History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 131

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 131

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There was another Danvers man killed at Lexing- ton, the only one credited to Medford,-Henry Put- nam. He was the youngest sou of Deacon Eleazer Putnam, and sold. his father's homestead about 1745 to Phinehas Putnam, great-grandfather of Charles P. Preston, the present occupant of the estate. Of this Henry, it is related that, while on a journey from Medford to Connecticut, he stopped over night at Bolton, fell in love with his host's daughter, proposed in the morning, was immediately married, and, with his bride, drove back her dowry, consisting of two cows and twelve sheep. He was captain of a company at Lonisburg, and was exempt by age from duty, when he followed his five sons to Lexington.

The record of the next town-meeting after the bat- tle, held on 1st day of May, is expressive of the watchfulness of Danvers :

" Voted that there he two watches kept in the town of Danvers. Voted that one watch be kept on the road near the new mills and the other watch at the croch of the roads near Mr. Francis Symonds. Voted that each watch consist of 13 men every night. Voted, to choose a Commit- tee of Seven to regulate the watches. Voted, John Nichols, Benjamin Proctor, Benj. Porter, Capt. Shillaber, Nathaniel Brown, Stephen Need- ham and Deacon Asa Putnam he said Committee. Voted that if any per- son refuse to watch if warned by the Committee (or any one of them) his name shall be returned to the Committee of Inepection for this town, and if his reasons are not judged sufficient he shall be posted in the newspapers. Voted, to choose a Committee of three persons to procure teams to cart stones to Watertown. Mr. Arch Dale, Capt. John Putnam & Mr. Jonathan Tarble was chosen. Voted, to be concerned with the nabouring towas in establishing a post between the towns of Newbury Port and Cambridge. Doctor Putnam, Mr. Stephen Needham & Capt. Epes be a Committee to settle the affair with the nabouring towne. Voted,

as the sense of this Body of people that we Disapprove of Fireing any Guas except in cases of alarm or actual engagement."

A minute may here he made, that in 1850 Danvers received a courteous invitatiou to be present at the 75th anniversary of the "Concord Fight," and the delegation sent were John W. Proctor, John Page, Robert S. Daniels, Samuel Preston, Henry Cook, Moses Black, Dr. George Osborne, Daniel Putnam, Jonathan King, Samuel P. Fowler, Eben Sutton, Elias Savage and Fitch Poole. At the centennial an- niversary our selectmen added to the occasion thie dignity of their presence.

After Lexington the yeomanry suddenly found themselves a besieging army about Boston. The sec- ond Centennial Congress met May 10, 1775, recog- nized the actual existence of war, appointed Washing- ton commander-in-chief and commissioned four major-generals ; but the ouly commission delivered, and that by the hands of Washington, was to Israel Putnam, a son of Danvers, whose biography is a mat- ter of national history.

The watch, which had been maintained since Lexington, was discontinued July 17, 1775, Congress having provided a guard for sea-port towns. In Sep- temher following, Colonel Benedict Arnold camped at Danvers on his march to Quehec.

And now that which at first was the dream of only the most daring of the leaders, became moulded into a great popular idea-Independence. On the 7th of June, 1776, Lee, of Virginia, offered in Congress the resolutions of freedom, which were not adopted until the 2d of July. But two days after its introduction, and irrespective of it, for news did not travel by lightning, the citizens of Danvers were warned to meet at the South meeting-house, June 18, to con- sider a resolve of " the late House of Representatives passed on the 10th Day of May, 1776," to the effect that each town should come together to instruct their representatives in the next General Court whether, in case of a declaration of independence by Congress, "they, the said inhabitants will Solemnly Engage with their Lives and Fortunes to Support them in the Measure."

Captain William Shillaber was moderator of the meeting at which these votes were passed :

Voted that if the Honble Congress for the Safety of the United Coloneys Declare them Independent of the Kingdom of great Britain, we the In- habitants of this Town do Solemaly Engage with our live and Fortuens to Support them in the Measure.

Voted that the Towa Clark be, and hereby is directed Immediately to Deliver an attested Copy of the Proceedings of this Town Respecting In- dependentcy, to Majr. Samuel Epes Representative of said Towa, for his Instructions how to Proceed in Case the Important question of Indepen- dentcy should come before the Honble House of Representatives of this Colony.

