History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 213

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 213

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Between Newbury, a compact little village of four or five years' growth, not far from the entrance to the river Parker, and Ipswich, already a plant of strength and vigor, having watchful friends at court, was a nearly level tract of three or more miles in width, and at Boston was probably not understood to be included in the privileges of the already-established towns. So near the doors of both towns this pleasant locality became familiar to those who journeyed from Ipswich to Newbury to and fro; and as the limits of the two towns may not have been very carefully drawn, a few settlers, more adventurous or selfish than their associates, had opened up their little clearings, and it is probable had settled here.

The winter of 1638 and 1639, the first winter of Mr. Rogers and his twenty families in New England, was spent in Salem, and was one of suspense and un- certainty. The original company numbered perhaps one hundred persons. One hundred and twenty pas-

sengers was the limit at this time by colonial law for a vessel of two hundred tons burden.

Mr. Rogers, according to Johnson, had given Messrs. Eaton and Davenport encouragement, and perhaps a partial promise, that he would join them in the Connecticut colony, and some of the company having relatives there, as Matthew Boyes it is known had, a party were sent around to investigate and report.

A disturbed feeling having for some time existed in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, at the widespread movement toward emigration to Connecticut, by planters already settled in Watertown and other places, the officials were led to make strenuous efforts to retain the new arrivals, and special inducements were offered.

Mr. Rogers was well known to the Puritans, both here and in England, as a man of marked ability and high moral worth, and to secure him and his company, some of whom were men of education and perhaps of fortune, and all of the hest material for the building of the State, was a work which promised good returns. Those who were already settled in these infant colo- nies were anxiously looking for emigrants. Men and women of any rank or station were welcomed, who, to maintain a pure faith, were ready to forswear all that England, with the ease and pomp of the State Church, could offer. More than once had the General Court ordered public thanksgiving for the "arrival of per- sons of special use and quality," and for "safe arrival of ships and many passengers," No mere adventurers were wanted; no schismatics; these were returned from whence they came, and shipmasters warned, under penalty, not to repeat the offence.

Some rivalry is manifest toward Connecticut, prob- ably of a fairly friendly nature; but as regards Mr. Rogers and his company with that colony, the inducements to remain were presented so forcibly that on the return of the party sent for investigation, a definite settlement was made, and the location for the plantation fixed. Another moving cause for the intense pressure used to keep them within the limits of the Massachusetts Colony, was the knowledge that this little company were but the pioneers of a grand exodus of " many persons of quality in England, who depended on Mr. Rogers to choose a fit place for them." The privations of the earlier settlers had in a degree passed; the country in the vicinity of Bos- ton, as has been said, was occupied and gradually becoming cleared; roads opened from one town to another ; the foundations of a college laid, and a per- manent occupation of the country assured. Mr. Ro- gers had confidential relations with families of influ- ence in England ; he came here as their trusted agent, and, in consequence, these especially "large accom- modations" were granted him, with the fond antici- pation that at an early day many others would follow. These families of wealth and quality, whoever they were, will perhaps never be known by us, and their

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names are now locked in oblivion. Late researches in England by Mr. Waters, of Salem, however, show intimate personal relations between the family of Oliver Cromwell aud the immediate family of Mr. Rogers, and possibly they might be traced from this distinguished point.

The conflict between the Cavalier aud Roundhead soon raged madly, aud thoughts of a voluntary exile to New England, for peace of conscience, gave place to hymns of triumph at home. The rise of the Com- mons,-the people; a change of a kind such as the world never saw before; a king at the tribunal of the people. Like the image seen in vision by the Eastern monarch, unfortunately part was of iron and part clay ; yet truly a mighty work was accomplished, which the world will never forget. All this stopped emigration, as in a moment ; aud " Mr. Ezekiel Ro- gers' plantation " is believed to have closed the period by which emigrants came here for settlement, as an organized body, before leaving England.

In the spring of 1639, Mr. Rogers and the new planters, their pinnace laden with the household beginnings of a new republic, anchored at the place designated for the plantation. Eight hundred pounds were expended to buy the claims of the few who had preceded them. Thomas Nelsou, the deputy, sur- veyor, road locator, and the agent of the Colonial government in settling boundary lines, gave of his wealth to establish the plantation, and in his will, nine years later, dated in England, where he was at the time, perhaps there to receive the estate of an elder brother, killed at Marston Moor, refers to "goodman Seatchwell" (Shatswell of Ipswich), to whom he " payd eleven pounds & seventeen pounds " for "his fferme," probably one of the settlers who preceded them.

