History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. II, Part 77

Author: Drake, Samuel Adams, 1833-1905
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Boston : Estes and Lauriat
Number of Pages: 650

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. II > Part 77

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Wethersfield, the oldest town in Connecticut, received from Watertown its first considerable emigration in 1634. Pyquag, its Indian name, was changed in 1635 to Watertown, and later to Wethersfield. Some of this colony were afterwards among the first settlers of Stamford, Milford, and Branford. May 29, 1635, the following Water- town men went to Wethersfield : Rev. Richard Denton, Robert Reynolds, John Strickland, Jonas Weede, Rev. John Sherman, Robert Coe, and An- drew Ward. The two latter afterwards settled in Stamford. Leonard Chester, John Finch, Nathan- iel Foote, John Oldham, Edward Pierce, John Reynolds, and Robert Rose went before 1642.

In 1636 Dedham was largely settled from Wa- tertown, and in the same year some of her people were among the settlers of Concord. Sudbury was the next town planted by Watertown, the court, in November, 1637, "in regard of their straitness of accommodation and want of meadow," giving them leave upon their petition " to remove and settle a plantation upon the river which runs to Concord." Martha's Vineyard was first planted by a Water- town colony led by Thomas Mayhew in 1642, and her sons were the pioneers in the settlement of Lancaster, Groton, Framingham, Shrewsbury, Worcester, Rutland, and Spencer, as also of many of the towns in southern and eastern Connecticut, and on Long Island. Emigrants from Watertown are found among the early settlers of nearly all of the towns in Middlesex County.

The earliest list of the inhabitants of Watertown is dated July 25, 1636. It is "a grant of the Great Dividends [allotted] to the freemen [and] to all the townsmen then inhabiting, being 120 in number."

Sir R. Saltonstall, 100 (acres); Robert Feake, John Loveran, Thomas Mayhew, George Phillips, each 80; William Paine, Brian Pendleton, Simon Stone, Edward How, Abraham Shaw, each 70; William Jennison, Simon Eire, Leonard Chester, John Warren, John Barnard, Henry Goldstone, John Cutting, Edward Goffe, Ephraim Child, Sam- uel (Wm.) Swayne, John Firmin, each 60; John Page, John Eddy, Isaac Sterne, Richard Kimball, Thomas Cakebread, Edmund Sherman, John Hay- ward, Abraham Browne, Richard Browne, John Whitney, each 50; William Hammond, Edmund James, Gregory Stone, John Kingsbury, John Eaton, William Swift, each 40; Isaac Cummins,

Robert Abbot, Thomas Philbrick, Barnabas Winds, John Gosse, John Smith, Sr., Robert Daniel, Charles Chadwick, Samuel . Hosier, Robert Lock- wood, John Batchelor, William Bridges, Gregory Taylor, John Gay, Henry Kimball, Nathaniel Bowman, John Spring, Richard Woodward, each 35; John Finch, William Palmer, Philip Taber, John Doggett, Jolın Lawrence, Francis Onge, Henry Bright, Hugh Mason, John Coolidge, Isaac Mixer, John Stowers, John Simpson, John Browne, John Dwight, William Knapp, Robert Tucke, Ed- ward Garfield, Edmund Lewis, Nicholas Knapp, William Barshaw, George Munnings, Thomas Arnold, Thomas Rogers, Edward Dix, Thomas Bartlett, each 30; Joseph Morse, William Baker, Esther Pickeran, Richard Sawtel, John Livermore, John Tomson, Christopher Grant, Thomas Wincoll, John [Wm.] Gutteridge, John Tucker, Richard Beers, Thomas Hastings, Daniel Pierce, George Richardson, James Cutler, John Griggs, Lawrence Waters, Edward Lamb, Martin Underwood, Ed- mund White, John Ellet, John Winter, Miles Nutt, each 25; Robert Veazy, John Varhan, Rob- ert Jennison, Robert Betts, Henry Dengaine, John Rose, Thomas Mason, Henry Cuttris, Thomas Brooks, Daniel Morse, Mathew Hitchcock, Thomas Smith, Benjamin Crispe, Thomas Parish, Roger Wellington, Garret Church, 20 acres each.

