History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 8

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 8

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The general aspect of Brooksby at that early time may be imagined from its present characteristics, and from what has come down from the history of that day. While a large part of the town must have been much more thickly wooded, it is plain, from the lan- guage of the early grants, that there were consider- able areas of meadow " fitt to mowe," and large ex- tents of barren hillside, swamp and pasture, such as are seen to-day. The North River was open to boats at high tide nearly or quite to the mill-pond where Captain Trask built his first mill-one of the earliest in the Commonwealth. This stream, whose shores were doubtless wooded to the edge of the upland, car- ried down a large volume of fresh water from Brooksby, and was a beautiful bit of scenery, hard to reconstruct in imagination from the muddy and foul stream of to-day, crossed and recrossed by the rail- road, and carrying the drainage of great manufac- tories. The brooks themselves were much larger than now. The stripping away of the forest about their sources, the intercepting of surface water by the streets and constructions of the town, and the use of large quantities of water for domestic and manu- facturing purposes, have combined to diminish greatly the flow of water in the ancient beds ; and if one of the early settlers were to look on the turbid streams that now flow by walled and underground channels through the town, he would find it hard indeed to re- alize that this was the beautiful Brooksby of old, with its clear and sparkling streams, green with woodland foliage to the water's edge, and surrounded at inter- vals with meadows dotted with herds of cattle. A considerable part of the woodland consisted of a heavy and valuable growth of oak timber.

A large variety of trees and plants are native to the soil, and many more have since been introduced. Two at least of the flowering plants which give character to its fields and hills were introduced by the early settlers-the woodwax or gorse, golden bright on the pasture slopes, and the chrysanthemum leucanthemum, or white weed, sometimes of late called daisy, which tradition says was brought in by Gov- ernor Endicott himself. There must, however, have been a very great similarity, at least in the outline and aspect of that part of the town which has never been occupied by dwellings, to its present appearance.

There are many interesting localities whose natural beauties are great, and which contain striking and peculiar geological formations. Ship Rock, a huge boulder in South Peabody, near the station on the South Reading Branch Railroad, is owned by the Es- sex Institute, and is surrounded by interesting marks of glacial action. There are several high hills, from whose summits are seen broad expanses of landscape and wide reaches of the sea, extending far down the northern shore of Massachusetts Bay.

EARLY SETTLERS .- It is not known where the very earliest settlement within the present limits of the town of Peabody was made. By 1633 there were some settlers in Brooksby.

Before 1635 Captain William Trask, the ancestor of the Trask family in this vicinity, received a grant of about fifty acres at the head of the North River, near the present location of the square in Peabody. Here he built his first grist-mill, at a point near where Wallis Street crosses the railroad. The mill- pond, originally of considerable extent, remained in use for some mechanical purposes until within twenty years, when it was filled and a street laid out across it. The pond collected the water of the three princi- pal brooks from which Brooksby took its name. About this mill, near the meeting of the Boston road and the road to Salem Village (now Danvers), a small vil- lage soon sprang up, several house-lots having been granted near the mill. Richard Adams had a grant of five acres in the vicinity in 1637, and William Hathorne was given a ten-acre lot near the mill about the same time. Thomas Goldthwaite is be- lieved to have settled in this vicinity.

Captain William Trask was one of the earliest settlers with Endicott. He was a man of much natural energy of character, and filled a variety of public stations. He owned several tracts of land, which he brought under cultivation, besides carrying on the mills. He was prominent as a military leader, and was the captain of the train- band from its beginning. JIis services in the Pequot War in 1636 and 1637 were rewarded with additional grants of land by the General Court, and his funeral in 1666 was observed with great military parade, and honored by the whole surrounding country. He was one of the surveyors or "layers out" of the lands granted by the town of Salem to

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settlers in the vicinity. The land included in the limits of the settlement was considered as belonging to the community as a whole, and was granted by the town or the "seven men" to whom that authority was delegated, to such persons and in such quantities as seemed to them most likely to insure the healthy growth of the settlement, the establishment of various useful trades and occupations, and the gathering of an industrious, law-abiding and God-fearing commu- nity. These grants were generally made in the first instance with only a general indication of their lo- cality, and the boundaries were then measured and defined by the " layers-out," who usually entered the record of their location soon after the first grant.

