USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Lynnfield > History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant, 1629-1864 > Part 36
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Swampscott > History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant, 1629-1864 > Part 36
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Lynn > History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant, 1629-1864 > Part 36
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Saugus > History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant, 1629-1864 > Part 36
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Nahant > History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant, 1629-1864 > Part 36
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On the 7th of October, a congress of delegates from the several towns of Massachusetts, assembled at Salem, to consider the state of affairs. The delegates from Lynn were Ebenezer Burrill, Esq., and Capt. John Mansfield. They made addresses to Governor Gage, and to the clergy of the province, chose a committee of safety, and recommended measures for the regula- tion of the public conduct. [Governor Gage, in fact, called this assembly, as a regular General Court, though he afterward rescinded his call. But they convened, and presently resolved themselves into what was essentially a provincial congress.]
The night of October 25th was one of surpassing splendor. The northern lights cast a luminous night arch across the hea- vens, from the eastern to the western horizon.
1775.
On the morning of Wednesday, the 19th of April, the inhabit- ants of Lynn were awakened, by the information that a detach- ment of about eight hundred troops, had left Boston, in the night, and were proceeding toward Concord. On receiving the intelligence that the troops had left Boston, many of the inhabtants of Lynn immediately set out, without waiting to be organized, and with such weapons as they could most readily procure. One man, with whom I was acquainted, had no other equipments than a long fowling-piece, without a bayonet, a horn of powder, and a seal-skin pouch, filled with bullets and buck shot. The English troops arrived at Lexington, a little before five in the morning, where they fired upon the inhabitants, assembled in arms before the meeting-house, and killed eight men. They then proceeded to Concord, where they destroyed some military stores; but being opposed by the militia, they soon began to retreat. The people from Lynn met them at Lexington, on their return, and joined in firing at them from the walls and fences. In one instance, says my informant, an Eng- lish soldier coming out of a house, was met by the owner.
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They leveled their pieces at each other, and firing at the same instant, both fell dead. The English had sixty-five men killed, the Americans fifty. Among these were four men from Lynn, who fell in Lexington.
1. Mr. Abednego Ramsdell. He was a son of Noah Ramsdell, and was born 11 September, 1750. He had two brothers, older than himself, whose names were Shadrach and Meshech. He married Hannah Woodbury, 11 March, 1774, and resided in the eastern part of Essex street. He had gone out early on that morning to the sea shore, with his gun, and had killed a couple of black ducks, and was returning with them, when he heard the alarm. He immediately threw down the birds, and set off. He was seen passing through the town, running in haste, with his stockings fallen over his shoes. He arrived at Lexington about the middle of the day, and fell immediately.
2. Mr. William Flint. He married Sarah Larrabee, 5 June, 1770.
3. Mr. Thomas Hadley. His wife, Rebecca, was drowned, at Lynnfield, in the stream above the mill pond, into which she probably fell, in attempting to cross it, on the 9th of January, 1771. She had left her house to visit an acquaintance, and not returning, was searched for. On the 26th her body was found.
4. Mr. Daniel Townsend. He was born 26 December, 1738. A stone has been erected to his memory, at Lynnfield, with the following inscription.
Lie, valiant Townsend, in the peaceful shades; we trust,
Immortal honors mingle with thy dust.
What though thy body struggled in its gore ?
So did thy Saviour's body, long before ;
And as he raised his own, by power divine,
So the same power shall also quicken thine, And in eternal glory mayst thou shine.
[He left a wife and five young children. The Essex Gazette, of 2 May, in a brief obituary, speaks of him as having been a constant and ready friend to the poor and afflicted; a good adviser in cases of difficulty ; a mild, sincere, and able reprover. In short, it adds, " he was a friend to his country, a blessing to society, and an ornament to the church of which he was a member." And then are added, as original, the lines given above. The obituary notice and lines were probably written by some patriotic friend, the latter being transferred to the stone. when it was erected.]
