History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 10

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1534

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The following couplet was repeated frequently by the generation which immediately succeeded him :

" When Lusher was in office, all things went well, But how they go since it shames us to tell."

There were others who came the succeeding year and afterwards who deserve honorable mention, such as Ralph Wheelock, a man of excellent education, who went to Medfield ; Robert Hinsdale, also of Med- field, and afterwards of Hadley ; Michael Metcalf, always prominent in the church and town; William Bullard and John Bullard, Thomas Fuller, Edward Richards, and John Guild, names which are still well known in the town which they founded.

The company in 1638 consisted of about thirty families. They at first met for religious worship under one of the large trees which probably stood on the east side of Dwight's Brook, near the house of John Dwight. As early as the 1st of February, 1638, a committee was chosen " to contrive the frame of a meeting-house, to be in length thirty-six feet and twenty feet in breadth, and between the upper and nether sill in the sides to be twelve feet." The pits, or pews, were five feet deep and four and one- half feet wide. The elders' seat and the deacons' seat were before the pulpit; the communion table stood before these seats, and was so placed that the communicants could approach in all directions. This house was not finished until 1646. It was subse- quently enlarged, and finally pulled down in 1672.

The eighth day of the ninth month (November), 1638, was the day appointed for entering into church covenant, and, according to the usage of that time,

HISTORY OF NORFOLK COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

letters were sent to the magistrates and other churches, giving them notice of their intention and requesting their countenance and encouragement. The Gov- ernor informed them that no church should be gathered without the advice of other churches and the consent of the magistrates, and afterwards ex- plained that there was no intent to abridge their liberties, but if any people of unsound judgment or erroneous way should privately set up a church, the commonwealth would not so approve them as to communicate the freedom and privileges which they did unto others, or protect them in their government if they saw their way dangerous to the public peace.

In the letters sent to the churches their presence and spiritual help was requested, and they were represented on the day appointed. It was agreed that the day appointed should be spent in solemn prayer and fasting. Mr. Wheelock should begin with prayer, and Mr. Allin should follow, first in prayer, and then, "by the way of exercising his gift," should speak to the assembly, and conclude with prayer. Then each of the eight persons made a public profession of faith and grace. The elders and messengers of the other churches and the whole people were then called upon to state any impedi- ment to the further proceeding, if any were known to them. Mr. Mather, teacher of the church in Dorchester, replied, in the name of the rest, that they had " nothing to declare from the Lord which should move them to desist," and gave them some loving exhortation. The covenant was then publicly read, to which all assented ; the right hand of fellow- ship was extended to each of them by the elders, in token of loving acceptation into communion. This was the manner of forming the church in Dedham. The covenant then entered into related to living in holy fellowship, according to the rule of love in all holy watchfulness of each other, to mutual helpful- ness, and for the spiritual and temporal comfort and good of one another in the Lord.

The church thus gathered was without officers. Mr. Allin was requested to supply the place of teacher for a time, with the assistance of Mr. Wheelock, to see that its affairs were orderly conducted. During admitted, and the next spring they proceeded to fill the more important offices. Mr. Allin was chosen into the teaching office, and there was some further discussion and consultation with the churches as to whether he should be appointed as pastor or teacher ; but Mr. Allin, while professing that he was indifferent as to which office was selected, thought he was better qualified for that of pastor, and with the assent of the

rest took the title of pastor. Four persons were named for the office of ruling elder: Ralph Wheelock, John Hunting, Mr. Thomas Carter, and John Kings- bury, of Watertown. John Hunting was chosen, and Mr. Wheelock was much disappointed, as he had been thought of before Mr. Hunting.

Everything was ready for the ordination, but still there was considerable agitation as to the nature of ordination and to whom the right belonged. The conclusion to which they arrived was that the ordi- nation was simply a declaration of the election, and that the same body which could elect, could also of right ordain. The 24th day of April, 1639, was the time appointed for the ordination. The elders of the neighboring churches were present, but took no part in the services excepting in giving the right hand of fellowship at the conclusion. Elder Hunting was first ordained by John Allin, Ralph Wheelock, and Edward Alleyne, they being deputed for the purpose. They laid their hands on his head, repeating these words of ordination : "We, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, ordain thee, John Hunting, into the office of ruling elder in this church of Christ." Then Elder Hunting, with the other two, laid their hands upon the head of Mr. Allin, accompanied with prayer, and in the name of Christ and his church ordained him "to the office of pastor in the church," "the whole proceeding on the part of the elder being marked with gravity, comely order, and with effect- ual and apt prayer and exhortation to the church." Mr. Whiting, of Lynn, then gave the right hand of fellowship, and the assembly was dismissed. On the Sunday following the ordination, notice was given to church members to bring their children for baptism, and to prepare themselves for communion on the Sunday after.

No deacons were chosen until 1650. There were some different apprehensions in the church as to the nature of the office. Finally, June 23, 1650, Henry Chickering and Nathan Aldis were regularly chosen to the office, and were ordained the following Sunday. A year after Mr. Allin's ordination the number of church members was fifty-three.

