History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 111

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed. cn
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1226

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 111

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ing prosperous man. He received a commission as Justice of the Peace in 1734.

In 1736 he sold his farm of 270 acres to James Allen, of Boston, for which he received £2550 and removed to Dudley where he died in 1760. Some of his descendants remained in Stoneham, and settled in that part of the town which has since been annexed to Melrose. Another large land owner was Timothy Wright who was born in Woburn, was originally a carpenter, and came here about 1700, settling in the westerly part of the town, his house being located near the corner of Wright and Hancock Streets. A large portion of the original farm with additions made to it by his descendants remained in the family for about 175 years. The venerable form of Capt. John H. Wright is still fresh in the memory of the present generation. The possessions of the Wrights em- braced most of the territory westerly from Main, and Warren Streets to Woburn line, and from Marble Street on the south to the lands of the Hays, north- erly from Montvale Avenue. The progenitor of the Bucknams was Edward who came from Malden in 1716, and bought twenty-six acres of Philip Alex- ander with a house and barn which stood near the corner of Warren and Lynden Streets, on the easterly side of the road. With the usual thrift of the early settlers he made considerable additions to his original purchase, and died in Stoneham in 1773, aged eighty- two years. Next easterly from Edward Bucknam lived Richard Belcher, who is described of Charles- town as early as 1708, when he bought a house and twenty-one acres of land of Joseph Wright, Jr., of Woburn. He very probably occupied the old Mars- ton or Ebenezer Bucknam house, on the north side of Summer Street. He was a mason, taught school .at Charlestown End, and died in 1720, leaving a large family of children. In 1695, Deacon Nathaniel Law- rence came from Groton, bought seventy one and a half acres of Joseph Lynde, and built the house recently torn down on the southerly side of Hancock Street, known as the Old Zac Gerry house. A lane formerly led from the house to the old road (now Summer Street). A brick was taken out of the chimney bear- ing tbe mark 1708 from which it is possible to fix the probable date of its erection. For those times it must have been a roomy and substantial residence. The character of this building as of the Ebenezer Buck- nam house, the Old Office, the Jonathan Green house in Green Lane, and of several others which have dis- appeared within the past fifty years, many of them similar, and built about the same period, indicate the thrift and prosperity of the men who were the founders of Stoneham. These ancient relics of the pastare gra- dually fading away, and the time may soon come when not a single monument built by human hands will carry us back to the days of Charlestown End. Even the names of most of those who laid the foundation of the town, have been long forgotten. Deacon Lawrence very likely may have built and first lived in the house

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

which was the home of Deacon Jabez Lynde on the east side of Summer Street, and now owned by Miss Sarah A. Lynde. He was past middle life when he came here from Groton, and died in 1724. He had been a leading man in Groton, was an ensign in the militia, a deacon in the church, and one of the first representatives of that town under the charter of William and Mary in 1693. The next year after his deatlı, his farm was sold by his children to Thomas Geary. Another citizen of Groton who settled licre was Samuel Holden, who lived for a time in, Woburn, and bought a traet of forty-five acres in the westerly part of the town south of Marble Street in 1690. The Holdens owned an extensive territory in the south- westerly part of Stoneham, and easterly of Bear Hill. It is impossible to say with certainty where Samuel first located, but probably on the land which he origi- nally purchased near Marble Street, although subse- quently some of his descendants lived in two houses westerly and southwesterly from the last,residence of the late John Bucknam. In an ancient paper now in the possession of one of the family is the following reference to him while in Groton : "Samuel Holden, - second son to Richard Holden, lived in Groton until the Indian War (which probably was the war with Philip, but whether it was or not, I shall not deter- mine, the war with Philip, I think) was about the year 1675, at which time Mrs. R was taken captive."