About 1640 Captain Trask built another mill about half a mile down the stream from the first, near where Grove Street now is, and soon after removed it to what is now known as Frye's Mills. On March 30, 1640, it is recorded that "Captain Trask hath leave to set up a tyde myll upon the North River, pvided he make passadge for a shalloppe from halfe flood to full sea." In October, 1640, the mill was completed, and half an acre was granted to him ad- joining it. This mill also became the centre of a settlement. In September, 1640, while this mill was building, or soon after its completion, Captain Trask received a fatherly admonition from the court "to be more carefull about his grinding & Towle takeing." Previous to 1663 Captain Trask's mills held the mo- nopoly of this business. John Trask, at one time, some complaint being made, agreed in behalf of his father with the town that they would " make as good meale as at Lin, and that when they could not supply the towne for want of water or in any other respect," then they would "provide to send it to Lin upon their own charge and have it ground there."

In 1636 Colonel Thomas Reed, one of the original company, received a grant of three hundred acres, including Buxton's Hill, formerly known as Reed's Hill, and extending to the present location of Endi- cott Street on the east, bounded southerly by the brook, and extending on the west aud north to the Ipswich road, and across the road leading to Salem Village, including the Rogers' farm. This large and valuable tract of land afterwards came into the pos- session of Daniel Epps, who was prominent in the formation of the middle precinct in 1710.

December 21, 1635, it was ordered "that Mr. Cole shall have a farme of three hundred acres in the place where his cattle are by Brooksby and Captain Trask and the rest of the surveyors are to lay it out and bound it according to their discretion, provided in case Mr. Cole be disposed to part with it by sale that he make his first profer unto the towne upon reasonable terms." This was a common condition in the early grants. On the 28th of the same month we find the more formal record after the survey had been made. "Granted nnto Robert Cole, his Heirs and Assigns three hundreth acres of land whereof

forty acres in Marshe fitt to be mowed lying and being about three miles from Salem westward upon a fresh water brook called the North brook."

This grant included Proctor's corner and a part of Felton's Hill. It was sold in 1638 to Emanuel Down- ing, and was leased and cultivated by John Procter, who settled in Salem about 1660, and who was one of the most prominent victims of the witchcraft delusion.

John Thorndike had a very early grant in the northwestern part of the town, which he soon after- ward gave up, taking land in Salem Village. He also owned land in Rockville, near Lieutenant John- son's. The land given up by him was afterwards granted to other settlers in smaller lots, of twenty, forty and fifty acres, among others to John Sanders, Henry Herrick, William Bound, Edmund Marshall, Thomas Antrum, William Walcott, Robert Cotta and Edmund Batter, mostly in 1636 and 1637.

A considerable number of these small grants lying together were purchased of the owners by Robert Goodell, and with a grant to him of forty acres made up a farm of over five hundred acres, which was laid out to him in 1652. William King had a grant of forty acres in the northern part of Peabody in 1636.

On October 9, 1637, Edmund Batter received a grant of one hundred acres of upland and twelve acres of meadow. On December 25, (it seems the " seven men " did not observe Christmas Day), a farther grant of thirty acres was made to him, and the former grant is referred to as " at Brooksby," and as having been formerly granted to Mr. Thorndike. This shows that the whole region, even the northwestern part of the farms, was called Brooksby. Mr. Batter was promi- nent among the early settlers, and owned land in the town of Salem, near North Street, at one time.

Next to Robert Goodell's land on the west was a grant made to Rev. Edward Norris January 21, 1640, which was afterward bought by Joseph Pope, in 1664. This grant gave the name to Norris' brook. It was north of Brookdale.

Mrs. Anna Ifigginson had a grant of one hundred and fifty aeres made in 1636, near the last-named grants, just south of Mr. Goodell's farm. It was sold to John Pickering in 1652, and two years later he sold it to John Woody and Thomas Flint. Some of the descendants of the latter still reside in the vi- cinity.

The farm of Job Swinerton, acquired partly by va- rious grants from 1637 on, and partly by purchase, lay partly in the extreme northwestern part of the present town. Some of his descendants, of the same name, have continued to live in the vicinity.

