History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 46

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 46

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1153

ESSEX.

CHAPTER XCII.

ESSEX.

BY JOHN PRINCE.

Introductory -First English Residents ( White, Bradstreet and Cogswell)- The Other and Earlier Settlers-Originul Land-holder-An Early In- habitant of Essex-Indian Cunning-Musconomo's Earliest Interview with the Elder Winthrop-Further English Settlers.

ALTHOUGH classed among the smaller towns of the county, this place may nevertheless take rank in historical interest and significance with some of the larger towns, and also with some of the cities.

Its ecclesiastical annals, its military record, and its progressive industrial development, furnish conspieu- ons examples of courageous resistance to the en- croachments of prerogative in eivil administration ; of the sturdy, unyielding maintenance of the functions and independence of the separate parish and church organizations, which at an early and formative period materially helped to save New England Con- gregationalism from degenerating into virtual prelacy ; of patriotic devotion to the common weal, unheedful of deprivation, exposure and personal danger, through all the alternating seasons of temporary triumph and disheartening defeat, in the different wars ; and of pa- tient endurance in manly toil, and of advancement in constructive skill, which in so many instances have secured worldly competence, and nurtured the stead- fastness and reliability of character which are among the elements of the strength and prosperity of the nation.

Our people have been enabled to afford their sons the facilities for classical training and culture, which will readily recall some brilliant illustra- tions in mature scholarship and in legal and forensie ability.

From among the natives of this place have em- anated two judges of the Court of Common Pleas, one of them of the colonial period; four judges of the Court of Sessions, one of them the chief justice; three judges of Probate, one of them of the colonial time ; two college professors, besides one other of much dis- tinction, who, though born in another part of the county, was the son of a native of Chebacco, of high repute as a physician, and for some time a surgeon in the Revolutionary army ; six commissioned officers in the French and English War; seven commissioned officers in the Revolution, four of them of distinction ; thirteen clergymen, nine of them college graduates, two of them doetors of divinity, and one a presiding elder; fourteen physicians, all regular graduates in medieine and surgery; eight members of the legal profession ; two delegates to the State Constitutional Convention of 1780 ; two delegates to the State Con- vention of 1788, which ratified the Constitution of the United States; one delegate to the State Constitu-

tional Convention of 1820; three State Senators, and one Senator of the United States.

A native citizen, who commanded a regiment at the siege of Louisburg, was a member of the colonial House of Representatives (sometimes called deputies) for fifteen years, and at one session was chosen Speaker of that hody, but the Governor, actuated by politieal hostility, negatived the election in the exercise of a power then vested in the executive. Afterwards, under the administration of another in- eumbent, this citizen was elected for six consecutive years a member of the Governor's Council. Of the native members of the colonial Legislature from the first settlement, a full enumeration is not here at- tempted.

One native clergyman, a graduate of Harvard Col- lege, oficiated a few years as chaplain at a garrison during the wars with the Indians.

Of the earlier resident clergymen not natives, one of whom was pastor here for forty-five years, and another for more than half a century, four were army chaplains, three of them serving as such in two wars -one in King Philip's war and in an expedition against Quebec, and two in the war between the Eng- lish and French and in the American Revolution. Two of the present pastors of churches in the town were army chaplains during the late Civil War.

FIRST ENGLISH RESIDENTS-WHITE, BRADSTREET AND COGSWELL .- Dr. Crowell, in his history of Essex, designates 1634 as the date of the beginning of the settlement of this place. He states that in that year, " William White'and Goodman Bradstreet removed toward Chebacco River." He then says: " History gives us no account of these two families." But whether these data were given on the authority of tradition or of some brief entry in the town records of Ipswich, is not mentioned.

Two different persons, each named William White, are alluded to in those records as immigrants to Ipswich, but no particulars are stated as to their first abiding place. Reference is likewise made to two families of the name of Bradstreet. One of them was the family of Simon, afterwards Governor Brad- street. He " possessed a planting-lot in High Street," in Ipswich town, in 1638, and "seven acres on the hill on the north side of the river," in 1647. Before 1658, he had removed with his family to Andover. There is no reason to believe that he was ever at any time a resident of Chebaeco. Of the other Brad- street, some personal details will be found further along in these pages.

