island land being paid for in sugar at a West India wharf, West India sugar is now brought here to pay for island lots. The next tender of sugar for land we shall hear of, instead of being at the storehouse next the water's side at the bridge in Barbadoes, will be at the storehouses of the magnificent Sugar Refinery next the water's side, on East Boston wharf.
" From Col. Burch the title passed to Mr. Richard Newbold, and from him to Sir Thomas Temple, in 1668.
" From the latter gentleman, two years afterwards, or 165 years ago, it was sold to Col. Samuel Shrimpton, the ancestor of two of its present proprietors. In Sir Thomas Temple's deed to Col. Shrimpton it is described as 'all that Island or Continent of land estimated to contain one thousand acres, &c.' If that was a correct estimate of the quantity the continent of East Boston then contained, it has lost by the action of the sea, in the last 165 years, about one third of its whole dimensions, and is now reduced down to a simple island of 663 acres.
" Col. Shrimpton's name occurs very often on the records of the colony. He was a great land speculator, and was one out of six grantees of the town of Brookline, then called Boston Hog Pasture. He owned the land on which the State house stands, and Beacon Hill. His town house was in State street, where the Merchants' Bank stands; his country house was on this continent, and stood over the cellar from which the late Mr. Williams's house was recently removed.
" John Yeamans married Colonel Shrimpton's granddaughter, to whom the estate was devised. She died at the age of nine- teen, leaving one child and heir, Shute Shrimpton Yeamans, whose beautiful portrait, painted by a master-hand, is now be-
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fore you. He died in London, in 1769. He devised his estate to trustees for the use of his two sons, until one of them, or his issue, attained twenty-one years, or died without issue; and in default of said issue, to the use and behoof of his aunts, Mary Chauncy (wife of the Rev. Dr. Chauncy), Sarah Greenough, and Mehitable Hyslop. By the unexpected death of the two sons of Mr. Yeamans in London, the latter devise took effect ; and thus, through the intervention of that blind goddess, who does more good things with her eyes shut than all the rest of them with theirs open, this American Island has become the object of improvement by American hands.
" In connection with the history of the Yeamans owners, I cannot omit to name a very curious historical coincidence of design. John Yeamans, who lived on this Island, owned also a large farm in Chelsea, then called Rumney Marsh. It ap- pears in answer to his petition, that the very project of opening a road across this Island, and connecting it with the main by a free bridge, the accomplishment of which we have met to sanction, was brought forward by him in 1727, upwards of a century since.
" The record says : ' The committee having considered the subject-matter of the petition of John Yeamans, Esq. and others, about a bridge to Noddle's Island, etc., together with the objections of several of the inhabitants of Rumney marsh, apprehend that the erecting a good substantial bridge from the main, at Winnisimet side, to Noddle's Island, will not be dis- advantageous to the town of Boston, provided the petitioner, John Yeamans, Esq. be obliged, at his own cost and charge, to make and keep in repair the aforesaid bridge forever, with con- venient highways to the same, fit for man and horse to pass and repass, as well to the bridge on Winnisimet side, where the road may be altered for accommodating the bridge, and so from thence through Noddle's Island to the place that may be as- signed for transporting passengers and goods from the Island to Boston.'
" The foresight of our ancestor thus furnishes an answer to the remark of wonder we hear so frequently, that the plan of connecting the Island with the city was never thought of before ; and his removal shortly after to Antigua, upon his appointment
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to the office of lieutenant-governor of that island, from whence he never returned, gives the probable reason why it was not then accomplished.
" There has been but one effort to connect this Island with Boston made since that period; that was to have been by a bridge to the north battery, which the Salem turnpike corpora- tion intended to have made an effort to obtain leave to erect the first year of the present century, in connection with their road, which they contemplated building across the Island, very nearly in the course of the one you see. The gentleman oppo- site to me, Mr. Derby, who, with Mr. Brown of Beverly, had the management of that concern, could give you a better ac- count of it than I can. If he were addressing you, he would say, that, at that time, the navigation employed above the south- western point of the Island, where the abutment of the bridge on this side would have been, was small, and a commissioner of the general government was engaged in surveying the Island with a view to its purchase for a navy-yard. So favorable was the impression the facts made in every respect, that hardly a doubt remained that this site would have been selected; and it was only by a mistake in regard to climate (which it would be entering too much into detail to particularize) that his report was made in favor of Charlestown. Mr. Henry Howell Wil- liams told the committee, in my hearing, the opinion of Admi- ral Montague, who surveyed this harbor before the Revolution. It was related in the almost irreverent language of the sailor, - ' The devil got into the government for placing the naval de- pot at Halifax. God Almighty made Noddle's Island on pur- pose for a dock-yard.'