"The town in the night was beset with Indians; the Indians came to his house in the night and broke it open and came in. His wife made her escape out of a door with two small children in her arms and went into a corn-field. Mr. Holden stood bchind a door with a gun in his hand, intending to kill some of them, but it being so dark he could not see them. He also made his escape out of the house and went to a garrison house. The Indians, after plundering the house, went off. Soon after this Samuel Holden moved to Stoneham (then Charlestown) for fear of the Indians. He died on or about the year 1739, aged eighty-eight years!" As the observaut pedes- triau tramps over the pastures between the Nathan Bucknam house and Bear Hill, he notices three de- pressions in the ground where once stood human habitations which long since have disappeared. Two of them were occupied by Holdens, and the one far- thest south by Isaac Howe, who purchased there a house and barn and eighty-two acres of land, in 1715. William Richardson, the brother-in-law of John Vin- ton, probably built the house and for a time lived in it. Isaac Howe came from Roxbury at the age of fifty-nine or sixty, and lived but two or three years after his settlement. Hc left, however, several sons and a daughter, Naomi, who married Joseph Holden. To the lover of antiquity, in this new country where there are but few antiquities, there is nothing more fascinating than roaming through the woods and over the fields, placing the old range lines, discover- ing here and there an ancient cellar-liole, and re-

peopling in imagination once more the territory with the early inhabitants who dwelt here one hundred and fifty and two hundred years ago. To a person familiar with the transfer of their lands, the dates of their birth, times of their death, the names of the girls they married and the children they left, these forefathers of ours seem like old and near friends. Going now to the northwestern part of the town, north of William Street, to the farmns of Micah Williams and Sumner Richardson, let us rebuild again the houses of Timothy Baldwin, Sr., and Tim- othy Baldwin, Jr. The former came from Woburn as early as 1705, perhaps earlier, hired of Charles- town eiglity-six acres, bought land of his own and lived a few rods northeasterly from the house of Mr. Williams. Deacon Dean, in his history of Stoneham, tells this story of Baldwin's house, which is a tradi- tion. "The building for a considerable length of tinie was supposed to be haunted. A family lived there at that time. At the season of harvesting a quantity of pumpkins were carried into the garret; one evening while the father was abseut, and the mother with the children and other members of the family sat by the fireside, a noise was heard; some- thing appeared to be coming down stairs. It came stamp, stamp, down the garret stairs; it then came to the entry stairs, which led to a lower door, and with increased force came pound, pound into the entry be- low. Then the noise ceased. The affrighted family waited with great anxiety for the return of the hus- band and father. When he returned the news was communicated to him. He repaired to the entry, when, on opening the door, a good, lusty pumpkin was reposing on the floor." Mr. Baldwin was a per- son of good education for those times, a man of influ- ence, and one of the first board of selectmen. With John Gould, James Hill and Peter Hay he built a grist-mill near Mill Street. Timothy Baldwin, Jr., lived west from his father, a few rods northeast of the house of Sumner Richardson. In 1713 he bought the house and barn and thirty-seven acres of land of Andrew Beard; the latter probably having eleared the land and built the house, for we find Beard buy- ing lots of woodland, which made up the farm of the first proprietors or their heirs, as early as 1700. Han- nah, the widow of Timothy Baldwin, Jr., and her sccond husband, John Vinton, in 1763, sell to Oliver Richardson, in whose family most of the land has since remained. During the first century of the town hardly any family exerted a wider influence or furnished more leading citizens than the Greens, two or three branches of whom located in the easterly aud southeasterly parts of the town. Henry, or El- der Green, was a weaver; came from Malden; com- meneed to purchase land in the latter part of the seventeenth century; is described as of Malden, in 1695, and of Charlestown, in 1709, and died here in 1717, aged seventy-eight. He was the father of Dea- con Daniel Green; probably built his house on the

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north side of East Street, near the spot where Daniel G. Startevaut now lives, who is a lineal desceudant, a portion of the property having remained in the family for two hundred years.