A William White came from England, in the ship Mary-and-John, in 1634, and, as is recorded of him, " first sat down at Ipswich." Ile removed to New- bury, in 1635, with several of his fellow passengers, among them Rev. Thomas Parker, Nicholas Noyes, (ancestor of Rev. Nicholas Noyes, of Salem, so active and bitter in the witchcraft trials of 1692), Henry Sewall, William White, William Moody and Richard

724

1154

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY. MASSACHUSETTS.

Kent. They lent thus early to begin' a new settle- ment, the tieheral Court having in that year or- dereI the bounds of Ipswich and Quaseacunquen Newbury to be laid out. From Newbury, William White removed to Pentucket, now Haverhill; of which place, with the latter name, he was one of the · riginal founders, his signature being appended to the deed of conveyance, as a witness to the signa- thres, by mark, of the Indians, Passagus and Sagga- hew who sold the land to the English settlers in 1642.

It is not impossible that he may have been the identical William White, the early immigrant to Chebacco, tarrying there but a short time. He had one son, John White, who died in 1668, at the age of twenty-nine, leaving a son John, who had fourteen children, of whose numerous posterity many are still living in various parts of the country, some of them very distinguished people. He married, as his second wife, in 1682, widow Sarah Foster, of Ipswich, step- mother of Reginald Foster, Jr., of Chebacco. Ile died in Hlaverbill, in 1690, at the age of eighty years.

The eminence in Essex known as White's Hill, is supposed to have been originally so called, from ts having been at some time owned by a resident of that name, but whether an carly or later resident is not facheated by any record.

In 1647, a William White sold to Ralph Dix, of Ipswich, a farm at Chebaceo containing two hundred acres ; and in 1691, Thomas White sold to William Goodhue, Jr., eighty-two acres, comprising house, or- charl, plowing and pasture adjoining Mr. Cogswell's farm probably the present Marshall farm, in the nogle of the road on Northern Avenue. But whether Thomas White himself or a tenant had occupied the premises at the time of the sale, does not appear.

In immigrant named Humphrey Bradstreet came in the ship Elizabeth, from Ipswich, in England, in 1634, with his wife Bridget and four children, one won and three daughters,-John, Hannah, Martha and Mary; and there were subsequently born to , owned in the family for two or three generations.

tu br in this country, three more-a son and two daneliters Moses, Sarah, and Rebecca. This Ium- phrey was, I am satisfied, the Goodman Bradstreet who was che uf the first two settlers mentioned.

Humphrey Bradstreet was made freeman, May 6, le,, and was thereafter entitled to he called Mr. I'retours he was of course, terned Goodman. He Was prolon te ly the Bradstreet who came to Che- De . sci, Med dling to the Ipswich records, had a Non . LA grauted to hint, not long after his arrival, the preced lecity of which, however, is not men- Ten years afterwards, he had another house- kterofellen white was in the central or western For of ly with anl st lbVoor he owned n farm. mos ponty annexed to Rowley ; in Well Sitter por she died 0 1665, leaving several D won, Vioss become a Physician.

The John Bradstreet, of Rowley, of whom it is mentioned in Winthrop's Journal, that he was whip- ped for having "familiarity with the Devil," was one of this Humphrey's sons. He was accused of having bewitched a dog, and the dog was hung as a witch. The witnesses against him were Francis Parat and wife, of Rowley, and William Bartholomew, of Ipswich ; who testified that he told them that he had read in a book of magic, and that he heard a voice asking what work he had for him; and the voice answered, "Go make a bridge of sand over the sea; go make a ladder of sand up to heaven, and go to God and come down no more." It is supposed that Bradstreet had related to the-e witnesses what he had heard in a dream ; and yet, upon that testimony, principally, he was held on a charge of witchcraft, and, according to Winthrop, publicly whipped.

Felt mentions that in 1652, for the same alleged offence " familiarity with the Devil," a person was sentenced at the court in Ipswich, to pay a fine of twenty shillings or be whipped ; but he does not give the name of the culprit. He may have been the John Bradstreet referred to, and perhaps he chose to have the " charge " "scored " upon his back, rather than to pay cash down as a fine. But, alas! what a degradation, not only to him, but to his silly and cre- dulous accusers and the barbarously deluded jury or magistrate.

John Cogswell, an ancestor of Ralph Waldo Emer- son, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and many other distin- guished persons, came from England in the year 1635, and early in 1636 settled in that part of Ipswich which is now the town of Essex. He at first resided for a short time in the central part of Ipswich, upon a grant of land of eight acres, which comprised what was afterwards the site of the Ipswich court-house. In Chebaceo he had a grant of three hundred acres.