In the number of the wounded, was Timothy Munroe, of Lynn. He was standing behind a house, with Daniel Townsend, firing at the British troops, as they were coming down the road, in their retreat toward Boston. Townsend had just fired, and
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exclaimed, "There is another redcoat down," when Munroe, looking round, saw, to his astonishment, that they were com. pletely hemmed in by the flank guard of the British army, who were coming down through the fields behind them. They immediately ran into the house, and sought for the cellar; but no cellar was there. They looked for a closet, but there was none. All this time, which was indeed but a moment, the balls were pouring through the back windows, making havoc of the glass. Townsend leaped through the end window, carrying the sash and all with him, and instantly fell dead. Munroe followed, and ran for his life. He passed for a long distance between both parties, many of whom discharged their guns at him. As he passed the last soldier, who stopped to fire, he heard the redcoat exclaim, "Damn the Yankee! he is bullet proof-let him go !" Mr. Munroe had one ball through his leg, and thirty- two bullet holes through his clothes and hat. Even the metal buttons of his waistcoat were shot off. He kept his clothes until he was tired of showing them, and died in 1808, aged 72 years. Mr. Joshua Felt was also wounded, and Josiah Breed was taken prisoner, but afterward released.
[The battle of Lexington appears to have been sometimes called the battle of Menotomy, probably from the fact that the portion of Cambridge lying contiguous to Lexington, and in which a part of the battle was fought, was at that time called Menotomy - the same territory now constituting West Cam- bridge. Thus, in the Essex Gazette, of 8 June, appears the following advertisement : "LosT, in the battle of Menotomy, by Nathan Putnam, of Capt. Hutchinson's company, who was then badly wounded, a French firelock, marked D. No. 6, with a marking iron on the breech. Said Putnam carried it to a cross road near a mill. Whoever has said gun in possession, is de- sired to return it to Col. Mansfield, of Lynn, or to the selectmen of Danvers, and they shall be rewarded for their trouble."]
The war was now begun in earnest. On the 23d of April, the people of Lynn chose a committee of safety, to consult measures of defense. This committee consisted of Rev. John Treadwell, minister of the first parish, Rev. Joseph Roby, minister of the third parish, and Deacon Daniel Mansfield. A company of alarm men was organized, under the command of Lieutenant Harris Chadwell. Three watches were stationed each night; one at Sagamore Hill, one at the south end of Shepard street, and one at Newhall's Landing, on Saugus river. No person was allowed to go out of the town without permission, and the people carried their arms to the place of public worship. Mr. Treadwell, always foremost in patriotic proceedings, ap. peared, on the Sabbath, with his cartridge box under one arm, and his sermon under the other, and went into the pulpit with
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his musket loaded. [The Provincial Congress, in June, recom- mended the carrying of arms to meeting, on Sundays and other days when worship was held, by the men who lived within twenty miles of the sea coast.]
On the 17th of June, was fought the memorable battle of Bunker Hill. The Lynn regiment was commanded by Colonel John Mansfield. The English, in the battle, lost two hundred and twenty-six men killed, and the Americans one hundred and thirty-nine.
For many years the tavern in Saugus was kept by Zaccheus Norwood, and after his death, by his widow, who married Josiah Martin, who then became landlord, as tavern keepers were then called. In 1775, he enlisted in the war, and Mr. Jacob Newhall then took the tavern, which he kept through the Revolution, and until the year 1807.
1776.
In January, the English troops were quartered at Boston, and the American at Cambridge, separated by Charles river. It was the intention of General Putnam to cross over to Boston, as soon as the river should become sufficiently frozen. Three of his soldiers, one of whom was Henry Hallowell, of Lynn, hearing of this design, set out to try the strength of the ice, by throwing a large stone before them. A party of about fifty of the English soldiers, on the opposite shore, commenced firing at them; which they only regarded by mocking with their voices the noise of the bullets. They continued on the ice till the English party retired; when, thinking they had gone to procure a cannon, they returned, after picking up more than seventy balls on the ice, which they presented to General Put- nam, as trophies of their venturesome exploit. The soldiers from Lynn were under command of Capt. Ezra Newhall.
On the 21st of May, the people of Lynn voted, that the min- isters should be invited to attend the annual town meetings, to begin them with prayer. I was once at the meeting of a town in New Hampshire, in which this practice prevails, and was convinced of its propriety. There are occasions on which prayer is made, which are of less apparent importance than the choice of men, to govern the town or commonwealth, and to make laws on which the welfare and perhaps the lives of the people may depend.
A company of soldiers was furnished for an expedition to Canada. On the 2d of August, the town allowed them fifteen pounds each, and voted that ten pounds should be given to any person who would voluntarily enlist.