The Town taking into Consideration the Paragraph in the Warrant Respecting giveing a bonnty to their minute men voted to give a Bounty to one quarter part of the militia that shall be Drafted out and stand at a minntes warning Provided they March voted that the Bounty or present Given shall be one ponad pr mouth to Each minute man so long as they Continue in the Province Service. voted to disolve this meeting and the moderator declared this meeting Disolved accordingly.

"Att STEPHEN NEEDHAM, T Clark.

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

When, on the nation's birth-day the Declaration was finally adopted by Congress, it was eagerly wel- comed in Danvers, adopted without a dissenting vote, and spread for all to read upon the elerk's records. The Articles of Confederation were likewise nnani- mously approved, February 9, 1778, but the Consti- tution proposed for Massachusetts that year met an unanimous vote the other way. From the summer of 1777 consideration was from time to time given to en- forcing the " acts respecting the prices of goods and all other articles in the Town." A meeting was called .July 5, 1779, "to have the proceedings of Boston of the 17th of June last communicated, and to know the minds of the Inhabitants of the Town respecting a convention of Delegates from the several commit- tees of correspondence, ete., in the State proposed to be held at Concord on Wednesday, the 14th in- stant."

On this it was resolved "that the town will do all in their power to reduce all the Exorbitant prices of the necessaries of Life, and Desire one of the Committee of Correspondence, etc., to attend at the said convention at Concord if they shall think pro- per."

Dr. Amos Putnam was moderator of the meeting, which, August 2, 1779, heard and considered the ac- tion of the convention. Deacon Edmund Putnam, Colonel Hutchinson, Archelaus Dale, John Epes, and Dr. Putnam withdrew, and, after a short ad- jonrnment, reported " that the resolves and addresses of the convention are well planned for the Publie Good," and on their recommendation this vote was passed :

" (Viz.) : Resolved, That we will Exert ourselves and de all in our power to carry the Same with all the wholesome Laws heretofore made for the Like Purpese into Executiea, and io Testimony of our Sincerity therein we recommend that the Inhabitants of this Town here unte Set their hands by Subscribing their Names from Twenty one years old and upwards and that the Committee of Safty be Directed to offer ye same te the Inhabitants, afforesaid and deal with all that refuse to Sign the Same (if any should be) as Directed in the Resolves afforestid, and that the Tewo Clerk be Directed to Give ont Copies to the Several members of the Committee afforesaid for the Like Purpose."

Dr. Putnam, Aaron Cheever, Captain Shillaber and Archelaus Rea were added to the Committee of Safety. At a later time it was voted that "the prices Set by the Selectmen and Committe of Saftie to the Several Articles now read with Several resolves ac- companing the Same be aceepttable to the Town Voted Saml. Epes be a Committe to git a Sefient Number of the above Prices and resolves Printed."

There was one conspicuous instance of violation of these regulations. In the record of a meeting, 13, 1779, appears this :

· " Voted Mr. Gideon Puteam has violated the reselves of the Conven- tion at Concord by selling cheese at nine shillings per lb., na by evidence fully appeared.

" Voted Mr. Gideen Putoam be posted in one of the Public Newspapers of this State for Breaking one of the resolves of the Convention at Con- cord, as an enemy to his cuntrey.

"Voted not to excuse those persons who have not subscribed their names to carry the resolves of Concord into Execution. Veted to Post

the Several Persons in the public prints for not complying with the vote of the Town, as by a List from the Committee of Safety will appear."

Cheese at $1.50 per pound seems rather high, but scarcity and inflated currency account for it. Rum was quoted at from $20 to $25 per gallon ; molasses, £3 19s .; Bohea tea, £5 6s. per lb .; iron, £30 per ewt., and other things in proportion. An idea of the pur- chasing power of continental money may be had in the appropriations made by the town in October, 1880, for "beer for the army." It was voted that the sum of thirty thousand pounds be raised and assessed upon the inhabitants for the purpose of procuring beef. and Enoch Putnam, Jona. Sawyer and Timothy Patch were appointed a committee to carry out the vote. The vote to proeure beef was then reconsidered, and, instead, it was voted to send the money direct to the county committee, of which Samuel Osgood, Esq., of Andover, was one. The following January, 1781, it was voted to raise eighteen hundred pounds in silver or an equivalent in paper money "for the use of the town to proenre Continental soldiers." The recruiting committee were Ezra Upton, John Dodge and Capt. Samuel Page, who were instructed not to exceed one hundred and eighty silver dollars for each man for three years or the war, "exchange of paper money for silver money at seventy-five for one." At the same meeting these votes were passed :

"Voted that this Town be formed inte as Many Classes as there are Soldiers to procure for the Town for three years or During the War Voted that the Friends be Excused from being Classed with the rest of the Town. Voted to reconsider the vete respecting bot Classing the Friends, and that the Friends be subject to be Classed with the other Inhabitants of the Town."