Freemen of Watertown prior to 1640. The first fourteen named applied in October, 1630. Admitted May, 1631, Mr. George Phillips, Mr. Richard Brown, Sergeant John Strickland, Ed- mund Lockwood, John Page, John Doggett, Ephraim Child, Robert Seeley, Mr. William Clarke, Mr. Robert Feake, Samuel Hosier, Charles Chadwick, Mr. William Jennison, Daniel Abbott, Jonas Weede, Captain Daniel Patrick, Mr. John Oldham, John Gasse, Mr. Richard Saltonstall (Jr.), Mr. John Masters, John Warren, Daniel Finch, Isaac Sterne, John Firmin, Francis Smith ; March, 1632, Abraham Browne ; November, 1632, John Benjamin ; March, 1633, John White, John Smith ; May, 1634, Thomas Cakebread, Mr. Thomas Mayhew, Edward How, John Hayward, Andrew Ward ; September, 1634, Bryan Pendle- ton, Martin Underwood, Anthony Pierce, John Bernard, John Eddy, Samuel Smith, John Browne, Robert Reynolds, Nathaniel Foote, Robert Abbott, Robert Coe; March, 1635, Hngh Mason, Thomas Bartlett, George. Munning, Edward Dix, John Prince, John Wolcott; May, 1635, Barnabas Wines, John Reynolds, Henry Bright, Thomas

PUBLIC LIBRARY

John Gallup's Exploit.

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Hastings, John Livermore, John Batchelor, John Gay, John Tompson, Richard Kemball; Daniel Morse, Edward Garfield ; September, 1635, Rich- ard Woodward; March, 1636, Nicholas Jacob, Michael Barstow, John Whitney, William Swain, John Kingsbury ; May, 1636, John Knight, Mathias (? Miles) Ives, William Hammond, Ed- ward Goffe, Edmund Lewis, John Stowers, John Smith (? Jr.), John Eaton, Edmund Sherman, John Coolidge, Simon Stone, Gregory Stone, John Loveran, William Wilcocks, Edward White, Thomas Brooks; March, 1637, Abraham Shaw, Robert Lockwood, William Barsham, .Richard Beers, Thomas Carter, Richard Waite; April, 1637, Thomas Brigham, John Lawrence, Simon Fire ; May, 1637, John Rogers, Miles Nutt, Thomas Smith, Thomas Rogers, John Sherman ; March, 1638, John Peirce, Nicholas Busby, David Fiske ; May, 1638, Isaac Mixer, Henry Kemball, Henry Dow, Daniel Peirce; March, 1639, John Dwight, Henry Phillips, Robert Danicl ; May, 1639, Samuel Freeman, Nicholas Gay, Edmund Blois, Roger Porter; September, 1639, John Cross, Robert Tucke, Robert Sanderson.

The war ending in the extinction of the warlike Pequot tribe in 1637 was caused by the murder of John Oldham, a highly respected citizen of Watertown, its deputy to the first General Court, and a member of its church, while trading at Block Island, July 20, 1636. Immediately afterward Jolın Gallup, in a larger vessel, with a crew con- sisting of one man and two boys, seeing Oldham's pinnace in the possession of Indians, ran into her with such force as nearly to overset her. Six of the Indians jumped overboard and were drowned. Repeating the manœuvre a second and a third time, the remaining Indians were either drowned or taken, and two boys who had accompanied Oldham were rescued uninjured. This is the first American sea-fight on record.

