History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 76

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1278

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III > Part 76

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1 For a full treatment of the south side bounde see Mr. Ensign's paper.

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

portions in some places come near the surface. Back on the western bounds of the old town, among the hills of Weston and the western part of Waltham, the general level is one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet higher. There are fine specimens of deposits in ridges of an ient glaciers, moraines, in various portions of the town, as at the Waverly Oaks, while the rounded hills of hard clay and gravel deposits are seen in White's Hill, in Strawberry Hill between Mt. Auburn and Belmont Streets, and in other places. Thus we find with considerable variation in level and in that irregularity of form due to the unequal wear- ing away of materials of unequal hardness, as well as the irregular deposits of morains, a sufficient variety of surface to produce that picturesque effect always noted from the time of the earliest visitors to the pres- ent, when city denizens swarm ont prospecting for convenient country homes. The soil of Watertown, ways Dr. Francis, " is remarkably good." The sub- stratum of clay, even when mingled with sand and gravel to some extent, make the hill-sides rich, moist, productive. This under-structure of the soil accounts for the abundance of fine springs, which elaimed the attention of the early colonists, and which, according to a tradition, helped give; name to the town, Water- town it was written. It will be remembered that they suffered for water at Charlestown. The hills, the river-banks, the lowlands must have been covered with heavy forests when first visited, although one would think from the early accounts that the plains east of Mount Auburn, if not also west of it along the river near the Arsenal, over the plains west of Lexing- ton Street and over the Waltham plains, were lands destitute of forests and so easily plowed and desirable for tillage.

We can form little idea of the size of the brooks, or of the abundance of springs found by the early set- tlers, from the fact that the forests have been strip- ped from their fastnesses, and the surface has been cultivated like a garden ; and, if the water-courses have not been entirely dried up, as in old Palestine, we owe it to the nearness to the sea, and the tenacity of the clay soils for the water, which they give up slowly.

The hill on which the tower was built, in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, is 125 feet above the river ; while Strawberry Hill is somewhat more than 250 feet high. This was afterwards called School-House fill, and after the church was erected there, Meeting-House 11il , and is the hill now marked by the beautiful half- brick residence of Gilbert R. Payson, which is visible from all the hill tops, and many of the housetops within ten miles of Boston.

The lull nearer the village formerly called Whit- ney's Hill,1 from the fact that John Whitney's, Sr., and his sons were supposed to have owned the north

and west sides of the hill, more recently called White's Hill, over which Palfrey Street is now ex- tended, is quite prominent from the fact that it is nearer the main street, nearer the railroad, and so is more frequently visited. This is a little over 200 feet above the sea, or fifty feet lower than Meeting-House Hill. The stand pipe of the water-works is placed here. This is high enough to secure a flow of water to all parts of the town, except to the higher portions of Meeting-House or Payson's Hill.

Prospect Hill, beyond the plain of Waltham, the Middle Precinct of the old town, irregular in shape, rising in its highest portion 482 feet above the sea, is the most elevated point of the old town, probably the most elevated portion of the county. This point is seen first by sailors approaching the harbor of Bos- ton, after the Blue Ilills, of course, and gives from its broad slopes extended and most beautiful views of the surrounding country, inchiding the city and harbor of Boston, ten miles distant. Mount Feake is the first eminence of the town named in history. If the name is now attached to the hill to which Win- throp assigned it, it must have lost much of its former prominence, or Winthrop and his party must have been in merry mood, as there is little to suggest the name mount in the present site of Mount Feake Ceme- tery. As this account from the letters of Governor Winthrop is the oldest we have of the physical feat- nres of the town, its insertion here may help to a closer comparison. It bears date January 27, 1631-2. "The governor, and some company with him, went up by Charles River, about eight miles above Watertown, and named the first brook on the north side of the river (being a fair stream, and coming from a pond a mile from the river) Beaver Brook, because the beavers had shorn down divers great trees there, and made divers dams across the brook. Thence they went to a great roek, upon which stood a high stone, eleft in sunder, that four men might go through, which they called Adam's Chair, because the young- est of their company was Adam Winthrop. Thence they came to another brook, greater than the former, which they called Masters' Brook, because the eldest of their party was one John Masters. Thence they came to another high pointed roek, having a fair as- cend on the west side, which they called Mount Feake, from one Robert Feake, who had married the governor's daughter-in-law. On the west side of Mount Feake they went up a very high roek, from whence they might see all over Neipnett, and a very high hill due west, about forty miles off (Wachusett Mountain), and to the northwest the high hills (per- haps Monadnock Mountain) by Merrimack, about sixty miles off."