Thus all through the war those who remained at home helped to nphold the government and supply the army. There were brave patriots, then as ever, who never fired a musket, hut were none the less de- voted and useful.

During the eight terrible years Danvers was repre- sented at the front as well among the leaders as in the ranks. On the roll of honor the names of some of her sons are written very high. Ranking highest were three Generals, Israel Putnam, Moses Porter, Gideon Foster; next, three Colonels, Jeremiah Page, Israel Hutchinson, Enoch Putnam; two Majors, Caleb Lowe, Sylvester Osborn ; six Captains, Samuel Eppes, Samuel Flint, Jeremiah Putnam, Samuel Page, Den- nison Wallis, Levi Preston, Johnson Proctor.

Some of these men will bementioned in the history of Peabody, and others are noticed in other connec- tions in this sketch. Of two of them, Porter and Hutchinson, something will here be said :

Moses Porter was an apprentiee, eighteen years old when the war broke out. He helped to work one of the guns at Bunker Hill, and stuck to his piece when most of the men had fled. His coun- try never allowed him to quit it afterwards, says Mr. Upham, whose words also are these: " From that day he bore a commission in the army of the United

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States. He was retained on every peace establish- ment always in the artillery, and at the head of that arm for a great length, and until the day of his death. No man who fought at Bunker Hill remained so long a soldier of the United States. After the Revolution, in which he was wounded, he served with Wayne in the Indian campaign, and was at the head of the artillery when the War of 1812 took place. He was in active service on the Niagara frontier, and on the 10th of September, 1813, was breveted for distin- guished services. He defended Norfolk, Va., in 1814, with great ability and vigilance, and saved that most vital point of coast defense. At successive periods after the war he was at the head of each of the geo- graphical military divisions of the country." He died at Cambridge in 1822, and was buried on his father's farm, from which his remains have been removed to Walnut Grove Cemetery. A letter preserved from Captain Simeon Brown to General (then Lieutenant) Porter, 1781, says, "I went yesterday to Salem to get a Dictionary, but there are none to be had, therefore I cannot send one this time, but .will try at Boston the first opportunity, and if one can be obtained I will send it on." Though a reflection on Salem as a literary centre, the letter speaks well for the young artillery officer who wanted a dictionary. Moses Porter never married.

The house which Colonel Israel Hutchinson built, the one in which the women gathered during that nine- teenth of April and saw laid out on the floor the dead heroes brought back from the fight, is still standing at Danversport, close by the " new mills" which Arche- laus Putnam built. Indeed, Hutchinson's second wife was the widow of Archelaus Putnam. For many years this house remained in the family as the residence of Briggs T. Reed, who married the colonel's grand- daughter, Betsey; it is now owned by the Eastern, or Boston and Maine Railroad Company, and before long may give place to a much needed new station. Colo- nel Hutchinson was a descendant of the fifth genera- tion from Richard Hutchinson, the emigrant, who came from Arnold, England, in 1634, and with his wife Alice and four children, settled near Hathorne's hill. He was born in 1727 and was living on the Plains in 1762, moving soon after to New Mills. His long and honorable military record began when he enlisted as a scout in Captain Herrick's company, in 1757. The next year, in the Lake George and Ticonderoga cam- paign he was a lieutenant in Captain Andrew Fuller's company ; the next year a captain, he led a company, under General Wolfe, up the Heights of Abraham. A man with this experience was naturally enough chosen as a leader of the minute-men of '75. Soon after Lexington he was commissioned a lieutenant- colonel in Colonel Mansfield's regiment, and soon was promoted to full rank of colonel. He was at the siege of Boston, and his regiment was one of those de- tailed to fortify Dorchester Heights. He went to New York, commanded Forts Washington and Lee,

