USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, 1622-1918, vol 1 > Part 39
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"19. That should our enemies by any sudden manœuvers, render it necessary for us to ask aid and assistance of our brethren in the country, some one of the committee of correspondence, or a select man of such a town, or the town adjoin- ing where such hostilities shall commence, shall despatch couriers with written messages to the select men or committee of correspondence of the several towns in the vicinity, with a written account of such matter, who shall despatch others to committees or select men more remote till proper and sufficient assistance be obtained ; and that the expense of said couriers be defrayed by the county until it shall be otherwise ordered by the Provincial Congress.
"Voted that Joseph Warren, Esq., and Dr. Benjamin Church of Boston ; Dea- con Joseph Palmer and Colonel Ebenezer Thayer of Braintree; Captain Lemuel Robinson, William Holden, Esq., and Captain John Homans of Dorchester ; Capt. William Heath of Roxbury ; Colonel William Taylor and Dr. Samuel Gardner of
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Milton ; Isaac Gardner, Esq., Capt. Benjamin White and Capt. Thomas Aspinwall of Brookline; Nathaniel Sumner, Esq., and Richard Woodward of Dedham-be a committee to wait on His Excellency the Governor, to inform him that this country is alarmed at the fortifications making on Boston Neck, and to remon- strate against the same, and the repeated insults offered by the soldiery to per- sons passing and repassing into that town; and to confer with him upon those subjects.
"Attest : WILLIAM THOMPSON, Clerk."
WORK OF THE TOWNS
At the time of the adoption of these resolves, the organized towns within the present limits of Norfolk County were Bellingham, Braintree, Brookline, Cohasset, Dedham, Medfield, Medway, Milton, Needham, Stoughton, Walpole, Weymouth and Wrentham. The action of the Suffolk Congress in adopting the resolutions encouraged the people in their determination to resist to the utmost further encroachments upon their liberties. Military companies were formed in almost every town. They were known as "Minute Men," because the members pledged themselves to drop their peaceful occupations and take up arms "at a minute's warning." The time to answer the call came much sooner than many of them anticipated, but not one failed at the crucial moment.
Bellingham began her activities on September 2, 1774, when delegates were chosen to attend the meeting of the Suffolk Congress to be held at Woodward's Tavern in Dedham on the 6th, and voted the sum of five pounds for the pur- chase of ammunition. On the 30th of the same month Luke Holbrook was chosen as delegate to the Provincial Congress to meet at Concord the following month. On the 19th of December the town voted to appropriate seven pounds more to the ammunition fund and elected Stephen Metcalf the congressional delegate for February. At a town meeting in January, 1775, a motion was made to appro- priate a sum of money to "pay those men ready to go at a minute's warning," but it failed to pass. On April 25, 1775, six days after the battle of Lexington, the town voted unanimously in favor of giving a bounty of £1 5s to every mem- ber of the "town's share of the 13,600 men to be enlisted, if Congress does not give it." From that time forward Bellingham was represented on the firing line, no fewer than ninety-three of her sons serving in the Continental army.
Braintree was a hotbed of rebellion. There Gen. Joseph Palmer was a leader in the opposition to British oppression. At a meeting held on March 1, 1773, more than two years before the actual beginning of the war, he submitted a series of resolutions, one of which was "That all taxation, by what name soever called, imposed upon us without our consent by any earthly power, is unconsti- tutional, oppressive, and tend to enslave us." . General Palmer was one of the committee named in the Suffolk Resolves to wait upon the governor and remonstrate against the fortification of Boston Neck. He, with Ebenezer Thayer and Capt. William Penniman, was appointed on the committee of correspondence in August, 1774. The North Precinct (now Quincy ) was full of tories. Near the Church of England the town's supply of powder was stored in a small house built for the purpose. When General Gage, about the Ist of September, 1774, seized the ammunition at Charlestown, the
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people of Braintree grew alarmed for the safety of their powder. On Sunday evening, September 4, 1774, about two hundred men marched to the powder- house, loaded the powder into a cart and took it to the South Precinct, where it was concealed until it might be needed.
A town meeting on April 24, 1775, instructed the selectmen "to dismiss Mr. Rice their Gramer Schoolmaster as soon as their present Engagements are ex- pired." The reason for this action was to save the money expended on the school for the purchase of ammunition and the payment of volunteers. Mr. Rice afterward became captain of a company.