Ensign William Jennison, one of the four offi- cers in command of the expedition to Block Island in the following autumn, "to do justice to the Indians for the murder of Mr. Oldham," was, in March, 1637, chosen first captain of the train-band of Watertown. He was a man of capacity and integ- rity, and was almost constantly in the public service. All the able-bodied men of the colony were, in De- cember, 1636, arranged in three regiments, those of the districts now included in the counties of Suf- folk, Essex, and Middlesex. Of the latter, which then included Charlestown, Newtown, Watertown,

Concord, and Dedham, John Haines was colonel, Roger Harlakenden lieutenant-colonel, and Captain Patrick muster-master. Watertown raised fourteen of the one hundred and sixty men levied for the Pequot War, in April, 1637, and the first forty Mas- sachusetts levies marched under Captain Patrick. Lieutenant Robert Seeley, a Watertown man who had removed to Connecticut, was second in com- mand to Captain Jolin Mason in the famous fight and destruction of the Pequot stronghold.

From November 28, 1643, to November 9, 1647, the records of the town are lost. Records of marriages, births, and deaths were ordered by the court in September, 1639, to be kept, and June 14, 1642, they appointed a "clerk of the writs" to perform the service. The first of these officers in Watertown was Simon Eire. The earliest mar- riage on the record is that of John Bigelow and Mary Warren, in 1642, " before Mr. Nowell." Marriage, then regarded as a civil contract, was for a long time performed only by magistrates or spe- cially authorized persons. The earliest record of a marriage here by a clergyman was that by Rev. John Bailey, August 10, 1686. For fifteen, years after John Saltonstall's departure, and until Mr. Richard Browne was authorized to perform the ceremony, the people of the town, being without a magistrate, were obliged to apply to magistrates of other towns to be married.

The apostle Eliot began his missionary labors among the Indians " near Watertown Mill, upon the south side of Charles River," in October, 1646. This is not the place in which to enlarge upon this subject, nor can we know how much interest the people of Watertown took in this pious but futile effort to Christianize the heathen around them, but to us it seems one of the most picturesque and memorable incidents in our early history. Five years later the Indian church and village of Natick were founded by Eliot.

One of the earliest of the executions in New England for witchcraft took place about 1650, when a Mrs. Kendall of Cambridge was judicially murdered for bewitching to death a child of Good- man Gennings (Jennison) of . Watertown. The principal evidence was that of a Watertown nurse, who testified that the said Kendall did make much of the child, and then the child was well, but quickly changed in color and died a few hours after. After the execution the parents denied that their child was bewitched, and stated that it died from imprudent exposure to cold by the nurse the

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night before. The nurse was soon after put in prison for adultery, and there died, "and so the inatter was not further enquired into."

In the formidable Indian outbreak of 1675-76, known as Philip's War, which threatened the de- struction of the New England colonies, thirteen towns were destroyed and more than six hundred men, chiefly young men, the flower of the country, perished in the field. Watertown escaped, but her citizens were repeatedly called out to repel the onslaught of the savages upon neighboring towns. The following names of twenty " souldiers," im- pressed from Watertown in November, 1675, for the defence of the colony, were returned by Cap- tain Hugh Mason as " rationaly most fit to goe upon the servis ": "Daniell Warrin, Sr., John Bignlah, Sr., Nathaniel Hely, Joseph Tayntor, John Whitney, Sr., George Harrington, William Hagar, Jr., John Parkhurst, Michael Flagg, Jacob Bul- lard, Isaac Learned, Joseph Waight, George Dill, William Pierce, Nathaniel Sanger, Moses Whitney, John Windam, Joseph Smith, Nathaniel Barsham, John Barnard."

The brave Captain Beers, of Watertown, while marching from Hadley to bring off the garrison at Squakheag (Northfield), was, on the morning of September 4, 1675, waylaid by the Indians and slain, together with about twenty of his men. The scene of the conflict is to this day called Beers' Plain, and the eminence to which he withdrew his men and where he fell is still known as Beers' Mountain. Richard Beers came to Watertown in 1630. He was a soldier in the Pequot War, par- ticipating, as he himself says, " in two several de- signs when the Lord delivered them into onr hands." Soon after, or, as he says, "Uppon his return, such a weakness fell uppon his body that for 8 years space he was much disinabled to labor for his famyly, spending a great part of that little he had upon phesitions." He was a sergeant in 1642, when the court ordered him to superintend "the breeding of saltpetre." His homestead, where in 1654 he was licensed to keep an ordi- mary, was on the southwest border of Fresh Pond. In 1664 he petitioned for a grant of land from the colony " where he can find it in this wilderness, seeing he hath many children to share in the same and hath been an inhabitant in this jurisdic- tion ever since the first beginning thereof, and according to his weake abilities served the same." He was a representative from 1663, and had been a lieutenant many years, but was styled captain

when, at the age of sixty, he went upon his last fatal expedition.