He was a native of Westbury, Wilts County, Eng. land, and had been an extensive manufacturer of broadcloths and other woolen fabrics, having inherit- ed mills and other valuable property which had been

With his wife and seven children he sailed June +, 1635, from Bristol, England, in the ship Angel Ga- briel, on which he had embarked May 23d. Winds delayed the vessel, which touched at Milford Haven, in Wales, sailing finally from that port, June 22d. Arriving off the coast of Maine in August, she was cast away in a storm, at Pemaquid,-Mr. Cogswell and other voyagers, among them Captain Andrews, commander of the vessel, and his three nephews, John, Thomas and Robert Burnham, losing valuable personal property, though escaping with their lives.

The Angel Gabriel was of two hundred and forty tons burthen, and carried fourteen guns, of what cali- bre is not stated. She was strongly built, but a slow sailer. It is said that the famous Sir Walter Raleigh sailed in her, on two voyages from England to Sonth America. She was of the quaint model and rig of

1155

ESSEX.

the time of Elizabeth and James I, and would have made a grotesque appearance by the side of one of our modern vessels.

Of the residence here of Mr. Cogswell's predeces- sors, White and Bradstreet, already mentioned, little is definitely known beyond the tradition that they had been the only white inhabitants of the place previous to his arrival. The precise localities of their original dwelling-houses cannot now be determined with certainty, and there are no descendants from them now living in Essex, at least none bearing either of their surnames.

John Cogswell died in 1669, at the age of seventy- seven. His daughter Hannah had married Corne- lius Waldo, and from them descended Ralph Waldo Emerson, the sage of Concord.

THE OTHER AND EARLIER SETTLERS .- The first occupants of this region of whom we have any account, either oral or written, were, of course, those swarthy or bronze-complexioned people, who occasionally im- proved their appearance, as they thought, but horri- bly disfigured themselves, as we think, by grotesquely painting or staining their faces. They lived in huts called wigwams, and subsisted upon corn and by hunting and fishing, and dressed themselves princi- pally in the skins of wild beasts.

If any of their descendants survive, they might trace their genealogy to a source as aristocratic as that of any other people on the globe, for they were not in any sense democratic, but were monarchists in their ideas of government, and believers in the dis- tinctions of caste.

ORIGINAL LAND HOLDER .- An Indian chief named Masconomo, sometimes written Masconomet, who was called the Sagamore of Agawam, claimed the ownership of the land of this entire township. In the year 1638 he sold his right, or " fee," in the soil of Ipswich to John Winthrop, Jr., son of Governor Winthrop, for twenty pounds, which would be the equivalent of about one hundred dollars, as pounds are now reckoned.

AN EARLY INHABITANT OF ESSEX .- The words which I have italicized in his deed of conveyance, which is as follows, indicate that he was a resident of that portion of the territory of Ipswich called Che- bacco. The town of Essex can therefore claim, upon the most indubitable record-evidence, that he was one of its primitive inhabitants, as well as its origi- nal proprietor.

BLASCONOMO'S DEED.

" I Masconomet, Sagamore of Agawam, do by these presents acknowl- edge to have received of Mr. John Winthrop the sum of £20, io full sat- isfaction of all the right, property & claim I have, or ought to have, unto all the land lying & bring in the Bay of Agawam, alias Ipswich, being so called now by the English, as well as such land as I formerly re- served unto my own use at Chebacco, as also all other land, belonging to me in these parts, Mr. Dummer's farm excepted only ; and I horehy re- linquish all the right and interest I have unto all the havens, rivers, creeks, islands, buntings and fisheries ; with all the woods, swamps, timber, and whatever else is, or may he, in, or npon the said ground be- longing : and I do hereby acknowledge to have received full satisfaction from the said John Winthrop for all former agreements, touching the

premises & parts of them : and I do hereby bind myself to make good the aforesaid bargain and sale unto the said Jolin Winthrop, his heirs and assigns forever, and to secure him against the title and claim of all other Indians and natives whatsoever. Witness my hand, 28th of June, 1638.

Mascomomet his X mark.

" Witness hereunto, John Joyliff, James Downing, Thomas Catyti- more, Robert Harding."

INDIAN CUNNING .- This Indian Sagamore, Mas- conomo (or Masconomet, as the name is here signed), and his associate sagamores, seem to have taken a utilitarian and politie view of religious subjects gen- erally, and especially of the distinctive theological tenets of the Euglish settlers.