Captain Samuel Gardner's farm was just west of Mr. Norris' grant, toward the extreme boundary of the town.

John Humphrey, one of the original grantees un- der the first charter, and a man of considerable im- portance in the early colony, received at various times from 1632 to 1658 grants of land, chiefly from

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the General Court, amounting to fifteen hundred acres, of which five hundred lay in Salem, about the pond which hears his name, sometimes called Sun- taug Lake. In May, 1635, he received a grant from the General Court of "500 acres of land and a freshe pond, with a little ileland conteyning about two acres." This island was so highly esteemed as a place of security in case of attack by Indians that the right was reserved for the inhabitants of Salem and Saugus (now Lynn) to build store-houses on it " for their vse in tyme of neede." Block-houses were erected there in 1676, but there is no record of any fighting there. The grant of this pond to John Humphrey is believed to be the only specific grant of a " great pond," that is, a pond over forty acres in ex- tent, before the colonial ordinances of 1640 and '47, which made all such ponds free fisheries for the pub- lic, with right of access over the lands of those bor- dering on the water; and this pond is therefore the only great pond in the State in which fishing is not free to the public. The town of Lynnfield has, in recent years, acquired a small piece of land on the margin of the pond, whereby its inhabitants have the right to fish in it.

Mr. ITumphrey was one of the justices of the Quar- ter Court, and was prominent in town and colony af- fairs. In 1642 a considerable part of his lands were sold on execution to Robert Saltonstall.

Near Mr. Humphrey's grant was William Clarke's farm, from whom Clark's Hill was probably named. April 17, 1637, it was " Agreed that Mr. Clarke shall have two hundred acres by Seder Pond, not exceed- ing twenty acres of meadow, to be laid out according to the discretion of the layers out." In 1642 a far- ther grant was made to William Clarke of sixty acres "South of Mr. Downing's greate medow towards Mr. Johnson's land." Clarke's land was near John Marsh's farm.

Joshua Verryn had a grant of one hundred and sixty-five acres in 1637, " next to Mr. Clarke's on the North side, laying down his former." The Very fam- ily is supposed to be descended from the Verryns.

Lieutenant Francis Johnson had a grant of two hundred acres in January, 1635-36, in Brooksby, in the region of King's Hill. The farm was described by the layers-out as bounded by Mr. Thorndike on the north side and the common on the other. "The farm is on the North side of the River Brooksbie" (evidently Goldthwaite's Brook), "about two miles from Salem westerly." This grant was relinquished by Lieutenant Johnson a few months afterward, at the same time at which Mr. Thorndike relinquished his grant. Mr. Thorndike settled in Salem Village ; a new grant of the same extent was made to Lieuten- ant Johnson, in what is now South Peabody, includ- ing the crossing of the Lynnfield and Ipswich roads, and lying on both sides of Goldthwaite's Brook. This locality was known for many years as Johnson's Plain. The order for this new grant declared that

Mr. Johnson " shall have six acres of Meadow ground and fourteen acres of other ground at Brooksby afore- said, where his cow house now is, and nyne score acres more nere the Cedar Pond above a mile distant from it."

This part of Brooksby is referred to as early as 1635 as "The Rocks." This name has clung to the local- ity till very recently, and later the village which grew up in the southern part of Peabody was called Rock- ville.

In the same part of the town a grant was made in 1646 to Zacheus Cortis, who also bought land of Joshua Verryn. Cortis was a man of valor, for it is recorded that he was furnished with one of the few much prized steel corslets belonging to the town of Salem, "in good repayre."

Robert Moulton's grant, the boundaries of which are somewhat difficult to ascertain, lay to the north of Humphrey's farm, somewhere in the vicinity of the Newburyport turnpike. Moulton was a promi- nent citizen of the town; he was foreman of a jury in 1636, and his name appears in connection with various town affairs.

John Brown, Sr., had a grant of fifty acres, in 1673, near Humphrey's farm and Robert Moulton's, in the vicinity of Walden's Hill. It is stated by Hanson that Hugh, Samuel and Christopher Brown also set- tled in Brooksby.

Richard Bartholomew received a grant in January, 1637-38, near the beautiful pond which still bears his name.