Clearing land, seed-sowing, the erection of a meet- ing-house, and also several common houses for shelter, occupied their first year. These common houses were the homes of the two hundred or more settlers for perhaps three years. The lands were held and cutti- vated in commonalty, for at least that length of time.

Now begins the struggle for the means of living. The dependence on the yearly harvest for existence, nntil the crops of the next season were gathered, is an impressive feature, both of colonial and town legislation. Rarely auy snrplns carried over, the pressing need of hnsbanding all their resources, is seen from the beginning of the history of this planta- tion ; and this was but a type of every other.

The General Court passed a law requiring the inspection of corn, to see that none of a quality fit for human food is heedlessly fed to animals. Here at the ontset, with a wise foresight, a community-system was established, where careful watch-care could be had, the true spirit of socialism made imperative, and all waste and selfishness prevented.

Here was a true paternal government, and the result was a most symmetrical system. Streets were located

and lot-laying, with a care and exactuess such as but few, if any, other town in New England had. With- out change or alteration, those streets exist to-day. and the same careful system of lot-laying was inher- ited by the descendants of the first settlers, as will be seen in all town action on the division of lots, down to a late day.

In the fall of 1639, the plantation was incorporated, and "M". Ezechi : Rogers' plantation shalbee called Rowley." No controversy or war of words, as in this day ; but positive, immediate action. Having a lim- ited harvest that year, the General Court granted ex- emption from taxation in 1640, because, says the statute, "of their hindrance in planting."

When they forsook their common houses, it was to occupy humble family homes, but located so near each other that close communal relations must for some time have continued to prevail.

With roofs covered with thatch, there was at all times great danger from fire, and one early town ordinance called for ladders of a certain length for every house. But it is with the backwoods with which we have to do.

When the first explorations of their territory in the interior took place, it is of course impossible to tell. Naturally, on arrival, curiosity would be awakened to know what the country eight miles from the settlement had that was of immediate value t them. It was theirs, of that they were assured by a satisfactory title, a grant from the Government of Englishmen. No sagamore had as yet asserted his claim, as was done at a later day. The Indians who were here were evidently a dwindling race, and so little regarded that probably because of the annoyance, at about this time, the sagamore of Agawam was forbidden by Colonial law, to en- ter a white man's house. Curiosity would, of course, be excited by a tramp through the dense wood- growth up the hill now called Prospect, and from the summit of that hill, on seeing the delightful and unlooked-for view, one would then very naturally give to the hill the name it has always borne, and then looking westward, see our Georgetown hill, with its top cleared and barren of trees. Conspicuous as it must have been, encircled everywhere by forest, how naturally would the word Baldpate spring to the lips, and ever after this hill bear this peculiar name.

Besides these first attempts to get a clue to the secrets of the wilderness came eager questionings of their Newbury and Ipswich neighbors. Dummer and Spencer, of Newbury, had gone np Parker River to the falls in 1635, and had the right granted to erect a mili. Two years later the attention at Boston was turned toward "Shaweshin, to see whether or not it be a fitt place for a plantacon." This settlement was not granted, however, until 1641, and then to the town of Cambridge on certain conditions.

As soon as settlements were contemplated, there

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may have been those who were bound to know for themselves whether "Shaweshin was fitt for habita- tion," and Newbury men crossed what is now George- town. The opening of roads is always an important work in new countries. Most of the towns were summoned by the General Court, once and again, for their delinqnencies in the neglect of the high- ways.

The first roads for Rowley to attend to were with Newbury and Ipswich, and the law required highways to be opened, of six, eight and ten rods width, to avoid marsh and miry spots. Early in the year 1640 the need of accurate knowledge of their grant led to a sufficiently careful survey of the western boundary, now the Bradford and Boxford lines, to show that the eight miles in a direct line from the meeting- house in Rowley would not reach for two or more miles, the boundary line between Rowley and Cochi- tawick, that Mr. Rogers claimed he and his planta- tion were entitled to. Mr. Rogers pressed his claim for this land ," upon Merrimack, near Cochitawick," with such tenacity, that, after some hesitation, his wishes were granted, and the first step was taken for a corrected line between Rowley and Andover, that fixed the boundary quite eleven miles from the cen- tre of the village at Rowley. This action of the court was at the October session of that year.