On Saturday, June 17, 1775, the day of the battle of Bunker Hill, the roar of cannon from the British men-of-war, as they shelled the breastworks that had been thrown up the night before, could be distinctly heard in Quincy. Mrs. John Adams, accompanied by her son, John Quincy Adams, went to the top of Penn's Hill, hoping to ascertain what was going on in the vicinity of Boston. The great volume of black smoke that arose from burning Charlestown could be plainly seen. A cairn of stones marks the spot where the mother and child sat to watch afar the first great battle of the War for Independence.
In June, 1777, a Braintree town meeting was called "for the purpose of agree- ing upon a list of those Persons dwelling in Braintree who are esteamed Inimical to the popular Cause." This was the first pronounced action against the tories of the town. The selectmen presented the names of Rev. Edward Winslow, Maj. Ebenezer Miller, Benjamin Cleverly, Joseph Cleverly, James Apthorp, John Cheesman, William Veazie, Nedabiah Bent and Oliver Gay. To this list the meeting added the names of Henry Cleverly, Joseph Cleverly (2nd), William Veazie, Jr., and Thomas Brackett. Capt. William Penniman was chosen to procure evidence of their disloyalty and lay it before the court. Mr. Winslow followed the British army to New York. The other proscribed citizens, if they still retained their tory views, were careful not to give them voice. Subsequently some property in the town, belonging to non-resident tories, was seized and sold. One piece of this confiscated property was the old Vassall house, which was bought by John Adams, and from which he was buried in 1826.
Says Charles Francis Adams: "Between the years 1775 and 1782, as nearly. as can now be estimated, Braintree sent into the field about 550 men, enlisted for periods of six months or over. The number of men, as well as the length of enlistment, varied with the different years. In 1775, for instance, besides the militia to guard the coast, the town sent not less than 150 men, enlisted to the close of the year, into Washington's army about Boston. In 1776 about 120 men were furnished. In 1777 some seventy were enlisted for three years. In no year were less than forty sent, except in 1781, when the enlistment appears to have been for four months only. Under this system the same men in the course of a seven years' war may have enlisted several times. It is therefore impossible even to estimate the portion of Braintree's 650 arms-bearing men who actually served in the Continental army, though it is probably safe to say that the number did not fall below 300."
Brookline placed herself on record as early as December 15, 1767, soon after Parliament levied the tax on tea, a town meeting voted unanimously "That this Town will take all prudent and Legal Measures to promote Industry Occonimy & Manufactures in this Province & in any of the British American Colonys &
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will like wise take all Legal Measures to discourage the Use of European Superfluities."
The "Superfluities" referred to were the articles subjected to taxation. Wil- liam Hyslop, Benjamin White, Isaac Gardner, John Goddard and Samuel Aspin- wall were chosen as a committee "to prepare a form for subscription against Receiving of those European Superfluities and make report at the Adjournment of this meeting." The report was made on the 29th and a number of the citizens signed the agreement not to use tea until the offensive tax was removed. Be- tween 1772 and 1774 several town meetings passed resolutions and appointed committees to act with the other towns of the province in resistance to British aggression. On November 17, 1774. the "Bill of Rights" submitted by the first Continental Congress to the colonies was passed unanimously, and on May 29, 1775, Capt. Benjamin White was elected delegate to the Provincial Congress to be held at Watertown.
When the "Lexington Alarm" was sounded through the Massachusetts towns on April 19, 1775, two companies from Brookline responded. One was officered by Capt. Timothy Corey, First Lieut. Thomas Cummings, Second Lieut. Jonas Johnson, and the other by Capt. Thomas White, First Lieut. Caleb Craft, Second Lieut. Daniel White. Lieutenant Craft afterward commanded a company of militia on Dorchester Heights from July 4 to 28, 1778, the company forming part of Colonel MacIntosh's regiment. The companies commanded by Captains Pettengill, Childs and Coggswell also contained a number of Brookline men.
Cohasset was some distance from the "seat of war," but the people were just as determined in their course as those who dwelt nearer to Boston. On March 7. 1774, it was voted to build a closet in the meeting house for ammuni- tion. On Christmas day of that year a committee of eleven was chosen as recom- mended by the Continental Congress. Jesse Stephenson was chairman of the committee. At the same time it was voted to pay the province tax to Henry Gardner instead of Harrison Gray, and to indemnify the selectmen and constables for so doing. On April 28, 1775, an appropriation was made to buy one hundred pounds of gunpowder and five hundred flints.