Captain Hugh Mason, who at the head of forty Watertown men marched to the relief of Groton, was, March 15, 1676, appointed one of a committee of four to provide for the defence of the frontier towns of Middlesex County. April 20, his men assisted the inhabitants of Sudbury to repulse the attack of two hundred Indians, whom they drove across the river. Next day they followed them and renewed the attack in the hope of affording relief to Captain Wadsworth, but there being "too many " of them, our men, who were almost sur- rounded, retreated to Captain Goodnow's garrison. Some of Wadsworth's men who had taken refuge in Noyes' Mill were rescued by Mason, who, join- ing Captain Hunting's company, went over the river, gathered the slain of Wadsworth's and Brocklebank's companies, and buried them. This was Philip's last success, and he was soon after- wards hunted down and killed. Captain Mason was seventy-six years of age at this time. He was one of the original settlers of the town, and had been a representative and selectman for many years. He was chosen captain in 1652. It is conjectured that he was the brother of the distinguished Cap- tain John Mason of Connecticut.

Some of the Watertown men who fell in the wars with the Indians were : William Flagg, at Lan- caster, August 22, 1675; John Chinery, at North- field, September 4, 1675 ; John Ball, at Lancaster, September 10, 1675; John Sherman, Jr., son of Captain John, at the Narragansett Fight ; George Harrington of Wadsworth's company, at Laneaster, February, 1676 ; Lieutenant Gershom Flagg, at Lamprey River, July 6, 1690, and Sergeant Jacob Fulham, at Lovewell's Pond, May 8, 1725.

Watertown's proportion of the tax for the carry- ing on the war against Philip was £ 45. January 22, 1677, the government made allowance to the people distressed by the war, and allotted to the selectmen of the several towns their proportion out of the "Irish Charity " in meal, oatmeal, wheat, malt at 18s., butter per ball 6d., and cheese 4.d. per pound. Nineteen Watertown fami- lies, consisting of seventy-six persons, were thus aided, Boston and Charlestown being alone entitled to a larger measure of relief.

In 1727 the soldiers who were in the Narragan- sett expedition in 1675, or their lawful representa- tives, petitioned the General Court for the land promised them when they enlisted. Their petition

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was granted, and to the Watertown men named below was assigned a portion of Township No. 2, now Westminster, Massachusetts. They were John Sawin for his father Thomas, Ephraim Cut- ter, James Cutting for his father James, John Bernard, Joshua Bigelow, William Shattuck, Joseph Grant for his father Joseph, Zachariah Smith for his father Jonathan, Samuel Hagar for his father John, George Harrington's heirs, John Harrington, Joseph Priest for his father Joseph, Zachariah Cutting, John Bright for his uncle John, George Parmeter for his father William, Joseph Ball for his uncle Jacob Bullard, Thomas Harring- ton for his wife's father Timothy Rice, John Sher- man for his uncle John, Captain Joseph Bowman for his wife's uncle James Barnard, Joseph Smith for his father Joseph, Richard Beers for his father Elnathan, Michael Flagg's heirs, John Cutting for his father John, the heirs of Dr. Wellington and of Benjamin Wellington.

When, upon the news of the landing of the Prince of Orange in England, the people of Boston and vicinity overthrew the hated government of Andros, representatives from all the towns in the colony met at Boston, May 22, 1689, to consult as to the propriety of resuming the old charter. Wil- liam Bond and Benjamin Garfield, on behalf of the people of Watertown, were instructed to maintain " the charter rights," that is, the old charter, and to agree to the declaration set forth at a previous meeting of representatives until further orders from the English government. . This course was recom- mended by a large majority of the towns, but the old charter was never restored, and a new one, less liberal in some respects, was granted by King Wil- liam III. in 1691.