The Beaver Brook is now well-known by this name. Adam's Chair is not now to be found, having prob- ably been destroyed by the building of the Fitchburg Railroad. Masters' Brook, now greatly diminished in size hy change of surface and by filling, enters the ·

1 " W Tiny's fill" In thenight by some to be the highland over wh b Lexington Street How passos,

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river near the watch-factory bridge. Mount Feake, within the cemetery of that name, affords the fine view to the west, it is said, which is mentioned in Winthrop's account.

The Charles River, of course, is the principal body of water in the old town. Whether the fall spoken of by the earliest settlers was due to a dam ereeted by the Norsemen, as Professor Horsford claims, or was merely a series of rapids, as it would seem necessary to suppose it would be if the dam were removed, we have not sufficient historical data to determine. It may not be proper in this place, for lack of direct testimony, to enter into an argument to prove, from the testimo- ny of Clap's party to finding near three hundred Indians fishing about the fall, that there must have been greater hindrance to the free, upward movement of the fish to their spawning-grounds than a series of gentle rapids, in order to make this such good fishing- grounds. No direet statements, accounts or allu- sions have as yet been found to the building of the dam by our early settlers, while the construction of the fish-weirs are named again and again.

The dam as it exists at the present time raises the water above it, so as to present very pleasant water spaees to vary and enliven the appearance of this part of the town ; and above, at Bemis, at the Bleach- ery and at Waltham, many beautiful lake-like ex- panses of water, with their irregular succession of tree-covered or grassy slopes, often with intervening islands, delight the eye of the observer and combine to make this river the pride of the poet and the painter, the constant and ever-present benefactor and delight of the people who dwell along its banks or are led by the needs of business, or are attracted by the charms of travel, to visit its winding course.

It is a matter of history that poets have been nursed on its banks. Although Longfellow lived just across the line, in Cambridge, and ever loved to look on the

" River that in silence windest

Through the meadows, bright and free,"

Lowell was born and lived near the ancient land- ing of Saltonstall and Phillips, in what, for more than a hundred years, was a part of this town.

Fresh Pond, in the eastern part, now entirely gained by Cambridge; Lake Walden, in the north- western part, now within the bounds of Concord ; San- dy Pond, now in Lincoln; Nonesuch Pond, now in Weston ; Beaver Pond, and Sherman's Pond, recently Mead's Pond, now in Waltham, all belong to the old town of Watertown, and help to diversify the sur- face and enliven the landscape.

The trees about Waverly, notably some large but- tonwoods, an immense elm, and "The Oaks," many centuries old, are frequently visited. It has been estimated that the oaks are from four to nine hundred years old. It is said that over seven hundred con- centrie rings have been eounted in the stem of a fal- len oak of the group standing on the beautiful

moraine beyond the Waverly Station, on the banks of Beaver Brook. The writer counted over four hun- dred in a large branch. These oaks might have been standing when Lief and Thorfinn visited Vineland the Good, and if the Charles River is "the river which flowed through a lake into the sea," Gudrid, the wife of Thorfinn, may have rested under the branches of these very trees. At all events, poetry, the vague, indefinable infinenees of popular tradition, science, a praiseworthy regard for the instruction and the health of future generations, unite in asking that these aneient specimens of trees and terminal moraines may be preserved by making a park of the fields con- taining them. If Waltham does not feel moved to purehase and preserve this border portion of her ter- ritory, the State of Massachusetts certainly should, before the "monarchs of the forest " fall before the venal axe.