An alarm was made, at midnight, that some of the English troops had landed on King's beach. In a short time the town C2*
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was all in commotion. Many persons left their houses and fled into the woods. Some families threw their plate into the wells, and several sick persons were removed. Some self-possession, however, was manifested. Mr. Frederick Breed, for his exer- tions in rallying the soldiers and marching them to Woodend, where he found the alarm to be false, received a commission in the army, and afterward rose to the rank of colonel. [There was a tavern kept in the old house now standing on Federal street, corner of Marion, by Increase Newhall. It was an alarm station ; that is, a place to which, when an alarm occurred, the enrolled men in the district instantly repaired for duty. At this King's beach alarm, it is said that the officer whose duty it was to take command, did not appear, and after the soldiers returned, all safe, he emerged from an oven, in which, panic- stricken, he had concealed himself.]
1777.
Rev. Benjamin Adams was born at Newbury, in the year 1719, and graduated at Harvard University, in 1738. He was ordained minister of the second parish, now Lynnfield, November 5, 1755, and died May 4, 1777, aged 58, having preached twenty-one years. He married Rebecca Nichols, and had seven children ; Rebecca, Dr. Benjamin, Elizabeth, Sarah, Ann, Joseph and Na- than ; the two latter being twins.
[The Friends established a school in Lynn, this year. John Pope was master.
[Vaccination was not practised at this time, and great fears were excited whenever the small pox made its appearance. It was customary for companies to retire to convenient places, provide themselves with nurses and all things necessary, and then be inoculated with small pox. Taken in this way, the disease was thought to be milder. At all events, it was less likely to prove fatal, because of the more favorable circum. stances under which it might be had. The following memoran- dum relates to a Lynn company : "Lynn, May 14, 1777. There was a company of us went to Marblehead to have the small pox. We had for our doctors, Benjamin B. Burchstead and Robert Deaverix, and for our nurse, Amos Breed. Hired a house of Gideon Phillips - viz. Abraham Breed, Jonathan Phillips, William Breed, Simeon Breed, Richard Pratt, jr., Nathan Breed, jr., Rufus Newhall, James Breed, jr., John Curtin, jr., James Fairne, jr., William Newhall, jr., David Lewis, Micajah Alley, Jabez Breed, jr., Micajah Newhall, Paul Farrington, Ebenezer Porter, William Johnson, Amos Newhall - making nineteen in the whole ; and all came home well." The above was copied from the original, which was handed to me, some thirty years ago, by the Richard Pratt, jr., whose name appears as one
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of the company; and he assured me that he had carried the same in his pocket, from the day of its date - more than . fifty- five years. It was accompanied by this certificate : "M'head, June 4th, 1777. By virtue of this certificate permitt ye within mention'd person, after being smok'd, to pass ye guards. John Gerry."]
In the winter of this year, John Lewis, aged 26, and Benja- min, aged 15, brothers, of Lynn, died on board the Jersey prison ship, in the harbor of New York. Their deaths were principally occasioned by severe treatment, and by unwholesome food pre- pared in copper vessels.
1780.
The town of Lynn granted as much money as would purchase twenty-seven hundred silver dollars, to pay the soldiers. Within two years, the town granted seventy thousand pounds, old tenor, to defray their expenses. The principal money in circulation was the paper money issued by Congress, which had greatly depreciated. A soldier of the Revolution says, that in 1781, he sold seventeen hundred and eighty dollars of paper money, for thirty dollars in silver.
The continental currency, as it was called, consisted of small pieces of paper, about two inches square. The one dollar bills had an altar, with the words, depressa resurgit, the oppressed rises. The two dollar bills bore a hand, making a circle with compasses, with the motto, tribulatio dital, trouble enriches. The device of the three dollar bills was an eagle pouncing upon a crane, who was biting the eagle's neck, with the motto, exitus in dubio, the event is doubtful. On the five dollar bills was a hand grasping a thorn bush with the inscription, sustine vel ab- stine, hold fast or touch not. The six dollar bills represented a beaver felling a tree, with the word perseverando, by perseve- rance we prosper. Another emission bore an anchor, with the words, In te Domine speramus, In thee, Lord, have I trusted. The eight dollar bills, displayed a harp, with the motto, majora minoribus consonant, the great harmonize with the little. The thirty dollar bills exhibited a wreath on an altar, with the legend, si recte, facies, if you do right you will succeed. When I was a child, I had thousands of dollars of this uncurrent money given me to play with.
