USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. II > Part 76
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WATERTOWN.
called squadrons, running westward, each one hun- dred and sixty rods in breadth, and lay next to the Cambridge line on the north, beginning not far from the present boundary of Watertown and Wal- tham. Beaver Brook Ploughlands, partly meadow and partly upland, lay between the Great Dividends and Charles River. They began " next the small lots beyond the wear," and included Hither Plain or Little Plain, east of the brook, and Further Plain or the Great Plain, and later Waltham Plain, on the west. These two divisions are included in the present limits of Waltham. Between the Hither Plain and the Small Lots ran the Driftway, the present Gore Street. The Lien of Township Lots were west of Waltham Plain, south of the Great Dividends, and extended beyond Stony Brook. The Farms, or Farm Lands, now Weston, included what remained as far as the Sudbury and Dedham bounds.
Of the early roads, most of which remain, the most important were Mill Street and Sudbury Road, the one terminating and the other beginning at the mill, near the weir. Mount Auburn Street, as Mill Street is now called, began below Mount Auburn, and passing by the old graveyard, terni- nated at the mill at the lowest falls on Charles River. It was also known as the Cambridge Road, or the Road to the College. The Sudbury Road, ex- tending westward from the mill, is now Main Street, retaining this name through Waltham. It was the great thoroughfare from Boston, passing over the Neck, through Roxbury, Brookline, Newton, and over Mill Bridge, thence westward to New York, and then to the southward, and was for a long time the principal road in the colonies. The very an- cient road from Cambridge to Waltham, long known as the Baek Road, is now Belmont Street. Lex- ington Street, beginning at Belmont Street and extending north by Elbow Hill, was aneiently called the Concord Road.
Prior to the settlement of Concord and Dedham, in 1635, the only definite boundary of the town was that between it and Newtown (Cambridge), the line running from Fresh Pond west-northwest straight into the country. March 2, 1636, its west- ern limit was fixed by an order of the court that "the bounds of Watertown shall run 8 miles into the eoun- try from their meeting-house." June 8, 1638, the court ordered " for the final end of all difference between Watertown, Concord, and Dedham, that Watertown eight miles shall be extended upon the line between them and Cambridge as far as Coneord
bounds give leave ; and that their bounds by the river shall run eight miles into the country in a straight line, as also the river doth for the most part run." Her original eastern boundary is supposed to correspond very nearly with the present Vassal Lane and Sparks Street, Cambridge, beginning at the southeast side of the East Bay of Fresh Pond, and running to the most northerly point of the bend in the river. The division line between Watertown and Sudbury was settled by commis- sioners in May, 1651.
Within her original limits were embraced the present towns of Watertown, Waltham, Weston, the greater part of Lincoln, a part of Belmont, and that portion of Cambridge lying east of Mount Auburn Cemetery between Fresh Pond and Charles River. Watertown is now one of the smallest towns in the state. A strip was cut off for New- town in 1631; thirty aeres on the south side of Charles River were also relinquished to her in 1634; a third excision was made in 1635 in favor of Coneord, and one half of its territory was taken off and incorporated as the town of Weston, Jan- uary 1, 1713. This tract had been commonly known as Watertown Farms ; afterwards as the Farmers' Precinet, sometimes as the Third Military Precinct, and sometimes as the Western Precinct. Lincoln, incorporated April 19, 1754, was made from the northern part of Weston, the southern part of Concord, and the western part of Lexington. The incorporation of Waltham, January 4, 1738, took off about three fifths of Watertown's already much diminished territory. After the incorpora- tion of Weston the Middle Preeinet (Waltham) became the West Preeinet of Watertown. In April, 1754, a strip of land about half a mile wide was taken from the eastern border of the town and annexed to Cambridge. Belmont, incorporated March 18, 1859, took off the northern part of the town, ineluding Fresh Pond and more than one third of its remaining territory. . The boundary between it and Watertown begins near the entrance of Mount Auburn, and runs northwesterly on the south side of Belmont Street, seven hundred and thirteen rods to the " four corners," thence north- erly one hundred and eighty-six rods to Beaver Brook.