AGRICULTURAL CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE .---- From what we know of the formation of the surface of the country in this vicinity, of the character of the soil, of the situation of the town in the immediate vicinity of the best harbor on the coast, and yet just enough removed to prevent active participation in commeree, and yet without sufficient water-power for extensive manufactures, we can see that if its people became active among the productive agencies of the Colony, or afterward in developing the resources of the young State that arose out of the fires of the Rev- olution in which it took a prominent part, if, in other words, it had seen intelligently its advantages and set actively and courageously at work to do what it was best fitted to do, it would have done exactly what it did do-namely, apply itself chiefly to agriculture. Watertown was soon the garden of Massachusetts Bay.

If we include what originally belonged to her, she is largely the garden for the production of a large part of the vegetable food of Boston to-day. She need not deny to Arlington, the daughter of her daughter Cambridge, all praise for her accomplish- ments in this direction. Blessed in like manner, she too has improved her advantages. And having poorer facilities for manufacturing industries, being more re- stricted in her range of employments, it would not be strange if her gardens outstripped her older neigh- bor's in productiveness.

Sir Richard Saltonstall made no mistake when he selected this valley for his home. Winthrop's party, of whom he was one of the chiefs, lett Salem to ex- plore every nook and cranny of the shores of Massa- chusetts Bay. The traders and commercial adventur- ers who formed a large part of the party had in a measure taken possession of Charlestown slopes and Boston heights, so near an excellent land-locked har- hor and the mouths of two considerable rivers. Salt- onstall explored particularly the Massachusetts River, called by John Smith, whom all sinee have followed, the Charles, and had the wit to see the advantages of

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position and soils, and water aud forests for a new set- tlement, such as he would most enjoy to see.1

sir Richard had been a man of considerable landed possessions in Yorkshire, on which he must have made great sacrifices to come with three of his sous and two daughters, with many servants and "some store of cattle," to seek a new home and greater inde- pendence in a new country. It was with an eye to the natural advantages of position that he landed his stores and set down for the winter in that part of Watertown now within the municipal bounds of Cambridge.

There was no thought of other towns or cities then between Charlestown or Charlton, as it was first called -- and the place of his choice. We may not be able to fix upon the exact location of his house, but it was not far from midway between the homes of Longfellow and ot Lowell, if we mention names of men whom the world knows and honors, and who, long before they were so widely known, knew and loved every natural feature of their surroundings; or,- if we name localities marked by walls of stone and brick, albeit erected by the spirit of charity itself,-a little to the north and east of the present Cambridge Hospital. In the little cove in the bend of the river, below the cemetery and near the hospital, was the landing-place alike of Saltonstall, with his belongings, and of Phillips, the sturdy defender of independence in church and in state, with the several score of others who have become the progenitors of many a family now scattered over our broad country.

The lands immediately about the landing were well adapted for tillage, and being undulating and well drained on one slope by the river and on the north slope into the basin of Fresh Pond, were fortunately chosen for the homestalls of the colonists.

There was little waste or forest land in the vicinity- the first of which is seen by the fact of its being divided up into homesteads, or, as they are called in carly records, homestalls, within a very few years among the first settlers and their immediate followers, and the lands out several miles from their first lots Were soon divided up for tillage and pasturage ; the round is seen by the frequent mention of orders passed to preserve the trees, and as if they were com- paratively few, and by the price placed on their use or destruction.

What we have mentioned and what we know con- corning the character of the region justifies the first choice of Watertown by an agriculturist of the wealto and eminence of Sir Richard. That he did not long continue to make it his home or for the rest of life Hear we must read between the lines of the revor led history what is supplied without great ditli- cully His servants and some of the people who

were attracted by him, and chosen with reference to their helpfulness, were agricultural in their training, rural in their spirit and their knowledge. He must have been a man of force of character, and might have been impatient in the short-comings of some whose attention was diverted by the strangeness of their surroundings from their master's interests. It is recorded November 30, 1630, that "Sir Richard Salt- onstall is fyned V for whipping 2 several persons without the presence of another assistant, contrary to au art of Court formerly made," while before that he " is tryned 4 bushells of malte, for his absence from this Court."