The 19th of May was remarkable throughout New England for its uncommon darkness. It began about the hour of ten in the morning. At eleven, the darkness was so great, that the fowls retired to their roosts, and the cattle collected around the barns, as at night. Before twelve, candles became requisite, and many of the people of Lynn omitted their dinners, thinking that the day of judgment had come. The darkness increased
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through the evening, and continued till midnight. It was sup- posed by some, to have been occasioned by a smoke, arising from extensive fires in the western woods, and combining with a thick fog from the sea. The Rev. Mather Byles, of Boston, of punning memory, made a happy remark on this occasion. A lady sent her servant, in great alarm, to know if he could tell the cause of this great darkness. "Tell your mistress," replied he, " that I am as much in the dark as she is." [A writer of the time says of the darkness of the succeeding night, it " was prob- ably as gross as has ever been observed since the almighty fiat gave birth to light. It wanted only palpability to render it as extraordinary as that which overspread the land of Egypt in the days of Moses. .. . A sheet of white paper held within a few inches of the eyes, was equally invisible with the blackest velvet."}
The winter of 1780 was the coldest since 1741. [From about the 15th of February to the 15th of March, the snow and ice did not melt, even on the southerly sides of buildings, and teams could pass over walls and fences, so deep and hard was the snow.]
At the commencement of the war, there were twenty-six slaves in Lynn; all of whom were made free this year. In 1675, there was a slave in Lynn, named Domingo Wight, who had a wife and two children. Another slave, in 1714, named Simon Africanus, had a wife and six children. Zaccheus Collins had four slaves, whose names were Pharaoh, Essex, Prince, and Cato. Prince was purchased at Boston, in 1746, for seventy-five dollars. In 1757, he married Venus, a slave to Zaccheus Gould. Joshua Cheever had a slave named Gift, whom he freed in 1756, at the solicitation of Hannah Perkins, who became his wife in 1745, on condition that he should free his slave at the age of twenty-five years. John Bassett had a slave, named Samson, whom he liberated in 1776, because " all nations were made of one blood." Thomas Cheever had two slaves, Reading and Jane, who were married in 1760. Samuel Johnson had two slaves, Adam, who married Dinah, in 1766. Thomas Mansfield had two slaves, one of whom, named Pompey, had been a prince in Africa; and, after his liberation, lived in the forest on the east of Saugus river. For many years, the slaves in all the neighboring towns used to have a holiday allowed them once a year, to visit King Pompey ; and doubtless this was to them a day of real happiness. On the little glade by the river side, the maidens gathered flowers to crown their old king, and the men talked of the happy hours they had known on the banks of the Gambia. Hannibal, a slave of John Lewis, was an example of the good effects which education and good treatment may pro- duce in the colored people. He was brought from Africa when
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ANNALS OF LYNN-1781.
a boy, and was treated rather as a servant than a slave. He married Phebe, a slave of Ebenezer Hawkes. By the indulgence of his master, and by working extra hours, he earned enough to purchase the freedom of three children, at forty dollars each : but Phebe being a faithful slave, her master would not part with her short of forty pounds; yet, with a motive of hope before him, Hannibal was not to be discouraged, and in a few years her purchase was accomplished, and his own freedom was given to him. He married in 1762, and had three sons and six daugh- ters. I have seldom known a more worthy family. Ebenezer Burrill had two slaves; Jedediah Collins, two; Joseph Gould, two; and James Phillips, Samuel Burrill, Theophilus Burrill, Joseph Gaskins, Daniel Bassett, James Purinton, Ralph Lindsey, and Dr. Henry Burchsted, one slave each; being in all, with their children, about forty slaves.
Rev. Joseph Mottey was ordained minister of the Lynnfield parish on the 24th of September.
On the 29th of November there was an earthquake.
Dr. John Perkins, of Lynnfield, died this year aged 85. His wife Clarissa died in 1749, and he wrote a poem on her death. He was a very eminent physician in his time, had studied two years in London, and practised physic forty years in Boston. In 1755, he published a tract on earthquakes ; and also an essay on the small pox, in the London Magazine. He left a man- uscript of 368 pages, containing an account of his life and experience, which is preserved in the library of the American Antiquarian Society.
1781.