These successive amputations have diminished the area of the town from about 29,000 to 2,8873 acres, from which if the river, the arsenal, and the cemeteries be deducted the actual acreage is reduced I to 2,041. Although thus repeatedly shorn of her
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
territory, Watertown has nevertheless continued to inerease in population, business, and wealth, the enterprise of her citizens proving equal to every emergency.
The first printed description of Watertown is found in Wood's New England's Prospect, written in 1633. He says : " Half a mile westward of this plantation [Newtown] is Watertown, a place nothing inferior for land, wood, meadow and water to Newtowne. Within half a mile of this town is a great pond which is divided between these twotowns, which divides their bounds northward. A mile and a half from this town is a fall of fresh waters which convey themselves into the ocean through Charles River. A little below this fall of waters the inhabitants of Watertowne have built a wear to catch fish wherein they take great store of shads and alewives. In two tides they have gotten 100,000 of those fishes. This is no small benefit to the plantation. Ships of small burthen may come up to these two towns, but the oyster banks do bar out the bigger ships."
Edward Johnson's description, twenty years later, begins with a singular misstatement. " Water- town is situate," so he writes, " upon. one of the branches of Charles River ; a fruitful plot and. of large extent, watered with many pleasant springs and small rivulets running like veins throughout her body ; which hath caused her inhabitants to seatter in such manner that their Sabbath assem- blies prove very thin if the season favor not, and hath made this great town consisting of 160 fami- lies to shew nothing delightful to the eye in any place. This town begun by occasion of Sir Richard Saltonstall who, at his arrival having some store of cattle and servants they wintered in these parts. This town abounds in several sorts of fish at their seasons, bass, shad, alewives, frost-fish, and smelts. Their herd of kine and cattle of that kind are about 450, with some store of sheep and goats. Their land in tillage is near upon 1,800 acres. Their church is increased to near about 250 souls in church fellowship."
On the 12th of June, 1630, the Arbella, one of the fleet of seventeen ships that left England in that year, bearing Governor Winthrop, Deputy- Governor Dudley, Sir Richard Saltonstall, Rev. George Phillips, Rev. John Wilson, and others afterward prominent in the settlement of the col- ony of Massachusetts Bay, cast anchor in the har- bor of Salem, whither, in 1628, a eolony had preceded them, with Captain John Endicott as its
governor. In her came, it is believed, no less than fifteen of the first planters of Watertown. Some of these emigrants were from the west of England, but the greater number came from London and its vicinity. They were Puritan Nonconformists who, self-exiled from their native land, sought on an un- known shore that liberty of religious worship which had been denied them at home. They came to stay, and their familiarity with husbandry or some useful handicraft insured the permanence of their settlement. A nobler body of men, or one better equipped physically and morally for the conquest of a wilderness and the founding of a great state, the world has never seen.
After reeonnoitring the country about the bay for a more desirable place of settlement, the peninsula of Charlestown was selected, and thither the emigrants at once proceeded. Owing, however, to the want of good water, a portion of them, with Saltonstall as their leader, accompanied by Mr. Phillips as their pastor, soon began a settlement about four miles up Charles River, at first called Sir Richard Saltonstall's Plantation, but, September 7, by the court named Watertown, doubtless because it was so well watered. Watertown was the first of the inland towns to be settled.
The tract of land lying east, north, and south of Mount Auburn is undoubtedly the site of the beginning of the plantation in 1630, and it was called " the town " at a very early day. It is con- jectured that the lot of Rev. Mr. Phillips, opposite the Old Burying-Ground, a mile from the site of the colleges, was its centre; that here the first house of worship was built, and that here the first burials were made, if any occurred before the ap- propriation of the old graveyard for the purpose.
On the 30th of May preceding its settlement ten of the Dorchester emigrants, who had just arrived, proceeded up the river and landed where the United States Arsenal now stands. It is supposed that they planted crops here, and hence the name of Dorchester Fields, by which it was long afterwards known. Roger Clap, one of the party, says : " We went up Charles River until the river grew nar- row and shallow, and there we landed our goods with much labor and toil, the bank being steep; and night coming on we were informed that there were hard by us 300 Indians. One Englishman that could speak their language (an old planter) went to them and advised them not to come near us in the night, and they hearkened to his counsel and came not .. . . . In the morning some of the
STON
AD 1644 Aged 5ª
Rembrandt Pinxt.