Masconomo and four other chiefs or sagamores, for the sake of being defended against their enemies, the Tarratines, and other hostile tribes, placed them- selves under the protection of the government of Mass- achusetts, and agreed to obey its laws and receive in- strnetion in the Christian religion.

The questions propounded to them by the govern- ment authorities were nine in number.

The answers to two of them evince the wary, cau- tious instinct of the Indian, and his disinclination to commit himself too strongly upon points of doctrine. They show that he viewed such subjects mainly from the practical standpoint of his own personal self-in- terest :

" Question Ist .- Will you worship the only true God, who made heav- en and earth, and not blaspheme ?"

14 Answer .- We do desire to reverence the God of the English and to speak well of Him, hecause we see He doth better to the English thao other gods do to others."

" Question 3d .- Will you refrain from working on the Sabbath, espe- cially within the bonuds of Christian towas ? "

" Ansioer .- It is easy to ns, -we have not much to do on any day, and we can well rest on that day."

These replies could hardly be excelled by any civ- ilized adept in adroit evasiveness.

MASCONOMO'S EARLIEST INTERVIEW WITH THE ELDER WINTHROP .- John Winthrop, Sr., in his journal, under date of June 13, 1630, while the ship " Arbella," in which he was a passenger, lay at an- chor off Salem, near Beverly shore, which he called "the land of Cape Ann," has this entry :

" Lord's day, 13. " In the morning, the sagamore of Agawamand one of his men came aboard our ship and staid with us all day."

On the previous day, Saturday, the 12th, Winthrop had landed at Salem, but at night returned to the ship.

The acquaintance between him and Masconomo, originating at that time, may have been one of the circumstances which led to the subsequent settlement at Ipswich, by John Winthrop, Jr., the Governor's son, and his ultimate purchase of the territory of Agawam from that Indian chief.

FURTHER ENGLISH SETTLERS .- Several other im- migrants became residents of this place not long after Mr. Cogswell took up his abode here, but the dates of their arrival can be now only approximately known.

1156

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

In the town records of Ipswich, for the year 1648, pears by the following extract from the Ipswich town records.

there is a l'st of phe hundred and sixty-one persons whoop scrit of the sunis severally set against their " December 29th, 1634. It is consented unto that John Perkins, jun- ior, shall build a ware [fish-trap] upon the river of Quasyeung, [now Parker river, Newbury and enjoy the profitts of it, but in case a planta- tion shall there settle, then he is to submit himself unto such conditions as shall by them be imposed." não5, as an annual contribution to a fund for ex- pas - of mil tary instruction, to be paid to Major Dennen "so long as he shall be their leader." Light of this number were at that time undoubtedly resulenty of Chebacco, viz .: John Burnham, . ; Thomas Buribem, 3x. ; William Cogswell, 4x. ; John Choate, fx .: Robert Crosse, 4s .; William Goodhue, " then positively determined, Some claimed that the 3×. ; Thomas Low, 2x. ; William Story, 2x. Probably the following, in the same list, were also inhabitants of this place at that time : John Andrews, Jr., 3x .; John Perkins, Jr., 5s.

More persons if the name of Burnham than those of any other family surname, have inhabited the place from a very early period ; and they have all de- seended from the eller two of the three Burnham buys or youths, who were brothers, and who came from Norwich, England, in 1635, the first two men- tioned, John and Thomas, settling here, and the youngest, Robert, residing in Chebaeco about nine years, then at the age of twenty removing to Boston, where he was married to Frances Hill, and after ten years' residence there removing, in the year 1654, to Dover, N. IL., where he settled and left numerous de- scendants. He died, however, at the residence of his brother Thomas in Chebaeco, June 13, 169], at the age of sixty -- even. His will, or an abstract of it, is on file with the court records in Salem.

CHAPTER XCIHI.

ESSEX Continued .

una as the First Settlement to the Present Time-Im- 1

ja ful F ly Made emrs-Fsex Masters of the The I File of Masconomo.

FARMING. The tilling of the soil was, of neces- "its, the first industrial pursuit of the majority of the early residents of this, as of the other New Eng- Und - trememos generally.

A MINo was their next occupation, as they drew their dEs tener in part from the rivers and the sea ; und this they were not long content to pursue merely ox the @ of single hooks and lines. So we find that a oni moprelu ove and expedoious method of Wiwo &ch war adoptat at an carly date, as ap-

Hel fre man at Best in April 1.