It seems that long afterwards, some years after he had returned to his native England, where he contin- ued to show his kindly feelings for the Colony by many and delicate services which he then was enabled to perform, and after he had shown his wise moderation by his counsel against persecution for mere opinion's sake, that, by vote of the General Court of September 6, 1638, the Court did discharge the £5 fine, and the fine of "4 bushells of mault." Mere feathers these : unmentionable littlenesses which may show some movements in the social or religious atmosphere which disappointed Sir Richard in his hope of freedom and independence. There is no disputing the fact that Watertown had the benefit of his good judgment at the start, of his choice of a religious leader and teacher, and of his continued friendship after he had returned to his native laud ; but Watertown lost that influence at the seat of government that allowed con- tinued protection to her territories, which soon began to be and which continue to this day to be the envy of others and the constant prey of more powerful communities, as well as of divisions within herself, the Great and General Court always standing as judges. Whether the small territory left to bear the name of Watertown be allowed to remain much longer nudivided, or not wholly swallowed up by some more powerful municipality, or not, there can never be denied her the privilege of looking over all the lands extending as far into the country as eight miles from the meeting-house, as the home of her founders. In view of the fact that the children of ancient Watertown now dwell in almost every part of the country, and that some of them have served in every war to protect her most extended interests, and the life of the Union itself, a little local family pride may be allowed them as they look back to their ancestral acres and in imagination recall the undivided interests of larger territories, when broad fields and extended slopes were their ancestors' possessions.

The old mode of farming required more room- room for cattle and sheep to graze, room to plow and sow grain and plant corn. The concentrated work of the modern market gardener, with his abundance of fertilizers, his glass to prolong the seasons, his rota- tion of erops, was not known and was not possi- ble. A score or two of acres would hardly have

I Ihn See's, why vilted this river in 1614, RayN " The country of the "nu bijsett- In the paradiso of all those parte, for here are many isles all [Intol with corn, preves, mulberries, salvage gardons und good arbor. "

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satisfied the humblest colonist ; several hundred were the possession of a few. Now several men will find all they can do on a single acre. Now we are doing all we can to invite new-comers to share our rich possessions and make them, by increased social advantages, still richer. But as early as July, 1635, it was " Agreed, by consent of the freemen (in consideration there be too many inhabitants in the Towne, and the Towne is thereby in danger to be ruin- ated), that no forainer coming into the Towne, or any family arising among ourselves, shall have any bene- fit either of Commonage or Land undivided, but what they shall purchase, except that they buy a man's right wholly in the Towne."

Even as late as the present century, when there was some prospect of the Boston & Worcester Railroad de- siring to pass through the town, there was a successful effort put forth to keep it from spoiling our valuable lands. It is within the memory of the present gen- eration that lands were held with so great tenacity that it was next to impossible for any new man or new interest to get a foothold within the town. All thisshows the earlier and the later interests of the people in the cultivation of the lands for agricultural purposes.

The agriculture of the past was at best the agrien]- ture now common in the towns remote from the large cities. Even when people began to raise vegetables for sale in Boston, the mode of making these sales was most primitive in its simplicity. It is one of the traditions in the family of one of the largest and most successful market gardeners in this town that the vegetables raised by their grandfather were put into panniers over the back of a horse and sold out to the families of Boston by the grandmother, whose per- sonal attractions helped not a little in creating a market. Compare now the lofty piles of well-filled boxes which pass from the same lands each day of al- most the entire year.

It is difficult to obtain and to give exact descrip- tions of individual cases in. this direction. Where almost every family raise a part or the whole of their vegetables, and a few raise a little to sell to others, to one who keeps forty or fifty meu and boys and women at work all or most of the year, and has acres of grass to enable him to begin the season almost before the last season has been allowed to close, one finds no easy dividing line.