Capt. William Trask had two grants of land in South Peabody, one of which, near Spring Pond, he sold in 1656 for a cow worth £5. The brook running from Spring Pond to Goldthwaite's Brook was then called " But Brook," .and there were early settlements near where it crossed the Boston road.

Following the Boston road toward the main village of Salem, several early settlers located themselves, among them William Lord and Thomas Gardiner. Near the southerly boundary of the farms were lands granted to Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, the latter name famous because of the persecutions which she suffered as a Quaker. Lawrence Southwick and Ananias Concklin were "glassemen," and it was hoped to foster this industry, whose works were situated in the vicinity of Aborn Street. William Osborne and William Wood were also granted house lots and small lots of land " lying nere Strong Water Brook or Mile End Brook."

John Pickering, though residing in the town proper, owned land in the farms, including a lot near Brown's Pond. Lieut. Richard Davenport, who lived in Salem near North Street, and also at the village, owned land near Brooksby, among other parcels being " 2 acres or thereabout lying on the west side of the but brooke not far from the place that the way goeth over to Lin," Lieut. Davenport was a famous soldier of the carly colony, and was concerned with Endicott

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in cutting out the cross from the king's colors. John Marsh had a grant of twenty acres near one of Lieut. Davenport's grants.

John and Anthony Buxton also had early grants, and there are many whose lands it is not now easy to locate who settled in the middle precinct, and many settlers who obtained their lands by purchase, and whose names do not appear in the book of grants. The Flints, Popes, Uptons and Needhams had valua- ble farms; the Proctors removed here from Ipswich in 1660, the Pooles from Cambridge in 1690, the Fos- ters from Boxford, the Suttons from Rowley, the Jacobses in 1700, the Poors in 1770, and the Prestons, Shillabers and other prominent families came in at different periods. A part of the farm of George Jacobs lay in Peabody.

The early settlers were picked men. They re- ceived grants of land by reason of their supposed fit- ness to build up the prosperity of the settlement, and they were mostly eminent for their piety as well as for the qualities which make the enterprising and successful pioneer. Mr. Upham bas preserved a curious document, which illustrates the rigid observ- ance of Sunday restrictions, and indicates some of the men upon whom the community depended for the ex- eention of its laws.

"At a general Town meeting, held the 7th day of the 5th month, 1644, ordered that two be appointed every Lord's Day, to walk forth in the time of God's worship, to take notice of such as either lye about the meeting-house, without attending to the word and ordinances, or that lye at home or in the fields without giving good account thereof, and to take the names of such persons, and to present them to the magistrates, whereby they may be accordingly proceeded against. The names of such as are ordered to this service are for the 1st day, Mr. Stileman and Pbilip Veren, Jr. 24 day, Philip Veren, Sr., and Hilliard Veren. 34 day, Mr. Batter and Joshua Veren. 4th day, Mr. Johnson and Mr. ('lark. 5th day, Mr. Downing and Robert Molton, Sr. 6th day, Robert Molton, Jr., and Richard Ingersol. 7th day, Jolin Ingersol and Richard Pettingell. 8th day, William Haynes and Richard Hutchinson. 9th day, John Put- nam and John Hathorne. 10th day, Townsend Bishop and Daniel Rea. 11th day, John Porter and Jacob Barney."

The design of the plan, as Mr. Upham remarks, was not merely that expressed in the vote of the town, but also to prevent any disorderly conduct on the Lord's day, and to give prompt alarm in case of fire or Indian attack. The men appointed to this service were all leading characters, and we find among them six, at least, of the early settlers of Brooksby.

CHAPTER LXVI.

PEABODY (Continued).

Development of Settlement before 1700- Witchcraft in the Middle Precinct.

THE history of this locality during the seventeenth century is written with that of Salem, Its inhabi- tants were simply outlying citizens of the town of Salem, and they belonged to the First Church, except some who were included in the village parish when

it was set off in 1672, for the line of the middle pre- cinct does not exactly coincide with that of the town of Peabody, the latter including a small part of the territory of Salem Village. The dividing line be- tween the village and the middle precinct was origi- nally a line running almost due west from Endicott or Cow-house River to the Lynn line; but when the division was made between North and South Dan- vers, in 1856, the line was carried from the Endicott River northwesterly, to the sharp bend cf the 1ps- wich River, a mile or more north of the old boun- dary at that point.