His possessions lay chiefly north and south of Spring and East Streets. Captain Nathaniel Green was also a resident of Charlestown End in 1716, but in a few years moved to Leicester. Another one of the Greens who settled at Green Lane was Jonathau, who came from Malden iu the early part of the eighteenth century. From then till now the old homestead, which is said to have been built early in the eighteenth century, has been occupied in each generation by a Jonathau Green. The Green farm was very extensive, embracing a large portion of the territory from the Melrose line southwest to Pond Street. Captain Jonathan Green, son of the first Jonathan, became a leading citizen, and filled a large space in our history during his life, but it belongs to a later period than the one of which we are now speaking. Supposing it now to be the year 1716, we will return to the abode of Patrick Hav, and travel- ing easterly, towards the farm of William Rogers, we shall notice the house of Samnel Smith, on the north of where now is Eim Street, about opposite the residence of Captain Snow. This year he sold his farm of thirty-four acres with a house, barn and orchard, to Ebenezer Damon. Damon came from Reading ; was a blacksmith; in 1711 was a soldier against the French and Indians in Canada, and lived here but a few years. One of the oldest dwellings in Stoneham is on Green Street, owned and occupied by Oakcs Green. Its history goes back almost two centuries, through the families of the Greens, the Bryants and the Southers, to Thomas Millard, who is supposed to have built it and lived there till 1725, when he sold to John Souther. Miliard came from Reading. North of Thomas Millard lived Joseph Bryant, the father of Col. Joseph Bryant. To a person tramping through the Felis west of Bear Hill and so down to Spring Pastore, the territory appearing, till within a few years, like a solitary wilderness, away from roads and human habitations, it seems almost impossible to real- ize that he is passing over what was once cultivated farms, and yet, in this immediate neighborhood, long before the memory of living man, there were three different houses. As one peered into the well, looked down into the cellar-hole and traced the numerous walls about the Parker place, he felt almost the weird sensation of looking back on a pre-historic past, that the traveler experiences in gazing upon the ruins of Palenque and Uxmal. These old landmarks have af- forded, how many hours of happy revery, but alas ! they are now all swept away, the walls are gone, and not a trace remains to locate the home of Ebenezer Parker, who lived here 150 years and more ago. His nearest neighbors to the south lived, one of them where.now is the east end of Winchester Reservoir, and the other a little farther south, in Spring

Pasture. As there was no highway in this neighbor- hood, the people probably used the road over Bear Hill, which extended down through the woods to Medford. When the division of land among the in- habitauts of Charlestown was made, in 1658, the northwesteru section of the towu was not included ; that is to say, the territory between High Street and Woburn line, and north from about Captain Rufus Richardson's Lane. This was subsequently knowu as the Charlestown Farms, aud, in the early part of the eighteenth century, was leased to different individ- uals. The two hundred acres in the extreme north- western section were leased, in 1705, to Stephen Wil- liams, of Woburn, for twenty-one years, and were bounded on the south by the old road from Reading to Woburn. There was a provision in the lease that the lessee should " build and finish upon said Land A Dwelling house wich shall be Twenty Two foot Long and Eighteen foot wide, nine foot studd between joists, and a Leauto at the end of said house, Twelve foot Long, the bredthi of the house six foot stud, and shall Dig and sufficiently stone A Couvenient Seller under said House, and shall build and cary up a Double stack of Brick Chimneys to A Convenient height above the house, and shall Lay two floors in said house, and Leanto and fill the Walles Betweene the Studs and Ceile them with Plained boards or Lime morter on the inside, and shall make Convenient Stairs, and shall board or Claboard the outside of said house, and board and Shingle the Roofe, to make it every Where Thite, and make Convenient Lights in said house, and Glaze the same; And shall also erect and build A barn upon said Land Thirty foot Long and Twenty foot wide, and Cover the same on the Sides, Ends and Roofe, to make it thite; and at his own proper Cost and charges suport, maintaine, Re- pair and Amend the said house and barn with all needful Repairations and Amendments during said Term, And shall also plant Two acres of said Land with Good fruit Trees, for an Orchard, the Trees to be planted thirty Two foot asunder, and Fence said or- chard intire With A Good sufficient fence aboute the same, and make and maintaine A Good sufficient fence, stone Wall, or posts and Railes about What Land he Improves ; And the said Land, medow, house, barn and fences erected and sett up on said Land as above said, so well and sufficiently repaircd and Amended ; with the orchard sufficiently fenced intire, and as above expressed, all the improved Land so fenced; as above said at the end of said Term of Twenty one years shall and will Leave, etc."