In actual military service Capt. Job Cushing's Cohasset company was attached to Colonel Revere's regiment ; Captain Stowers commanded a company that was engaged in guarding the coast; Capt. Noah Nichols commanded a company of artillery, nearly all the members of which came from Cohasset; Maj. James Stoddard was one of the "Boston Tea Party," and afterward led the attacking party that captured a British brig becalmed off the Cohasset shore, laden with supplies for the British troops in Boston; Joseph Bates was in the battle of Bunker Hill and after his ammunition was exhausted was seen throwing stones at the English troops as they swarmed over the breastworks; and the name of Benjamin Lincoln has been handed down in history as one of the heroes of the Revolution.
Dedham, which then included several of the adjacent towns that have been incorporated since the Revolution, heard the news of the Lexington affair about nine o'clock on the morning of April 19, 1775. The messenger came through Needham and Dover, probably for the reason that the more direct routes were held by the enemy. Six companies of minute men were quickly assembled, to-wit : Capt. Joseph Guild's and Capt. Aaron Fuller's of the First Parish; Vol. I-21
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Capt. William Ellis', of the Third Parish; Capt. William Bullard's, from the South Parish (now Norwood) ; Capt. Ebenezer Battle's, from the Fourth Parish (now Dover) ; and a company of seventeen men commanded by Capt. George Gould, with Richard Woodward as lieutenant, went from that part of the town known as Dedham Island, and West Roxbury. After a hurried march Captain Fuller's company and Captain Battle's company met the British as they were retreating toward Boston. In the action which followed, Elias Haven was killed and Israel Everett was wounded. The former belonged to Captain Battle's com- pany and the latter to Captain Fuller's.
During the month following, companies of soldiers from the southerly parts of the province and from Rhode Island were constantly passing through Dedham to join the Continental army about Boston. Toward the end of April some of the provincial cannon were removed to Dedham to be out of reach of the enemy. In May the town voted to raise 120 men, "to be ready to march on an alarm." Committees were appointed to procure guns and ammunition, a night watch was established, and the great gun of King Philip's war was ordered "to be swung." Ebenezer Brackett was detailed to guard the cannon.
On May 27, 1776, six weeks before the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, a Dedham town meet- ing declared that "if the Honourable Congress shall see fit to declare the Colonies Independent of Great Britain the Inhabitants of this town will solemnly engage to Support them in that Measure."
In July, 1776, the town voted a bounty of seven pounds to each soldier in addition to the other wages, and a committee was chosen to provide for soldiers' families needing assistance. In February, 1777, the bounty was increased to twenty-four pounds for each man who would enlist for three years or during the war. In 1778 the First Parish imposed a tax of £4,480 upon the inhabitants for military purposes, and in 1779 another assessment of £8,000 was made "towards defraying the expense of hiring soldiers." Worthington, in his History of Dedham, estimates the annual expenditures of the town during the war at about eight thousand dollars. Thus it will be seen that from start to finish Dedham bore her part, both in men and money.
Medfield's revolutionary activity began with the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765. Seth Clark, then the representative in the General Court, received instructions not to "give acquiescence, or even a willing submission to the acts of Parliament." The instructions close with the injunction to "honor the king, but save the country."
In 1774 the town adopted the agreement and articles of the Continental Congress and ordered the resolutions to be entered on the town records. During the years 1774-75 meetings were held by adjournment from week to week, a committee of correspondence of five members was chosen, one-fourth of the able- bodied men were enrolled as minute men and were paid for the time spent in drilling-three half days each week. When the news of the battle of Lexington reached Medfield, Capt. Sabin Mann and his company of twenty-seven marched to the field and were in service for twelve days. In all, eighty-two Medfield men responded to the Lexington Alarm. Captain Chenery marched for Bunker Hill when it was learned that a battle was on there. He arrived too late to be
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of service on that eventful day, but he and his company served in the siege of Boston.
Medway was not behind her sister towns in giving expression to sentiments in opposition to the Stamp Act and those other acts of Parliament which fol- lowed it. Elisha Adams, the representative, received similar instructions to those sent from Medfield to Seth Clark. In January, 1775, an appropriation of thirty pounds was made "to encourage the enlisting of a number of able-bodied men to the number of one-fourth of the military soldiers to complete and hold them . selves in readiness to march at shortest notice."