The military organizations engaged in the various early wars with the Indians were recruited indiffer- ently from the various parts of the town, and some of the most famous officers lived at the Farms.

Captain William Trask and his company were prom- inent in the Pequot War in 1636 and 1637. The three commissioned officers of the company required to be raised in Salem for the Block Island Expedition, in 1636, lived in the middle precinct, or were land- holders there,-Trask, Davenport and Read. Some of the men of Brooksby were with Captain Lothrop at Bloody Brook, in 1675, and among the names of those who fell on that disastrous day are those of Edward Trask, Joseph King and Robert Wilson. The Salem Company, under the lead of Captain Na- thaniel Davenport, a son of Richard, were in the thick of the terrible hand to hand fight with the forces of King Philip, when the Indian fort was stormed at sundown of a winter's day; and were with the foremost in the pursuit of the escaping In- dians through the wilderness, known to tradition as the hungry march. When it is remembered that the forces and even the officers of that memorable ex- pedition were drafted hastily for the service, and that many of them left home without even time to arrange their private affairs, the heroic bravery of the Narragansett fight will bear comparison with any deeds of military prowess that history has recorded. The Puritans of New England fought as did the army of Cromwell, with no fear of death, and with the inspiration which came from their firm belief in the Divine protection.

A company of troopers was early formed, made up from the farmers and neighboring settlements. The ranks became thinned in course of time, and in Oc- tober, 1678, a successful attempt was made to revive the company. Thirty-six men belonging to " the re- serve of Salem old troop," and " desirous of being serviceable to God and the country," petitioned the General Court for reorganization as a troop of horse, and for the issuing of the necessary commissions. Among the signers of this petition are Anthony Needham, Peter and Ezekiel Cheever, Thomas Flint, Jolın Procter, William Osborne, and others of the region afterward incorporated into the middle pre- einet. The officers appointed were men of property and energy, and the company of troops was kept in

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

efficient training until all danger from Indians or other foes had passed away. The William Osborne here mentioned is not the early settler, who acquired land in 1638, and is not known to be a descendant, but probably collaterally related. The earlier Wil- liam Osborne is believed to have spent his later years in Boston, and died about 1662. The William Osborne whose name appears on the petition just spoken of, was born about 1644, and from him are descended most of the various families of Osbornes in the vicinity of Salem, Peabody and Danvers. The descendants of the earlier William are found in Con- necticut and Long Island.

The second William Osborne, and his son, the third William, lived on the road to the Village, in "the lane," now Central Street, near Andover Street. An old house, built in 1680 and said by tradition to have belonged to one of them, was taken down in 1887.

In all the duties of citizenship the farmers appear to have been prominent ; and citizenship was then re- garded as a most serious and important allegiance,.re- quiring the most faithful exercise of duty. The oath of a freeman, which was required to be taken by those seeking to share in the social and political privileges of the settlement, is full of the most strik- ing suggestions of the clear and vigorous political views held by the founders.

" Moreover, I doe solemnly binde myselfe, in the sight of God, that when I shall be caled to give my voyce touching any such matter of this state in which ffreemen are to deale, I will give my vote and suffrage as I shall judge in my own conscience may best conduce & tend to the publique weale of ye body without respect of persons or favour of any man. So help me God in the Lord Jesus Christ."

The policy which permitted every one who had a town lot of half an acre to relinquish it, and receive in its stead a country lot, of fifty acres or more, had the result of attracting to the forests and meadows of the Farms a population of a superior order. Men of property, education and high social position took the lead in developing the resources of the country, and they gave character to the farming interest and class. This process of selection is undoubtedly the source of the high character for industry, intelligence and energy, which has distinguished the descendants of these early settlers of the outlying lands of Salem.

Of the social life of the middle of the seventeenth century in the farming district of Brooksby we know little, except what we learn from the annals of life in Salem in those early days, and from the light thrown upon the time by the exhaustive inves- tigations which have been made into the history of the following 'period of the witcheraft delusion. We know that their labors were severe and nnremit ting, and their social relaxations infrequent and care- fully guarded against excess. The vigorous style of English merrymaking, though put down with an

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 8

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