The northern boundary of Agawam, or Ipswich, which had been purchased of Masconomo, was not territory extended as far as Parker River. In a year or two from this time, a settlement was begun at a place called Quascacunquen, now Newbury. The General Court, in 1635, ordered that the bounds of Ipswich and (¿nascacunquen be definitely laid out ; and in the same year William White, who came from England in 1634, and, according to the records, lived for a short time at Ipswich, removed northward, in company with Rev. Thomas Parker, Nicholas Noyes, Henry Sewall, William Moody and Richard Kent, and settled what is now the town of Newbury. In- stead of the Indian cognomen the name of Parker was given to the river, in compliment to the clergyman of the new settlement.

John Perkins, Jr., surrendered his privilege upon that river, in accordance with the terms on which it was originally given, said river being no longer a hy- pothetical boundary of Ipswich, and the new settlers claiming the control of the stream, as within the limits of their grant.

Mr. Perkins, in 1636, was granted the right to build another ware, and also "5 and 40 acres of ground lying beyond Chebaeco river, right agajust the Ware, bounded by the river on the northwest and by a swamp on the southeast." There was liberty granted to build a ware " which he hath built and is to enjoy the profits for 7 years, beginning 1636, for the which he is to sell alewives he there has taken at 5s. per 1000, according to his agreement with the town ex- pressed in the town book."

It is recorded later that the "5 and 40 acres and the wares the said John Perkins hath sold to Mr. John Cogswell, his heirs and assigns."

John Perkins, Jr., was manifestly a stirring, enter- prising inhabitant.

The records of Ipswich still further say : "John Perkins, Ir., is possessed of an Island having on the south the Chebacco river, on the north an arm of the same running between the said Island and another Island, called llog Island, bounded east by Chebacco Bay, west by a meeting of many brooks coming out of the marshes."

Precisely when fishing began to be carried on in boats either upon the river or on the ocean, cannot now be known, but it was probably at an early period -as early, perhaps, as the building, in this place, of the first boat ; though exactly when that was nobody can tell.

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ESSEX.

In 1721 three men from Chebacco, Gifford 1 Cogs- well, Jacob Perkins and James Smith bought of John Babson, of Sandy Bay, twenty-seven acres of land at Straitsmouth. The land had originally been granted to Babson, who was the earliest settler in that region, "to sett up fishing upon."

Hon. John J. Babson, one of his descendants, says of the purchasers : "These were probably the Che- baeco fishermen, concerning whose visits to the Cape tradition yet preserves remembrance, though it is said that fishermen from that place were aceustomed, at an early date, to frequent the shores of the Cape for the purpose of landing and drying their fish. One circumstance keeps alive the memory of Babson and the Chebacco fishermen. The former, or some mem- ber of the family, was attacked one day by a bear, and, after a terrible struggle with his antagonist, succeeded in slaying him with a knife. He then fiayed the animal, and spread out his skin to dry upon the rocks near the sea, at the end of a neck of land where it was seen by the fishermen, who gave the place the name of Bearskin Neck." 2

The Chebaeco men, after occupying the land for fishing purposes for about twenty years, sold it to Joshua Norwood, who settled upon it with his family. IFis wife was Elizabeth Andrews, daughter of Ensign William Andrews, of Chebacco.

Codfish .- At one time there were fourteen vessels, owned in Essex, employed in the cod-fishery, though not one is now fitted out from this place for that business.

Shell Fish .- The digging of clams, for bait and for food, has for a long time been a source of considera- ble ineome to a portion of the inhabitants of this place.

As early as the year 1763, the commoners of the town of Ipswich issued a regulation that no more elams should be taken from the flats than might be neces- sary for the use of the people of the town, and for supplying vessels engaged in fishing. The stipulated allowance was at the rate of one barrel for each of a crew to the Newfoundland banks, and a proportion- ably less quantity to boats in the bay, which made shorter trips.

The prices obtained have increased somewhat within a half century, dressed elams, so-called-that is, the clams taken from the shell-bringing, in 1837, from two dollars and fifty cents to three dollars per barrel, exclusive of the cost of barrel and salt ; while during the year from February 15, 1886, to February 15, 1887, the net price realized was upwards

of four dollars. The aggregate amount of sales from Essex during the last named period was twelve thous- and eight hundred dollars.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 46

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1672

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672