and was with Washington throughout the memorable retreat through New Jersey. On his return from the war he was conspicuously honored by his fellow-citi- zens, who sent him repeatedly to the General Court and elected him to other offices, until politics entered more into consideration, and Federalists carried the day against the colonel and his fellow-Democrats. In his old age he kept busily engaged at his business, which had been interrupted by the war. He worked in his saw-mill until he met there the accident which, in his eighty-fifth year, caused his death, March 16, 1811. He is buried in the Plains Cemetery. His son, Israel Hutchinson, Jr., was a deacon of the Bap- tist Church and long clerk of the society. The colo- nel's orderly-book, from August 13, 1775, to July 8, 1776, is in possession of the Massachusetts Histori- cal Society. It contains a "descriptive list of non- commissioned officers and privates enlisted in the county of Essex to serve in the army of the United States," comprising five hundred and twenty-two names, including thirty from Danvers.

Colonel Hutchinson is recalled by Deacon Fowler, who was a boy of eleven when he died, as a smart old man, small in stature, clad in a white frock, working in his saw-mill. He was accustomed to call the boys in from the street to help him roll logs. He had not himself a lazy bone, and he abhorred laziness in others and despised loafers. His son, the deacon, en- tertained visiting ministers, and when one of these guests strolled in to look over the mill, the old man, taking him for a loafer, threatened to throw him into the pond.

How gladly the townspeople welcomed the close of the war, and withal, how vigilant they were for the pre- servation of the rights so dearly bought, may be judged from instructions given Colonel Hutchinson, June 9, 1783. After alluding to his conspicuous services dur- ing the war and at the General Court, the instruc- tions proceed,-"The contest is over and a complete Revolution is happily acomplished. This town, sir, congratulates you on so glorious a period. . As the Independence depends solely (under Divine Providence) in the Union of these United States, you are to consider the confederacy of the States as Sacred and in no point to be violated. You are to use your endeavor that no Absentee or Conspirator against the United States, whether they have taken up arms against these States or not, be admitted to return, and those persons that have returned, you are not to suffer such persons to remain in this Common- wealth. . In any matters that turn up, which you think militate against your Constituents, you are to apply for further Instructions."

Danvers was represented in the march of Colonel Wade's Essex County Regiment, to suppress Shay's Rebellion. An orderly-book, now in possession of Dr. A. P. Putnam, gives the names of sixty-eight men of the company of Captain (afterwards Colonel) John Francis, fourteen of whom were from this town,

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

including four officers,-Daniel Needham, lieuten- ant ; Daniel Bell, drummer; Josiah White, sergeant ; Moses Thomas, corporal.

CHAPTER XXXIV. DANVERS -- ( Continued).

ECCLESIASTICAL.

THE FIRST CHURCH .- By the terms of the act al- ready referred to, which constituted Salem Village, all the farmers within the Village limits were to con- tribute " to all charges referring to the maintenance of a minister and erecting a meeting-house," and five persons were to be appointed "among themselves or town of Salem," to collect rates and levies, the constable of Salem to have power to make distress on the goods of any neglecting to pay. At the first meeting of the Farmers, about a month after the es- tablishment of the Village, namely, November 11, 1672 (old style), five persons were chosen "to carry along the affairs according to the court order,"- Lieutenant Thomas Putnam, Thomas Fuller, Joseph Porter, Thomas Flint and Joshua Rea.

The first preacher at the Village was then also for- mally engaged,-Rev. James Bayley. He was a young man, but little over twenty-one years of age, a native of Newbury, and a graduate of Harvard in 1669.

For some seventeen years there was no separate and independent church. The condition of things was anomalous. While a considerable number of the members of the church of Salem Town worshipped, for convenience, at a place nearer home than former- ly, but yet were not allowed to sever their connection with the parent church, there was, on the other hand, a complete parochial organization, corresponding somewhat to the modern "society," in which, con- trary to the usual Puritan polity, the franchise was not confined to church members. From this half- and-half state of things came, from the very first, trouble. The householders far outnumbered the church members. It can easily be imagined that certain non-church members, from the natural incli- nation to exercise newly acquired power, took too prompt and vigorous a part to suit those who had hitherto not been obliged to consult them. However that may have been, the young minister soon found his congregation divided into very marked factions for and against himself. A majority favored him, but the other side was a good instance of a "strong- working minority." Mr. Bayley was employed from year to year, and each renewal of his engagement added to the determination of the opposition. That he had the courage to stay some seven years, as he did, speaks better of his grit than of his wisdom. But, after appeals to the parent church from both