Eighty acres were to be reserved for woodland. For rent he was to pay during the first ten years twelve pence per year, and for the other eleven years the sum of five pounds and ten shillings per year. How long he remained is uncertain, though twenty years later there was a Stephen Williams, Jr., here, proba- bly the same man. The house which he built was one story high, and probably stood on the north side

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

of the old road a little easterly from the Woburn line, though possibly the original dwelling was located near the spot where the late Caleb Wiley lived. The latter spot is said to have been the scene of an Indian butchery. The tradition is, that after the murder the neighbors assembled and pursued the savages. Near a large roek, which may be seen to this day about a third of a mile west of thic house, one of them was seen and shot. Also seven packs were found on the roek, from which it appeared that six others were in his company and had escaped. The farmn east of that of Williams, consisting of one hundred and six- teen acres, with a house, barn and orchard, just such as has been described, was leased to John Wesson, of Reading, and extended to the Geary land near the present High Street. The house was probably located in the vicinity of where the late James Pierce lived. Wesson also in 1705 leased ninety-one aeres south of his other farm, with the same provisions in the lease as to house, barn and orchard as in that of Williams. The latter extended from near Oak Street to High Street. The buildings were located a few rods east of the old house of John B. Tidd south of the road, and were still standing in the early part of the pres- ent century. Some years later this farm was oecu- pied for many years by James Hill, the founder of the family of that name. The next and last farm to the south was one, of one hundred and ten acres, let to Thomas and Daniel Gould, with the same conditions as in the otlier leases, and extended from near Oak Street on the west to land of Kendall Parker on the east, extending a little easterly of High Street, and embraced a large portion of Farm Hill. Two ancient homesteads stood on this territory, and it is not quite certain which was the original farm house, but prob- ably it was one built on the east side of the road, nearly opposite the house of John Paine, and just south of land now owned by the town. It was here that Grover Scollay was afterwards said to have lived, though for a time he hired one of the Charlestown farms formerly occupied by Wesson. When Stone- ham was set off, the Gould farm was conveycd to the town towards the support of the ministry. West of the Gould and Wesson farms, and south of the old road, was a farm let to Timothy Baldwin, of eighty-six aeres. There were no buildings upon this farm, and in 1787 it was conveyed by Charlestown to Thaddeus, Oliver, Caleb and Elijah Richardson, and afterwards divided between them. It is believed that the names and, so far as possible, the location of almost every inhabitant who founded a family here, prior to 1725, have been given in the preceding pages. It may have seemed tedious to the reader, but it is a duty we owe their memory that their names should be preserved. No one of them is known to have acquired a distine- tion beyond his immediate neighborhood. None among them could boast of Harvard as his alma mater. Neither of the so-called learned professions had had a representative at Charlestown End ; probably no

town within a radius of ten miles from Boston had an humbler origin than ours.