The survey and running of the eight mile direct line from the meeting-house towards the western bounds, if carefully done, must have led directly across the central part of the tract now Georgetown.

The experience of Thomas Nelson would probably designate him for the work, and yet inaccurate, per- haps, at the best, for complaints of defects in the run- ning of town lines were constantly coming before the General Court. These defects are explained when we consider that the lines ran through forest and bog rough and untraveled. Compensation for a prior grant of five hundred and fifty acres to Governor En- dicott, and fonnd to be within the limits of the grant to Mr. Rogers, was one cause of a change of boundary, beyond the eight mile limit into the interior. Besides, the original grant of May 13, 1640, declared the bounds in the other direction to be a " cross-line diam- eter from Ipswich Ryver to Merrimack Ryver."

Had this been adhered to it would have included most of the New Meadows, now Topsfield, and per- haps also the country of the Wills-hill men, in Mid- dleton, a district which seems to have been conceded to these settlements without controversy, at an early date. Perhaps, with Endicott, they could also lay claim to prior grants. The concession of all this tract, bordering on the "Ipswich Ryver," when the boun- daries of the grant were so definitely and clearly stated, was also compensated for by this extension westward.

Most of the grants of that day, private or corporate, were loosely drawn, with but a vague and indefinite idea of the geographical situation of the locality, and

disputes in consequence were rife for a long time afterward. Salem had as its grant all the country, from Ipswich River to the sea on one side, Rowley, all be- tween this river and Merrimack on the other. In 1639 these were adjoining towns by Colonial action, but how few in Essex County realize it to-day. This Rowley territory, thus parting Ipswich and Newbury, turned both at the right and left, a few miles from the sea, effectually closing to both towns any exten- sion of growth in the interior, and doubled in area both of those towns combined. At the rapidity with which emigrants had been flocking here for years, and towns becoming incorporated at that time, such "large accommodations " were unquestionably given to the Rowley grantees, to be held in reserve for the large number who were expected to follow Mr. Rogers.

CHAPTER LI.

GEORGETOWN-(Continued).

EARLIEST LAND-GRANTS AND PIONEER SETTLEMENTS.

TWELVE years after the readjustment of the western boundary, Francis Parrot, the town clerk of Rowley, entered in the book of records, under date 1652, this town action, viz. : Thomas Mighill has granted "twenty-three Akers at the place called the pen, where young cattell were formerly kept." The land was said to adjoin Mr. Humphrey Rainers' land, per- haps not attached, but near by. This was stated, evidently to make the record clear. Also laid out "Fifteen Akers meadow commonly called Spruce meadow, and formerly in the possession of John Brocklebank."

The above is the first record on the town books, having a reference to the territory, now the town of Georgetown.

Thomas Mighill, who began at this early day, to show his intentions of making a permanent settle- ment in this part of the town, was very prominent in the affairs of the church and the town of Rowley from the beginning, and was elected deacon in De- cember, 1639. He was a man of considerable wealth for the time, had many household furnishings brought from England, of which one heavy, leather-seated chair, now owned by some of his descendants in the family of the writer, is said to be a part. Mr. Mighill in everything pertaining to the interests of the town, was active and useful. His death was un- timely, occurring March 14, 1664-65. Had he lived, he would probably have made an extensive clearing here at an early day. His will in the possession of Chas. P. Mighill, of Rowley, is an interesting docu- ment. Mr. C. P. Mighill and brother, who are direct descendants through Stephen, the youngest son of Thomas (as are all of the name or lineage in this

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vicinity), own and reside, upon the original lot on Wethersfield Street in Rowley, laid ont to Mighill in 1643, nearly two hundred and fifty years ago. An- other fact worthy of mention, is, that this lot in Georgetown at the pen land, has been in the family of the present owner, Mr. Humphrey Nelson (a lineal descendant through a great-granddaughter of Stephen), for many years. Not long after it was laid out, a part of it was fenced, and styled a field. This was done either by the first grantee, or Thomas, the eldest son. In this record, is the first mention of the herding of the young cattle on this common land. Pen Brook constantiy referred to, in the land convey- ances and allotments of the first hundred years, was the westerly bounds of one piece of meadow, laid out at this time. This is near Union Cemetery. The pasturing of the young stock in these upper commons, began, no doubt, some years before, and had become the established practice. Herdsmeu were sent to give the care necessary for the protection of the cattle and sheep. A little later, in a descriptive record, is this, 1661 : "Adjoyning vnto the sª Land at the end where the pen house stood."