After the decease of Captain John Sherman in 1691 the town was divided into three military precincts. The first was under Captain William Bond, who was made a magistrate in 1686 ; the sec- ond (Waltham) was Lieutenant Garfield's; and the third (Weston) was that of Lieutenant Josiah Jones.

The ineffectual attempt to establish three regular market-places in Boston in 1734 gave great offence . to the neighboring towns, who regarded this re- striction as an infringement of their rights. In retaliation, the people of Watertown voted to sus- pend all intercourse with the Bostonians at their markets under a heavy penalty, but it is probable that a measure so absurd as that of prohibiting people from selling vegetables where it was for their interest to sell, soon became a dead letter.

In 1758 a company from Watertown and vicinity, commanded by Captain Jonathan Brown, was in service in Canada, in the regiment of Colonel Wil- liam Williams. Captain Brown was afterwards a member of the Provincial Congress, serving on important committees, and was for many years a selectman.

Watertown, in common with the other towns in the colony, heartily co-operated with Boston in the various measures of the patriot leaders in opposi- tion to the arbitrary acts of the British gov- ernment. That imposing duties on tea, paper, glass, etc., aroused universal indignation. At the meeting held in Boston towards the close of the year 1767, for the encouragement of home produc- tions and to lessen foreign importations, the other towns were appealed to for sympathy and support in this policy. Watertown, Jannary 18, 1768, responded by voting to dispense with imported goods, at the same time declaring all foreign teas expensive and pernicious, as well as unnecessary. " This continent," she said, "abounds with many herbs of a more salubrious quality, which, if we were as much used to as the poisonous Bohea, would no doubt in time be as agreeable, perhaps much more so ; and whilst by a manly influence we expect our women to make this sacrifice to the good of their country, we hereby declare we shall highly honor and esteem the encouragers of our own manufactures and the general use of the pro- ductious of this continent, this being in our judg- ment at this time a necessary means, under God, of rendering us a happy and free people."

Thus it appears that almost six years before the tea was thrown into Boston Harbor it had been thrown overboard, metaphorically, by Watertown, which took the lead in denouncing this "expensive, pernicious, and poisonous " herb.

At the same meeting her representative was in- structed, while resisting all encroachments upon her rights and joining in all vigorous but legal and peaceable measures for obtaining relief, "not to be drawn into any rash or disorderly measures, either disrespectful to the best of sovereigns, or undutiful to our mother country," thus indicating how far they then were from any thought of re- nouncing allegiance to Great Britain. The circular of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, issued in November, 1772, enumerating the wrongs and grievances inflicted by the British Parliament, and calling upon the people to be watchful, was an- swered by the Watertown committee, February 5,

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1773, in terms that strongly and solemnly ex- pressed its conviction of the dangers and duties of the " momentous crisis " at hand.

The sentiments of the inhabitants upon the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor found expression in the spirited resolves and preamble of the town-meeting of January 3, 1774. " We are fully of opinion," say they, " that the people had no design or desire that the tea on board the ves- sels should be destroyed or any way damaged but, on the contrary, were very desirous and used their utmost endeavors that said tea might be safely re- turned to the owners thereof." The accompanying resolves proscribe with all possible strength of expression the use of tea in any mode or quan- tity.

As early as May, 1774, just before the closing of the port of Boston, the selectmen - Samuel White, David Bemis, Josiah Capen, David Sanger, and Elijah Bond - bought four half-barrels of powder, and proposed to the town the purchase of balls and flints. The committee of correspond- ence were Samuel Fiske, Moses Stone, Richard Clarke, Jedediah Leathe, and Nathaniel Stone. The town was represented in the Middlesex County Convention, held August 30, 1774, at Concord, which declared its intention to "nullify the late aets of parliament in violation of our rights."