With our present easy and rapid means of trans- portation, any surplus of production, if excellent in its kind, like Boston asparagus or tomatoes, Brighton strawberries, or Watertown celery, finds a ready market, if not in Boston, why then in Portland or Providence, in New York or Washington. While Oldham, afterwards Cradock, obtained a grant of 500 acres, and Saltonstall one of 450 acres, and some settlers of farms grants of from one hundred to three hundred acres, not many farmers requiring so much room for their grazing and their mode of farming could be accommodated in a town of a little over 2000

acres or in the old town of 23,500 acres even. Atthe present time a much larger population is possible in the present narrow limits, where men can find pro- fitable employment with the improved concentrated methods and appliances.

The population in 1890 on these 2000 acres is over 7000. It will be shown later that the principal in- dustries of the town are not now agricultural, yet your historian may be allowed the remark that, if all the land were cultivated as highly as the heirs of John Coolidge cultivate the " vineyard " and other portions of their lands, or as Joshua Coolidge and his sons cultivate their lands, or as Joshua C. Stone cultivates his land, or as Calvin D. Crawford cultivates his own and other people's land, some of these finding time also to manage the affairs of the town, a still larger population than at present might be supported from the soil, and there would be no thought of "there be- ing too many inhabitants in the Towne, and the Towne thereby in danger to he ruinated," as was agreed by consent of the freemen in 1635.

CHAPTER XXX.

WATERTOWN -( Continued).

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

EARLY LOCATION OF FIRST CHURCH OF WATER- TOWN.1-On July 30, 1630, Sir Richard Saltonstall joined with some forty other men in forming the first church at Watertown, which, next to that of Salem and Dorchester, was the earliest church of Massachu- setts Bay. Rev. George Phillips was chosen pastor and Richard Browne ruling elder. During the first four years Watertown was the most populous town in the Colony and probably continued so for fifteen to twenty years. It came next after Boston, "the cen- tre town and metropolis," " the mart of the land," as Johnson called itin 1657 in his "Wonder Working Providence," in wealth.

As the members of the church, even from the begin- ning, were too many to be accommodated in any one of the small, hastily built tenements at first erected, a special meeting-house was very probably soon built ; at least the rate of .£80 ordered by the town records of 1635 to be levied for " the charges of the new meeting house" of necessity imply that there had been another and earlier one. Unfortunately the records do not show when or where this older one was situated. But doubtless as Richard Saltonstall, Mr. Phillips, Elder Browne and most of those first admitted freemen had all settled in " the town," as that part of the plantation just east of Mt. Auburn was designated, it was also sit- uated there.

1 By Bennett F. Davenport.

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

The new meeting-house of 1635, according to Rev. Converse Francis, stood upon the kooll on the north side of Mt. Auburn Street, between where long after- ward were the houses of Deacon Moses Coolidge and that of Mr. Daniel Sawin, on the corner of Arlington Street, and later the houses of Mr. George Frazer and Mr. Kimball, the level land where the later house now stands being the Common, used as a training-field.

In the town records of 1637 the meeting-house lot is mentioned as containing forty acres. This doubt- less was the whole lot now bounded by Mt. Auburn and Belmont Streets upon the south and north and by School and Arlington Streets upon the west and east. It was the land along this last street which the select- men, in 1667, ordered sold on the meeting-house com- mon, upon the west side of the way from the meeting- house to Pastor Sherman's house, the pay to go to- wards building the bridge at the mill. But the town- meeting held three days later voted not to allow of this sale and bargain with J. Coolidge, Jr. By the records of 1639, 12-25 the meeting-house was appointed for a watch-house. By those of 1638, April 23d, those free- men living remote from the meeting had been ordered to build and settle upon the town "Plott" as the two squares were designated bounded by Main and Bel- mont Streets upon the south and north and by Lex- ington and Warren Streets, upon the east and west, andbetween which from east to west Ilager Lane, after- ward known as Warren Strcet, rnn, the latter, Warren Street, being the one within the Watertown pre- sent limits, while the former is that in Waltham. The records of 1669 February 6th, mention a bell-rope. It therefore doubtless had a bell.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 76

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co Number of Pages: 1278

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1278