Rue: Salons Tale
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WATERTOWN.
Indians came and stood at a distance off looking at us but came not near us. " But when they had been a while in view some of them came and held ont a great bass towards us, so we sent a man with a biscuit and changed the cake for a bass. After- wards they supplied us with bass, exchanging a bass for a biscuit cake and were very friendly unto us. . . . . We had not been there many days (although by our dilligence we had got up a kind of shelter to save our goods in) but we had orders to come away from that place which was about Watertown, unto a place called Mattapan near Dorchester. So we removed and came to Matta- pan."
The uneventful annals of the town record the peaceful progress of an agricultural community occupied in drawing its needful supplies of food from the soil and from the river, and occasionally sending its little colonies to the Connecticut valley, the " far west " of that day. Undisturbed by the terrible Indian war that in 1675 devastated so many thriving New England villages, and un- troubled by the whirlwind of superstition that culminated in the Salem tragedy of 1692, singu- larly free from these and other calamities that. befell less favored localities, Watertown yet bore her full share in the efforts and in the burdens of the colony in its struggles, first for existence, and subsequently for independence. For more than half a century she was preserved from mental stag- nation by an acrimonious dispute over the question of the proper location of a new meeting-house.
A striking contrast to the simple lives of these Puritan emigrants is afforded by those of their de- scendants of to-day. Religion furnished not only their spiritual food, but intellectual recreation as well. The two Sunday services, the weekly lec- ture, and the family devotions, filled the place now occupied by the newspaper, the public library, the lyceum, public amusements, and the other manifold methods of employing spare time. Books were scarce and highly prized, and -the Bible ex- cepted -consisted principally of treatises by the Puritan divines. Without being superstitious, they saw a providential significance in the most trivial occurrences. Thus at Watertown, one day (so Governor Winthrop tells us), "many persons saw a great contest between a mouse and a snake. After a long fight the mouse prevailed, and killed the snake. The Rev. Mr. Wilson of Boston, a very sincere and holy man, gave this interpretation of it : the snake was the devil; the mouse was a
poor contemptible people which God had brought hither, who should overcome Satan here, and dis- possess him of his Kingdom."
There was much sickness during the first winter, which was one of great severity, and also much suffering from scarcity of food, many being com- pelled to subsist solely upon shell-fish, ground- nuts, and acorns. Several of the settlers lost their houses and wigwams by fire, and Rev. Mr. Phillips and others had their hay burnt. The settlers were also greatly annoyed by wolves, and one night, the report of a musket discharged at them in Water- town having been heard at Roxbury, the people there, apprehending an Indian attack, were greatly excited, and were called to arms by beat of drum. The alarm was communicated to the people of Bos- ton, who also turned out, but who, on learning the cause, were greatly relieved, and " went merrily to breakfast," says the narrator of the incident.
A site for a fortified town and for a capital of the colony having been selected by Governor Win- throp and the assistants, in December, 1630, the settlement of Newtown (now Cambridge) was begun between Charlestown and Watertown. The terri- tory of these towns, then undefined, was contigu- ous, and embraced all that is now included in Cambridge, Arlington, Belmont, Lexington, and Somerville. That between Charles River and Roxbury, and extending from the Back Bay to the southwest, belonged to Boston and Watertown. Between the line of Newtown and Sir R. Salton- stall's homestead there was only one small inter- vening lot, and it is probable that a number of his companions found themselves included in the limits of the new settlement. The boundary between Wa- tertown and Newtown was established by the Gen- eral Court April 7, 1635.