It may be interesting to know something of the domestic life of the earliest settlers, and nothing indi- cates this more certainly than the inventories of their estates as they were made at their decease. Let us for a moment consider a few of them. The first onc who died was Thomas Cutler, whose deccasc occurred in 1683. He left twenty-five acres of land and a house valued at £40; "3 cows, 4 young cattle, £18 ; 1 mare to colts, three pounds; 10 swinc, 40 bushels Indian corn and some rye and oats and barlcy, 9 pounds and 10 shillings ; 1 plough and ax and imple- ments for husbandman's work ; 2 beds with bedding; 3 pair sheets with other linen, woolen and flax, 2 pounds, 4 shillings; 5 yards home-made eloth, and some yarn, 2 iron pots with iron things and pewter and brass, 2 pounds 5 shillings ; chests and boxes with other usable things in house, 1 pound 10 shill- ings ; wearing clothes, 2 pounds ; gun and sword, 1 pound." The inventory of John Gould, filed March 27, 1691, is as follows: "One feather bed, bolster, blanket, bedstead, etc., £5; pewter and brass, £2; Iron ware, £1 15s .; household linen, £6 10s .; table, chests, boxes and chaires, £2 15s .; 2 oxen, £4; 2 cows, £4; 12 sheep, £3 12s .; Dairy vessels, £1 138." Matthew Smith's valuation, dated December 15, 1691, shows that he left "Two oxen valued, £9; 4 cows, £13; 3 yerlings, £4; 1 horse, £4 10s .; 9 sleep, £4; 4 swine, £3; Iron and Ring and plough irons, etc., £2; Iron and two axes, etc., £1 18s .; a whifaltree, chains and cart Ropes, Iron and tongs, Iron bolts, shave, Some other eage tools and ax, £2 9s .; Indian corn and Inglish corne, flax, and woolen yarns and linen yarns and linen cloath and hemp, £3 18s .; beds and cording, £5; tobacco, 15s .; hops, 10s .; chests and boxes and pailes, trays and dishes, with other wooden things visabal in the house, £1 15s .; 1 baril and a half of pork, £4 10s .; sadell and bridell, £1; Iron arms and amunition, £2 108 .; Cloathing, woolen and linen, £3 5s .; books, 8s .; a broad axe, a book, a pair of shoes, £3 10s." Coming down to the early partof the next century, and to the second generation, when wealth had somewhat ac- cumulated and luxuries increased, John Gould, the second of that name, who died in 1712, left a much larger personal property, which was described as fol- lows: "Wareing close, the best feather bed, one bolster, 2 pillows, £6 5s. 6d .; a straw bed, a coverlaid, £6 11s. 1 blankct, 2 sheets, cord and bedstead, £4 88. 6d .; another feather bed, bolster, eoverlaid 9d .; another feather -- bed, 1 bolster, 1 eover- laid, 2 blankets, 2 sheets, £4 28. 6d .; 6 napkins, 1 ta- ble eloth, 1 bed blanket, £1 3s .; pillows, 48 .; 3 pewter platters, one bason and other puter and tinn, £1 7s. 11d .; brass eettlc, 15s .; worming pan, Gs .; a scollet and oyrn pot, 48 .; friing pan, 6s .; an oyrn cettle, 78 .; an oyrn scelet, 48 .; fire shovel, tongs, 78 .; box oryn and pot hook, 1 gun, 158 .; a pare of pistils and holster, 18s .; a eutlash, 4s .; 2 eliests, 2 boxes, 19s. 6d .; 2 sad-

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dles and pilian, Is .; 10 books, 13s .; 5 barils and a pipe, 16s. 6d .: Inmber, 68 .; a loome, 2 slays, £1 10s .; carpenters tools, £1 14s .; 2 sickles and wedge and old oyrn, 178. 6d .; and tackling, 15s .; axes, 14s .; forks and 2 chains, 16s .; 1 plough and oyrns, Ss .; hoe, yoke and rings and staples, 12s .; 1 shovel and grindstone, 78. &d .; 1 cart and wheels, £4 10s .; sled and tumbril, 108 .; a flax comb, 9s .; stone cart, Ss .; 20 bushels ry, 108 .; 5 bnshals wheat, £1 28. 6d .; 16 bushals of molt, 1 B & barly, £2 12g. 6d .; Indian corn, 55 bushals at 28. 3d. per B, £6 17s. 6d .; 8 pounds of wool, 5s .; a cross-cut saw, 58 .; 5 swine, £2; 2 pair of oxen, £15 158 .; 1 horse, £4 10s .; one mare, £4 10s .; 6 cows, £17 15& .; 2 yearlings, £1 18s .; 23 sheep, £8 1s .; timber hieved for a barn, 38 .; flax, 108 .; a paire of new shoos, 58 .; 2 sacks, 33 .; 2 baskets, 38. 9d .; 300 bords, 12s .; 1 baril and half of pork, £4 10g .; sword, small things, 108. 6d." By an examination of these lists it will be observed there were no carriages, no crockery or glass-ware or hardly any furniture except bedsteads. chairs and boxes. The only fire was that of the fire place. Carpets or rugs had not come into use. No curtains were required to shield the inmates from the curiosity of passers-by. There were no watches or clocks to indicate the time. No metal more precious than iron and brass and pewter and tin filled their cupboards, or covered their tables. Potatoes had not come into general use. The staple articles of food were Indian corn, wheat, rye, barley and pork, with mutton and beef at intervals, and doubtless veal and lamb now and then. Coffee and tea were luxuries of the future, and probably sugar was very little in use. Flour as we have it was unknown. Garden vegetables were cultivated to no great extent. Milk and butter and cheese they possessed at an early day in abun- dance. Wild game was plenty. The cloth was for the most part home-spun. To a very large de- gree their purchases were exchanges, grain taking the place of money as a medinm of exchange. Fruit trees were set out at an early day, orchards started, and afterwards great quantities of cider were made and consumed, but the first John Gonld and Thomas Cutler hardly lived to reach that blissful day. It is safe to assume that during the first years of the set- tlement, wagons were not in common use.