The Revolution was now making rapid progress, and early in September the town ordered that its militia should be exercised two hours every week, and that its stock of arms and ammunition should be inspected. This was followed up by votes in- structing its tax-colleetors to pay their money into the treasury of the town instead of that of the province ; directing their representative, Captain Jonathan Brown, to unite with those of the other towns in forming a provincial congress ; and au- thorizing the mounting and equipping of the two pieces of cannon in the town. November 21, 1774, a committee of nine was appointed to carry into effect the association and resolves of the Gen- eral Congress at Philadelphia, and likewise those .of the Provincial Congress. A minute-company was formed January 2, 1775, " four coppers " (to be laid out for refreshment) being allowed each man for his attendance once a week to learn mili- tary exercises. Its officers were : Samuel Barnard, captain ; John Stratton, first lieutenant ; Phinehas Stearns, second lieutenant; Edward Harrington, Jr., ensign ; Samuel Sanger, Abner Craft, Christopher Grant, Jr., and Josiah Capen, Jr., sergeants ; Ste-

phen Whitney, Moses Stone, Jr., Isaac Sanderson, Jr., and Nathaniel Bright, corporals.

On the morning of the mnemorable 19th of April, 1775, the Middlesex regiment, under Colo- nel Thomas Garduer, assembled at the Watertown meeting-house. Michael Jackson, who commanded the Newton company that day, and afterwards, as colonel of the 8th Massachusetts Regiment, served through the Revolutionary War, found, on his ar- rival at the meeting-house, that the officers were in council in the adjacent school-house. Obtaining the floor, he told them that the time for talking had passed and the time for fighting had come ; that if they meant to oppose the march of the Brit- ish troops they must forthwith leave the school- house and take up their march for Lexington, and that he intended that his company should take the shortest route to get a shot at the British. His blunt, vigorous speech broke up the council, each company being left to take its own course. Those of Newton and Watertown, joining near Lexington, encountered Lord Perey's retreating column, ex- changing shots with it, and hanging upon its flank and rear, until, at nightfall, it reached Charlestown, completely exhausted and demoralized. They re- ceived upon the field the thanks of Dr. Warren, president of the Provincial Congress, for their bravery. The Watertown men were led that day by Captain, afterwards Major, Samuel Barnard, one of the Boston Tea-Party, losing only one of their number, Joseph Coolidge, in the action.

Three days after the battle the second Provin- cial Congress adjourned from Concord to Water- town, its sessions and those of the third and last, as well as those of the General Court, its successor, being held in the old meeting-house until the adjournment of the latter body to the state-house in Boston, November 9, 1776. President Lang- don, of Harvard College, preached the Election Sermon before the Congress that assembled here May 31. After the departure of President Han- coek, who was a delegate to the congress at Phila- delphia, Joseph Warren, the early martyr in the eause of American freedom, presided over its delib- erations until the memorable 17th of June. Be- fore his departure for the scene of action that day he entreated the ladies of the house in which he boarded to prepare lint and bandages, observing, "The poor fellows will want them all before night."

In 1775-76 the Council met in an adjacent house on Mount Auburn Street. When Marshall

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Street was opened this building had to be re- moved, and it now stands nearly opposite the high school. These two bodies were kept in a state of great activity by the extraordinary exi- gency that had arisen, having in charge not only the re-establishment upon an entirely new basis of the civil authority, but also the raising, equipping, and supplying of an army, as well as the general oversight and direction of the military operations of the province. Arms and military stores had been deposited under guard, early in the siege, at the house of Edward Richardson, who kept an inn at the intersection of Belmont and Mount Auburn streets. The old house is yet standing, and was the residence of the late Mr. Joseph Bird. At the end of April sixteen pieces of cannon belonging to the colony were stored in Watertown.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. II, Part 77

Author: Drake, Samuel Adams, 1833-1905 Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Boston : Estes and Lauriat Number of Pages: 650

Author: Drake, Samuel Adams, 1833-1905
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Boston : Estes and Lauriat
Number of Pages: 650