There was, it is probable, good pasturage here, for while the country generally was heavily timbered, no doubt, much of the area was free from shrub growth and underbrush, the result of the fires set by the In- dians, when grasses, of course, would start up abund- antly. This firing of the weeds and valueless growth continued later on.

In the list of the charges for the town of Rowley for the year 1666, is this : " Left. Samuel Brocklebank for burning ye young cattle walk, 5 shillings." This is the first record for town labor in Georgetown.

The pen house had been moved further up. The land spoken of was sold in 1661, "to John Brockle- bank, by the men appointed to sell Land, to pay the Legacy to Ipswich Rogers," the record rather curtly says. One of the conditions of Mr. Ezekiel Roger's will was, that the church and town of Rowley, on the receipt of the bulk of his property, were to pay eight- score pounds in country pay, to his nephew, Ezekiel Rogers, of Ipswich, two years after the testator's death. Mr. Rogers died January 23, 1661, and this land was by order of the town sotd soon after. This same John Brocklebank, was the youngest son of Jane, a widow, who with her two sons, Samuel the eldest being a boy of eight, were among the original Rowley company.

The Spruce meadow may have been at what is now known as such, south of the Hilliard place on North Street, and yet it seems a question whether at that early period, any land in that locality had been en- tered.

One fact seems apparent, that the earliest move- ment for a settlement of Georgetown, was east of Pen Brook, on Mr. Humphrey Nelson's farm, and in that locality on East Main Street. The upland along the Rocky hills, with the meadows southerly, was the

first to be laid out. That extensive tract of meadow along Pen Brook to its source, had been explored at as early a date as cattle had been herded, and at some time prior to 1652, a grant was made to Elder Humphrey Rainer, of at least, most of the land from Lake Raynor for some distance down, and possibly nearly to the pen-land. All the deeds given in what is now South Georgetown as late as seventy-five years after- wards, which have as a boundary these meadows along Pen Brook, describe these pieces of meadow as the " Elder's," or "Elder Rainer" meadow. It can be safely said that this worthy member of a family, noted in the early church annals of New England, was the first landholder in South Georgetown, and probably in the town.

In describing the land laid out to Mighill, it seems to have been well understood at the time where the Rainer meadows were. It was comparatively easy to secure pasturage and protection for the farmer's herds through the summer, but with so little un- cleared land and the entire human food-supply of all dependent on the harvest from the land they had slowly and laboriously cleared, the hay from the Rainer meadows was carefully secured and carted to Rowley. The improvement of their highways began to be necessary; in 1661, says the record, of a ten acre lot of land laid out to John Brocklebank; that, " The Town hath secured a sufficient and convenient highway for driving cattle and carts, as they may have occasion to make use of it." The value of the hay from the salt marshes, tradition says was not un- derstood by the Rowley people, until a bull lost from the settlement in the autumn was canght in the spring after a winter of grazing on the marsh grasses in such fine condition, that ever after, these lands were regarded as their most valuable treasure.

The land, both upland and meadow, now owned by S. K. Herrick, has by the elderly people until lately, been called the Rainer land or meadow. The pond in Boxford, at the foot of Baldpate Hill, had the name of "Elders " in the documents of the early period, but later as " Elders, or Baldpate," finally as "Baldpate." It seems, however, like nothing more than justice to an honored name in the early history of Rowley, one who served as deputy in 1649, and especially in the fact, that he was the original owner of the lands bor- dering this brook, so noted a locality in the early history of Georgetown, to perpetnate his name here by giving this pond the permanent name of Lake Raynor. The earliest name the plain now known as " Marlborough " had, was " Elders Plain," named for this same Humphrey Rainer. It disappears as a Row- ley name early in the eighteenth century, and except to a few who make local history a study, has become unknown and as though it had never existed there. A very sad and pathetic story is revealed, where Jachin Rayner, a nephew, about the year 1700, petitions for right to convey land in the interest of a son, who as a confirmed invalid, needed support. This land thus

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

deeded was in the middle commons, at some point west of Muddy Brook. Jachin was a Rowley tanner and figures prominently for a time. Rev. John Ray- ner, a brother of Elder Humphrey, educated at Cam- bridge, England, was the second minister of Ply- mouth, Mass., dying in Dover, N. H. He and Mat- thew Boyes, of Rowley, married sisters. They were ladies from a family of distinction in England.