[Abner Cheever, Dr. John Flagg, and James Newhall, of Lynn, were commissioned as Justices of the Peace, on the 20th of September. This was the earliest date of any commission issued by Hancock, the first governor under the republican dispensa- tion, to any justice in this county. Mr. Newhall having been my grandfather, his commission fell into my hands, and has been pre- served with some care on account of the interesting autograph of Hancock which stands out with its usual boldness, indicative of the character so undismayed amid the prevailing convulsions. And it is rather a curious fact that in that very commission, the surname of the appointee is spelled in different ways, show- ing that even then people had not ceased to delight in a diver- sified orthography. And their style was certainly, in several respects, more convenient than ours. Dictionaries were scarce, and it was useful in concealing ignorance. It also made the language more picturesque, in appearance at least. And it does not seem established that more exactness in understanding is attained by our formal mode. Mr. Newhall lived in the house
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that yet stands on the northerly side of Boston street, opposite the termination of Summer. To the end of his life he was pop- ularly known as 'Squire Jim; the appellation having been bestowed on account of his commission, and to distinguish him from six others of the same name who then lived in Lynn. The nicknames of those days were in some sense necessities, as middle names were not in use; and the choice of them gen- erally had some reference to personal peculiarities, though they were often far from being dignified or select. But a word fur- ther on this point may appear in another connection.]
1782.
Rev. John Treadwell relinquished the care of the first parish this year. He was born at Ipswich, September 20, 1738; and was ordained at Lynn, March 2, 1763, where he preached nine- teen years. He returned to Ipswich, and in 1787, removed to Salem. [He graduated at Harvard College, in 1758. After returning to Ipswich, he taught the grammar school there, for two years, before going to Salem.] He was representative of Ipswich and Salem, a senator of Essex county, and judge of the court of common pleas. In 1763, he married Mehetabel Dexter, a descendant of Thomas Dexter, who bought Nahant. He had a son, John Dexter Treadwell, born in Lynn, May 29, 1768, who became a highly respected physician at Salem. [Mr. Treadwell's daughter Mehetabel married Mr. Cleveland, city missionary of Boston; and professor C. D. Cleveland, the com- piler of numerous useful school books, was their son.]
Mr. Treadwell was a great patriot, a member of the committee of safety, and foremost in all the proceedings of the town during the Revolution. It is perhaps somewhat of an anomaly in ethics, to find a minister of the gospel of peace bearing arms; but the British were obnoxious to dissenters, from an opinion that they wished to establish the church in America. There has always been a prejudice in New England against the Episcopal Church, but there is abundant evidence that a man may be a good churchman and yet a true patriot. Washington and several other Presidents were members of the church and some of our most distinguished military and naval heroes have been church- men.
Mr. Treadwell was very fond of indulging in sallies of wit: and like his namesake in Shakspeare, he was not only witty in himself, but the cause of wit in other men. One Sunday, ob- serving that many of his audience had their heads in a reclining posture, he paused in his sermon, and exclaimed, "I should guess that as many as two thirds of you are asleep !" Mr. Jo- siah Martin, raising his head, looked round and replied, “ If I were to guess, I should guess there are not more than one half !"
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The next day Mr. Martin was brought up for disturbing divine service ; but he contended " it was not the time of divine ser- vice; the minister had ceased to preach, and it was guessing time." He was accordingly discharged. [This Josiah Martin who had the temerity to measure wit with Mr. Treadwell, was an eccentric and in some respects unworthy man. He was the immediate predecessor of Landlord Newhall in the old Sau- gus tavern, having married the widow of Zaccheus Norwood. He appeared in town about the year 1760, and is supposed to have been an English adventurer. At times he assumed great polish of manner, and made pretension to extraordinary piety ; and at other times he exhibited the characteristics and breeding of a gross villain. He was famous for indulging in practical jokes as well as witticisms, and in whimsical displays of every kind, with the only apparent object of eliciting the gaze of his neighbors. He is said, among other feats, to have ridden two miles, to attend meeting at the Old Tunnel, on a warm June day, in a double sleigh, with a span of horses, the dust flying and the runners grating horribly, and striking fire at every step. And his wife was a forced passenger at his side. He enlisted in the war, and never returned to Lynn.]
On the night of the 18th of March, Dr. Jonathan Norwood fell from his horse, injuring himself so much as to cause his death. He was a son of Zaccheus Norwood, born September 19, 1751, and graduated at Harvard University, in 1771. He lived on the north side of the Common.
[There was scarcely any corn or second crop of hay this year, on account of the drought.]
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