In this company of minute men Joshua Gould was a lieutenant. A full list of Medway's volunteers cannot be given, but she did her share, both in creating patriotic sentiment and fighting the battles of the colonies.
Milton was one of the first towns to go on record in opposition to the Stamp Act. On October 24, 1765, Dr. Samuel Gardner, Benjamin Wadsworth and Jazaniah Tucker were chosen a committee to draw up instructions to Stephen Miller, the town's representative in the General Court. The instructions are too long to be reproduced here, but they voiced in no uncertain language the town's opposition to an act that made the colonists "as distant from the liberty of Englishmen as are the slaves in Turkey." Mr. Miller was also instructed to "discountenance as far as lies in your power the late horrible outrages that have been committed in the town of Boston, and that you use your utmost endeavors that the Offenders may be found out and brought to Justice," etc.
It was in the Town of Milton that the Suffolk Resolves were adopted. In June, 1774, three months before the adoption of the resolves, a town meeting in Milton appointed a committee to "consider and determine upon some proper measures for this town to come into respecting the situation of public affairs." Capt. David Rawson, Ralph Houghton, Amariah Blake, Oliver Vose, Joseph Clapp. Dr. Samuel Gardner and Samuel Henshaw, Jr., constituted the com- mittee. The report-an address to the people and a series of resolutions-was submitted to an adjourned meeting on July 25, 1774, "and was unanimously agreed to." One of the resolutions was: "That we will unite with our Brethren, "The Sons of Freedom in America,' in any proper Measures that may be adopted to defeat the late Cruel and Oppressive acts of the British Parliament respecting America and this Distressed Province in Particular, to extirpate the idea of Tyranizing which is so fondly Fostered in the bosoms of those in Power and to secure to our selves and to Posterity our invaluable Rights and Priviledges."
In the General Court, in the Suffolk Congress, in the Provincial Congress and on the field. Milton men were to be found doing their full duty, never falter- ing until the American colonies were forever freed from the British yoke.
In Needham three companies of minute men had been organized prior to the battle of Lexington. They were respectively commanded by Capt. Caleb Kingsbury, Capt. Aaron Smith and Capt. Robert Smith. The first numbered forty men, the second seventy, and the third seventy-five. About eight o'clock on the morning of April 19, 1775, a messenger (tradition says he was bare- headed) rode through Needham on his way to Dover and Dedham, carrying the news of the battle of Lexington. Ephraim Bullard, who kept a tavern on the Sherborn road, went to the top of a hill near by and fired his musket three times as a signal for the minute men to assemble. Fires were made in the house,
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women assisted in moulding bullets and preparing rations for the men, and as fast as they could be supplied they started for the scene of the conflict.
The Needham companies encountered the British at West Cambridge, and lost no time in getting into action. First Lieut. John Bacon, Amos Mills and Nathaniel Chamberlain, of Captain Kingsbury's company were killed, and Sec- ond Lieut. Eleazer Kingsbury was wounded. Capt. Robert Smith's company lost Sergt. Elisha Mills and Jonathan Parker killed, and John Tolman, wounded.
Throughout the war Needham sustained her reputation for patriotism and loyalty to the cause of the colonists. Committees of correspondence and public safety were appointed from time to time, large sums of money for that period were raised to pay troops and provide for soldiers' families, and in every possible way measures were adopted to aid in a successful prosecution of the war. Col. William McIntosh, a Needham man, was commissioned colonel of the first regiment of militia in the County of Suffolk on February 14, 1776, and served to the close of the conflict. Washington commended him as "a good officer and a brave man."
At the time of the Revolution, Stoughton included the towns of Canton, Sharon and a large part of Foxboro. On September 26, 1774, Thomas Crane was elected representative to the General Court and instructed "to adhere firmly to the Charter of the Province as granted by their Majestys William and Mary & to do no act acknowledging the validity of the act of the British Parliament for altering the Government of Massachusetts Bay."
Two companies of minute men from what is now Sharon responded to the Lexington alarm on April 19, 1775. The first, numbering thirty-two men, was commanded by Capt. Samuel Payson, with Royall Kollock as lieutenant, and the second by Capt. Israel Smith, with Daniel Morse as lieutenant. This company numbered but twenty-two men.