" The report of the commissioner in favor of Charlestown caused the directors of the turnpike to change their plan, and to construct their road in the more circuitous route, which is at present travelled. An unsuccessful attempt on the part of the late Mr. Binney, when he was navy agent, to purchase the point which is designated as the Marine railway on the plan, for the erection of a dry dock, left the whole Island free for the indul- gence of that individual enterprise which has since been be- stowed upon it.
" I could refer you, if time would permit, to the provision
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made in the colonial history, to appropriations made for sup- plying the troops at the ' camp on Noddle's Island,' whence the name of Camp hill was given to that beautiful eminence over- looking the harbor, upon which Mr. Lamson has erected his elegant house, and which was the place upon which you be- stowed your patriotic and voluntary labors in the erection of Fort Strong, for the defence of the harbor, in 1814.
" There are many other reminiscences, the recital of which would add to the interest of your rambles through the fields of the Island, over a great part of which, if the Almighty blesses our country with a continuance of its prosperity, soon, neither the lowing of the herds will be heard on its hills, nor the fur- row of the ploughman traced on its plains. It will be but a few years only, until the projected wharves, docks, and build- ing-yards now erecting upon the flats before us are completed ; when the proud swelling canvas of our navy will pass not by the city to the navy-yard but through its masted forest of mer- chant-ships on both sides of its channel.
" The building of a city is not the work of a day. These are the beginnings. Its progress will be in correspondence with the public wants and its own facilities. Considering, then, the width of the streets and its healthy location ; its advantageous water lots, bounding on the deepest channel of the harbor; the extensive water powers which the flats, within its promontories, comprehend ; the beauty of its heights ; the Nahant-like salubrity of its atmosphere ; the purity of its springs, and its proximity to a crowded city of wealth and enterprise ; the certainty of communication with it at all seasons of the year, and its imme- diate connection with the extended sea-coast east, and the pop- ulous region of country north, a great portion of the travel of which will pass over it; considering also the amount of capi- tal already employed by companies who have chosen this site as the place of their extended operations, and the favorable auspices attending the commencement of the undertaking, it cannot be doubted that East Boston will soon rise above the condition of a suburb, and become an integral part of the city.
" Great destinies yet await our city. The enlargement of our tonnage, taken in connection with the extension of our manufactories ; the opening of three great railroads, and the
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increase of steamboats to the eastern ports, connecting the great interests of the seaboard and the country in all direc- tions more immediately with the city; the improvements which are making in the city itself, and on the exterior bounda- ries of the waters which surround it, at Winnisimet, at Charles- town, at Cambridge, at Roxbury and Dorchester, all of which compose a part of this commercial capital; the high price of labor, and the rapid rise in the value of real estate in the hands of every purchaser; the happy reconciliation which is this day announced between our government and our ancient ally ; all contribute to the public confidence in the long continuance of that general welfare which will give strength and prosperity to all classes of an intelligent, moral, enterprising, and happy com- munity.
" These remarks hardly render it necessary that I should say that the subject of my toast is
"The City of Boston. - Her growth, her institutions, her enterprise, and her resources. May her moral, keep pace with her local, improvements."
After General Sumner's speech, several distinguished gentle- men offered remarks and sentiments, which were collected and published in the " Bunker Hill Aurora" of May 30, 1835, as follows : -
"Attorney-General Austin made some remarks in allusion to the traditionary character of Maverick, who is represented as of a 'very loving and courteous disposition, giving entertainment to strangers gratis.' In his toast, Mr. Austin very happily ap- plied this remark to the East Boston Company, who, he thought, were not less loving, courteous, or hospitable in their entertain- ments than their ancient prototype.
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