As the years went on comforts gradually increased. As appears in the inventory of John Gould, who died in 1712, pillions were used, and we can imagine our great-great-grandfathers on horseback in front, and our great-great-grandmothers on pillions behind. Every household contained a gun, and from necessity all the men, and many of the women were familiar with the use of firearms. This was not a border town. but still the Indians in small numbers made occa- sional incursions. John Gonld and Thomas Geary, as already stated, were soldiers in King Philip's War, and later Ebenezer Damon and Joseph Arnold in the war against Canada. Perhaps there were no slaves here in the seventeenth century, but there were sev-

eral in the eighteenth. Timothy Baldwin in 1708 made his will, giving to his wife his " best feather bed with the furniture thereunto belonging, and six pairs of sheets, one paire of them being cotton and lining, and ten pounds in money, the chamber which is in the east end of the House, with the Improvement of a third part of my seller Roome, well and oven, and my Brass Kettle skilet, Iron Pots and Kettels, and all my Pewter During the Terme of her widowhood. Also the use of a good cow and horse, half a hundred weight of good Pork annually, fifteen bushels of In- dian corn, five bushels of malt, two bushels of ry, and two Barrils of sider, ten cords of firewood, liberty of raising one swine and of gathering six bushels of apples." Gonld's saw-mill was in existence certainly as early as 1708 and quite probably mnuch earlier, being located south of Mill Strect, on or near the spot where stood the saw-mill of the late David H. Burn- ham. A grist-mill was built here by John Gould, Peter Hay, Timothy Baldwin and James Hill in 1737 or 1738. There was also a mill in the early part of the century near the outlet of Spot Pond. The only public building was the school-house in the easterly part of the town near where Charles Buck resides. The appropriations for the school, however, could not have been very munificent if the usual amount was spent in 1713. That year four pounds were voted "to pay for teaching children to write among our inhab- itants near Reading." No record is known to exist of a public house prior to the year 1725, but there is a tradition that one was kept at an early day, located a few rods north of South Street, on the Wilson farm. Numerous relics have been ploughed up at this place, one of the most interesting of which was a large mng in an almost perfect state of preservation, similar to what is now known as Flemish ware. In 1725 the population of Charlestown End had been gradually increasing till the number of male inhab- itants who were taxed was sixty-five. They were so far from Charlestown that they derived none of the advantages of a connection with the parent town, and suffered all the inconveniences attending a com- munity separated from the church and the school by miles of wilderness. The time had come when they had outgrown the dependence of a distant settlement and aspired to become a separate town. So this year Captain Benjamin Geary and fifty-three others peti- tioned to be set off, but the town voted not to grant the petition. The General Court, however, in Decem- ber, 1725, passed the following act :

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 111

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed. cn Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1226

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed. cn
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1226