Besides these two companies, seven others from Stoughton answered the call. They were Capt. James Endicott's, eighty-three men ; Capt. William Briggs', forty-one men; Capt. Asahel Smith's, seventy-seven men; Capt. Peter Talbot's, eighty-five men; Capt. Josiah Pratt's, thirty-three men; Capt. Edward Savel's, sixty-four men; and Capt. Ebenezer Tisdale's, thirty-one men, making a total of 469 men that went from Stoughton at the first clash of arms. Captain Savel's company afterward responded to the second call for troops and assisted in the fortification of Dorchester Heights on the night of March 9, 1776, the movement which forced the British to evacuate Boston.
Nor did the activities of Stoughton stop there. On July 8, 1776, a meeting voted "to raise a sum of money to be levied upon polls and estates to give to each man to the number of thirty-eight (the town's assigned quota) that shall enlist in the service of the Northern Department against Quebec, the sum of £6 6s &d as an addition to their bounty." At the same time fourteen prominent citizens each agreed to pay the poll-tax for two men that would enter the service as aforesaid.
Walpole adopted a series of resolutions in 1773, reported to a town meeting by a committee consisting of Aquilla Robbins, Enoch Ellis, George Payson, Seth Bullard and Samuel Cheney. Just what the text of the resolutions was it is impossible to say, but Henry E. Fales, in his address at the dedication of the town hall in 1881 says "they rang with patriotism and independence." Two com-
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panies-Capt. Jeremiah Smith's and Capt. Seth Bullard's-a total of 132 min- ute men, marched from Walpole to Lexington, and in Captain Mann's company of Medfield there were twenty-five Walpole men. Later a Walpole company commanded by Capt. Aaron Guild assisted in fortifying Dorchester Heights. Captain Fisher's company took part in what was known as the Warwick expedi- tion, and there was at least one Walpole man with Washington when he crossed the Delaware-Holland Wood, who served in the artillery. It is said that at the battle of Monmouth his gun fell from its carriage and that with his own unaided strength he replaced it and went on with the fight.
Weymouth took an active part in the events that preceded the Revolution. On October 16, 1765, Maj. James Humphrey, then representative in the General Court received definite instructions as to the course he was to pursue with regard to the Stamp Act. On September 21, 1768, James Humphrey and Dr. Cotton Tufts were appointed agents to meet in Faneuil Hall in Boston the next day, to consult with agents of other towns upon the state of public affairs. At a town meeting on January 3, 1774. it was decided "by a very great majority not to purchase nor use any of the East India Company's teas of any kind (excepting such as they might now have on hand) until the act of Parliament laying a duty thereon be repealed." In December, 1774, both precincts accepted the agreement and articles of association recommended by the Continental Congress.
On March 9. 1775, a committee of correspondence, of which Dr. Cotton Tufts was chairman, was chosen to act with similar committees of the neighbor- ing towns. The first meeting of this committee was held at Arnold's Tavern at Weymouth Landing a few days later and from that time to the close of the war rendered efficient service. A company of minute men was organized and on March 13, 1775, it was voted to pay each member of the company a shilling a week for four weeks. On May 2. 1775, it was voted to pay "a pistareen a day for a week to a company of fifteen men for a military guard in the present trouble- some times."
Nathaniel Bayley was chosen a delegate on May 24, 1775. to the Provincial Congress to meet at Watertown on the last day of that month, and at the same time the committee on correspondence was directed to ascertain who were in need of arms. The day following this meeting the town accepted the offer of Mr. Polley to allow the town the use of two swivel guns then at Salem, and Doctor Tufts agreed to have them brought to Weymouth.
These active preparations for war were largely due to an event that occurred on May 21, 1775. Three ships and a cutter came out from Boston Harbor and early on that morning dropped anchor in Weymouth Fore River. Alarm bells were rung, the Braintree minute men fell in at the tap of the drum, many of the women and children in the northern part of Weymouth were hurried to places of safety, and general consternation reigned. One report said that 300 men had been landed and were marching on Weymouth Village. Another rumor stated that they were marching against Germantown. As a matter of fact the British consisted of nothing more formidable than a foraging party, but in a little while enough minute men had been assembled to cause them to embark on their vessels and set sail for Boston.
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