The town, as well as the colony, suffered a great loss in the spring of 1631, when Sir Richard Sal- tonstall returned to England, leaving his two eldest sons to manage his affairs. His is one of the first among the great names on the roll of the founders of New England, conspicuous alike for sound judgment, public spirit, humane and liberal views, and for social and personal worth. He was the son of Samuel, and nephew of Sir Richard Salton- stall, Lord Mayor of London in 1597, and was born at Huntwicke, in the West Riding of York, England, in 1586. He was a justice of the peace and lord of the manor of Ledsham, near Leeds, when, in 1628, he became one of the Massachusetts Bay Company, in whose charter he was the first
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
named of the eighteen assistants. He was a prom- inent advocate of the transfer of the government of the company from England to the colony, and took a leading part in its transactions prior to the emigration. After his return he became one of the patentees of Connecticut, and was active in pro- moting its settlement. He continued to. manifest his interest in both eolonies by befriending them on various occasions, thwarting the machinations against them by his influence at court. In 1644 he was ambassador to Holland, where his portrait was painted by Rembrandt. In 1649 he was one of the High Court of Justice appointed to try the Duke of Hamilton, Lord Capel, the Earl of Hol- land, and Sir John Owen for high treason. His death occurred in 1658. A long line of distin- guished descendants has illustrated the name of Saltonstall in New England down to the present day.
Saltonstall's letter of rebuke to the ministers of Boston has been well characterized as " a noble tes- timony to his charitable and Christian feelings," which were in advance of the age. In it he says, " It doth not a little grieve my spirit to hear what sadd things are reported daily of your tyranny and persecutions in New England as that you fyne, whip and imprison men for their consciences." Hle goes on to say, that to coinpel such men to come into their assemblies as they know will not join in their worship, and then to punish them for showing their dislike of it, is to make them hypo- crites and sinners, " conforming in their outward man for fear of punishment. These rigid ways," he adds, "have laid you very low in the hearts of the saynts. We pray for you and wish you pros- peritie every way and not to practice those courses in a wilderness which you went so far to prevent. . I hope you doe not assume to yourselves infallibilitie of judgment when the most learned of the apostles confessed he knew but in part and saw bnt darkly, as through a glass. Oh that all those who are brethren though yet they cannot speak and think the same things might be of one 'accord in the Lord ! . . . The Lord give you meeke and humble spirits, and not to strive so much for uniformitie as to keepe the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace !"
Watertown was probably one of the Indian set- tlements of the bay depopulated by the terrible pestilence of 1617. Its advantages for planting, beaver-hunting, and especially for fishing, could not have been overlooked by the natives, and at
Nonantum, on the other side of the river, they were quite numerous. March 6, 1630-31, upon a complaint made by sagamores John and Peter for the burning of two wigwams which, upon examina- tion, appeared to have been occasioned by James Woodward, servant of Sir Richard Saltonstall, it was therefore ordered "that Sir Richard should satisfie the Indians for the wrong done to them, which accordingly he did by giving them seven yards of eloth." September 4, 1632, the Court ordered a severe penalty to be inflicted on Richard Hopkins for selling guns, powder, and shot to the Indians. At a General Court, September 6, 1638, " It was agreed that the Court of Assistants should take order for the Indians that they may have satis- faction for their right at Lynn and Watertown." In March following the Court desired Mr. Gibbens " to agree with the Indians for the land within the bounds of Watertown, Cambridge, and Boston," for which £23 8s. 6d. was paid them in May, 1640, by the two former towns; Cambridge also " to give Squa Sachem a coat every winter while she liveth." This Indian queen was the widow of Nanepashemit. The Massachusetts settlers were scrupulously careful to pay the Indians for their lands, and to deal justly with them on all occa- sions.
The earliest existing records of the town bear date in 1634, four years after its settlement, and in the same year that the creation of a house of deputies, or representatives, wrought a most im- portant change in the government of the colony. At the same time that the people began to be represented in the colonial government they also, " for the ordering of the civil affairs of the town," intrusted them to that peculiarly New England institution, a board of seleetmen, annually chosen by the freemen. The three Watertown men first chosen to this board, one of whom was to serve as town-clerk, were William Jennison, Brian Pendleton, and John Eddie.