From a grant of land to Samuel Brocklebank of seventy-five acres in 1661, there were fifty, the record states, which was purchased of William Hobson's widow, who before marriage was Anne Rainer, a daughter of Humphrey Rainer; the balance was his own lot and land previously belonging to Matthew Boyes, who was as we have seen also connected with the Rainor family.

These records show the influence of the Rainers in the earliest times, and the intimate connection, which the family in its various branches had with the earliest history of Georgetown.

This piece of upland so early secured by Samuel Brocklebank, was situated easterly of Elm Street, ex- tending southerly nearly to South Georgetown, the locality known at a later day as Fairface plain. The record says this land was bounded on the north by a highway, where cattle nsed to go over the brook to the pen land, laid out to Thomas Mighill ; the west- erly side of the tract adjoined a highway leading to Andover; Pen Brook along the east, and extending unto Mr. H. Rainer's land. This Andover road was unquestionably at that time the way for Newbury and Rowley settlers to visit the Rowley Village (now Boxford) people, also the settlement on the Shawshin, then Andover.

Several families had already settled in Boxford ; a road by order of the General Court, had been opened from Ipswich to Andover several years before, and to connect with that along Elm Street, the earliest road opened through what is now part of Georgetown.

East Main Street, from Marlborough Village to Elm Street, was as at present. There was some change at Elm Street, the record referring to a highway now in use, and where it is to run, but probably essentially the same. Leaving Elm, this old way passed along Brook Street, crossing Central, into Chaplin's Court, and over Fairface plain to Mrs. W. M. Shutes' on Nelson Street (known years after as Fairface highway), and along Nelson Street, to the residence of Messrs. Patton and Metcalf, in Boxford. About thirty years later Thom- as Palmer, had land set off' to him, described as extending on one side, from " Elders pond to ye old high way from Andover to Newbury, on ye south side of ye bald hills; which was a continuation of this ancient road, and crossed the Patton and Met- calf farm to connect with the Ipswich and Andover road. This seventy-five acres of land of Samuel Brocklebank's, also included the present homestead of Melvin G. Spofford, upon which a house was built soon after.

The present mansion-like dwelling-house of Mr. Spofford is, in part, at least, unquestionably very an- cient, and tradition has it that some portion of the original house, probably the westerly front, is in- cluded in this.

In Humphrey Rainer, Thomas Mighill, Samuel and John Brocklebank, we have the pioneers who opened for settlement, the town of Georgetown. At about this time, the country west of the Pen Brook, including all that territory which in 1685 was incor- porated as Boxford, was known as "Village lands." Not long before, in 1649, measures had been taken for a settlement, in that part of Rowley situated on the Merrimac River. These lands became at once known as " Merrimac lands," and the division made between what was later known as the Village lands. The set- tlement had the name of "Rowley Village on the Merrimac," for a time, but in 1675, was incorporated as Bradford.

Boxford for some time had been known simply as Rowley Village, and so continued, even after it had received its corporate name. Zaccheus Gould, of Topsfield, the ancestor of all the Goulds originating in this locality, comes prominently before us in con- nection with Georgetown's early history, at a period soon after 1650. From the vast land grants which he held, it would seem as if he had something of the spirit of a land speculator and grabber. By some un- known parties he had been employed as an agent to purchase lands, and an extensive tract of not less than three thousand acres, including nearly all of George- town west of Pen Brook, was for some consideration, secured to him. Circumstances preventing its dis- posal, to the parties for whom it was intended, it was sold to Joseph Jewett, of Rowley, as a deed on record says, " for eighty od pounds." It further says, that this was "one sixt part of village land belonging to Rowley, which the sayd Gould bought of Jewett." Carelessly estimated, this evidently was the tract pre- viously named. Gould adds to the above, " As alsoe, the one half of village land, which I, the sayd Zac- cheus Gould, bought of M'. Ezekiel Rogers & Mat- thew Boyes." This was dated July 2, 1661, and Mr. Jewett had died February 26th of the same year. Jewett had doubtless been the representative of the town of Rowley, in confirming the grants of Village lands.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 213

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