sides, and n thorough investigation by the General Court, out of which Bayley came triumphant, "or- thodox and competently able, and of a blameless and self-denying conversation," he at last, about the be- ginning of 1680, gave up. He continued to remain in the village for some time after his resignation on land given him by certain parishioners, among whom was his most conspicuous opponent, Nathaniel Put- nam. The land consisted of about forty acres, situ- ated in part on the meadow and hill east of the meet- ing-house. The deed, though dated after his resig- nation, seems to be in confirmation of a gift promised or actually given soon after his engagement to preach. The recitation that "the providence of God having so ordered it, that the said Mr. Bayley doth not con- tinue amongst us in the work of the ministry, yet, considering the premises, and as a testimony of our good affection to the said Mr. Bayley," goes far to show that, after all, the spirit of fair play prevailed. Mr. Bayley eventually studied medicine, practiced in Roxbury, and died January 17, 1707.

Iu the latter part of 1672 it was determined to build a meeting-house "of 34 foot in length, 28 foot broad and 16 foot between joists." The first meeting- house stood on the acre which Joseph Hutchinson donated for that purpose ; its site is the northern side of Hobart Street, a little east of the old Hook house. Part of the meagre furnishings of this build- ing consisted of the "old pulpit and deacons' seats " taken from that very meeting-house preserved in Sa- lem by the Essex Institute, the parent church having about this time built a new meeting-house, and be- stowed these things on the Farmers.

Mr. Bayley's successor was George Burroughs. He was engaged in November, 1680, having then been out of college ten years. He came from a rough experience in the wild district about Casco, where life was in peril from Indian assaults, but after three years stay he went back among the woods and savages, and, doubtless, preferred the certain dangers of the frontier to the treatment he received at Salem Village. The farmers voted sixty pounds for his first year's support, one-third in money, the balance in provi- sions at stated rates, but they neglected to fulfil their agreement, and compelled him to run in debt to pay his wife's funeral expenses. The unjust suit brought against him by John Putnam, in whose family he had boarded has been mentioned.

The third minister was one Deodat Lawson. Gift of God, his name implied, but Mr. Rice pithily says he could not have been divinely given to this people, save in the way of bare allowance. He remained from early in 1684, and left in the summer of 1688. Daniel Epps, the famous school-master who lived on the present Rogers estate, supplied the pulpit as a layman before Lawson was finally settled.

On the 19th of November, old style, 1689, a church was at length organized, and on that day began the pastorate of a man whose name will ever stand out

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most conspicuous in the blackest chapter of New England history, the Reverend Samuel Parris. For in his family broke out and by him was fostered to its direful end, the Salem Witchcraft Delusion. In Mr. Upham's book the events of the preceding years which had a bearing in the accusations and trials, es- pecially the divisions and animosities which, com- mencing with the Bayley troubles, grew from bad to worse through Burroughs' and Lawson's stay, are all collected and told with the skill of a novelist unfold- ing his plot to the climax of the catastrophe. Else- where in this book appears a summary of the sad story. Only here let it be said that to Danvers, this very town, and not to the present limits of the city of Salem, belongs the melancholy distinction of being the place in which the delusion had its origin. A little back from the present parsouage there is a dis- tinct depression which marks the cellar of Parson Parris' house; here and there "witch houses" are still standing and lived in; and about the present meeting-house of the First Church, in some manner as of lineal descent, centre those associations of the scenes of 1692 with which the whole regjon is filled.

The covenant "agreed upon and consented unto by the Church of Christ at Salem Village, at their first embodying on ye 19 Nov., 1869," was subscribed by these twenty-seven persons:

Samuel Parris, pastor.

Eliz. (wife to Sam.) Parris. Rebek (wife to John) Putnamu. Anna (wife to Bray) Wilkins.

Nathaniel Putnam. John Putnam. Bray Wilkins. Sarah (wife to Joshua) Rea.

Joshua Rea. Hannah (wife to John, Jr.) Putnam Sarah (wife to Benjamiu) Putnam.

Nathaniel Ingersoll.

Peter Cloyes. Thomas Putnam. John Putnam, Jr. Edward Putnam. Jonathan Putnam, Benjamin Putnam. Ezekiel Cheever. Henry Wilkins. Benjamin Wilkins. William Way. Peter Prescott.

Sarah Putnam.

Deliverance Walcott.

Persis (wife to William) Way. Mary (wife to Sam.) Abbie.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 131

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1 Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1538

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538