What led to this improved method of adminis- tration was an order of the court, dated February 3, 1631-32, " that £ 60 be levied out of the several plantations towards making a palisade about the New town." When the warrant for £8, its propor- tion of that tax, reached Watertown, " the pastor (Mr. Phillips) and elder (Mr. Richard Browne) as- sembled the people and delivered their opinions that it was not safe to pay moneys after that sort, for fear of bringing themselves and their posterity into bondage." Their opposition was lawful and
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proper, as the charter, so far from authorizing the assistants to tax all persons living on the company's lands, did not even empower them to assess the freemen. Summoned before the governor and as- sistants on the 17th of the same month, there was "much debate," but being "the weaker party," they were compelled, says Winthrop, "to make a retraction and submission." In view of the result of this contention it seems altogether unlikely that any retraction was made; at any rate, Watertown has reason to be proud of her defence of the great principle of no taxation without representation, for, only three months afterward, at the very next meet- ing of the court, a committee of two was appointed from each town to confer with the court about raising "a public stock [treasury]," and thus the popular representative body of the colony originated, and thus the trading corporation unconsciously became a representative democracy. The names of John Oldham and John Masters stand first on this committee ; while those of Robert Feake, Richard Browne, and John Oldham appear as the delegates from Watertown to the first General Court, held May 14, 1634.
At a court of assistants, April 12, 1631, a watch to begin at sunset was ordered at Dorchester and at Watertown, and " if any person shall shoot off a piece after the watch is set he shall forfeit 40s. or be whipped." In May, 1634, this watch was re- duced from four to two, and on March 9, 1636-37, wards were also to be kept on the " Lords Days" and every person above the age of eighteen (except magistrates and elders of churches) " shall be compellable to this service." Every town was at the same time ordered to have a watch-house. The meeting-house was sometimes used as a watch- house, and. also as the depositary of the ammuni- tion of the town. In 1711 the old school-house on School-house Hill was ordered to be repaired for a watch-house. In 1639 the town was fined for not having a pair of stocks, and ordered to procure one.
In the early days great importance was attached to the performance of the duties of citizenship. In 1639 it was ordered that any duly warned freeman absent from a town-meeting should be fined 2s. 6d., a penalty afterwards increased to 5 s. A selectman absent from the place of meeting " past 9 of the clock in the forenoon " also forfeited 2s. 6d. to the town. One of the duties of the selectmen was to take turns, " every man his day to site upon the gallery to look to the youths that they may prevent
miscarriages in the time of public services on the Lord's Day." They were also to take notice of " sundry persons in this towne who are in their habits contrary to the law concerning the excess of apparell," and to see that none "except such as the law doth allow, do either wear silke goods or silke scarfes, gould or silver lace, or buttons, rib- bons at knees or, trassed handkerchiefs, upon the ferfeiture of what penalty the law doth apoynt which is, that they shall be rated in the country rate after £200 in the same." Among the early enactments of the town was one offering a reward of 5s. for each wolf killed in the town ; another affix- ing a penalty upon whoever " should suffer his dog to come to the meeting upon the Lord's Day "; and that ordering that the two fairs at Watertown, " the one upon the first Friday of the 4th month ; the other upon the first Friday of the 7th month shall be kept upon the trayning place."
At the second meeting of the governor and assistants September 7, 1630, precautions were taken in anticipation of Indian attacks, and pro- vision was made for the support of Captain Daniel Patrick of Watertown, and Captain John Under- hill of Boston, both of whom had served in the Low Countries, as instructors in the military art. The latter had the training of the soldiers on the south side of Charles River, while Patrick had charge of those on the north side, at Charlestown, Watertown, Newtown, and Medford, the men of the two former towns training together until 1635.
It seems probable that the settlers of Watertown were more numerous than those of the other towns planted in 1630, and that this superiority of num- bers was maintained for twenty years. The ap- portionment of the early tax levies indicates this. Her people, like those of Roxbury, soon began to be overcrowded, and to disperse either to form new plantations, or to go to other towns already settled. In August, 1635, it was "agreed by the consent of the freemen (in consideration there be too many inhabitants in the town, and the town thereby in danger to be ruinated) that no forrainer coming into the town, or any family among our- selves shall have any benefit of commonage or land undivided, but what they shall purchase, ex- cept that they buy a man's right wholly in the town." It was further agreed, " that, whosoever being an inhabitant in the town shall receive any person or family upon their propriety that may prove chargeable to the town shall maintain the
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
said person at their own charges or to see the town harmless."
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