The Dedham Church was the fourteenth church of the following winter ten additional members were ' Christ under the government of Massachusetts Bay. Johnson says, "They called to the office of pastor the reverend, humble, and heavenly-minded Mr. John Allin, a man of very courteous behavior, full of sweet Christian love towards all, and with much meekness of spirit contending earnestly for the faith and peace of Christ's churches." Cotton Mather, in his life of Allin, says, " He was none of those low-built, thatched cottages that are apt to catch fire, but, like a light-

DEDHAM.

built castle or palace, free from the combustions of passion."

The Rev. John Allin probably came from Wren- tham, county of Suffolk, England, and was born in 1596. He was graduated at Cambridge University, and was a preacher in England, though it is uncertain whether he was ever "in orders in the Church of , proceeds are the funds now belonging to the first church in Dedham.

England." He came to Dedham in 1637, and his influence in both the civil and religious affairs of the town was very great from the beginning. For this work he was admirably fitted by temperament and education. When some dispute arose in the colony respecting its relations to the English government, and the question was referred to the ruling elders for advice, Mr. Allin was chosen to deliver their opinion. A discourse delivered by him before the Synod at Cambridge in 1648, which framed the well-known platform, received a warm eulogium from Governor Winthrop. He also, with Mr. Shepherd, of Cambridge, was the author of a " Defence of the Nine Questions or Positions," being a reply to some charges by Eng- lish divines that their brethren on this side had em- braced opinions at variance with those professed before embarkation. But he was from disposition averse to controversy. His brethren and townsmen were much attached to him. The church continued in great harmony during his life. He received lib- eral grants of land from the Dedham proprietors and two hundred acres from the General Court at Bogas- tow in 1643. He took an interest in the labors of John Eliot among the Indians. He was a man of learning, had a vigorous mind, and in the discharge of his pastoral duties was faithful and assiduous. Cotton Mather writes his epitaph thus :

" Vir sincerus, amans pacis, patiens que laborum Perspicuus, simplex doctrinæ, purus amator."

Mr. Allin married, for his second wife, the widow of Governor Thomas Dudley, Nov. 8, 1653. He died Aug. 26, 1671. After his death his people published two of the last sermons he preached, " writing their preface with tears," according to Mather. They also built a tomb or monument over his grave, with an inscription cut thereon with the date of his death. Elder Hunting died April 12, 1689, and the office of ruling elder was never again filled.

During Mr. Allin's ministry of thirty-two years the records do not show any rates for his support. He depended upon voluntary contributions and the grants of land from the proprietors. All his succes- sors had salaries voted them by the town, although the salary was paid by the people.

When the proprietors divided their common lands, in 1656, eight shares were devoted to the support of the teaching church-officer. The shares drew divi- dends wherever they were made, of the common lands, and remained unsold until after the Revolution. Since that time some of these lands have been sold, and the

In 1644 the inhabitants declared their intention to devote some portion of their lands to the support of schools, and granted lands to trustees for raising a fund of the annual income of twenty pounds for the salary of a schoolmaster. The town raised this sum before the lands became productive. In 1680, Dr. William Avery, formerly of the Dedham Church, gave sixty pounds for a Latin school to be ordered by the selectmen and elders. This fund was for many years in the hands of trustees, but was finally lost by being wrongfully appropriated, or discredited by the operations of bills of credit. In 1695 three hundred acres of good land in Dedham were granted as a school-farm to support schools. This farm was sold by order of the town to defray its ordinary ex- penses. Thirty years after, the town instructed a committee to recover this farm, and voted a larger sum to carry on the law-suit than the compensation received for it. This was the work of the second and third generations. The first school-house was built in 1648, and the master's salary twenty pounds at first, and afterwards twenty-five pounds.

In 1638, land was " set out for the use of a public burial-place for the town forever" from the lands of Nicholas Phillips and Joseph Kingsbury, who were compensated by the allowance of other land. Prob- ably it had been used for burials beforc. This reser- vation, although its contents are not given, refers to the ancient burial-place in Dedham village, with its present boundaries, except the additions made in 1860. A way to it leading from High Street was established in 1664.

In 1638 an acre of ground, upon which the meet- ing-houses have always stood, was obtained of Joseph Kingsbury for the purpose of erecting a meeting- house upon it. In 1641, John Phillips sold to the church three acres, being another part of the same lot sold to him by Kingsbury, having the burial- ground on the south. In the same year Joseph Kingsbury granted to the church three acres lying between the parcel last named and the meeting-house acre. In this way the church acquired its title to lands in Dedham village.

The " training-ground," a portion of which has since been known as the " Great Common," was ap-

HISTORY OF NORFOLK COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

propriated by the proprietors in 1644 for the use of the military company. This grant was confirmed in 1648, with the provision annexed, that the trained company should not appropriate it to any other use than the public exercise of the company, without the consent of the selectmen, nor should the selectmen have power to dispose of any parcel thereof without the consent of the trained company. In 1677 one acre was granted to Amos Fisher in fee, and other persons have been permitted to improve portions of the ground. An almshouse was built in the westerly portion in 1773, and in 1836 this building and land belonging to it was sold by order of the town. In the alienation of both parcels it is stated that the consent of the parties interested was first obtained. A highway laid out through it in 1826 completed all that remained to be done, to destroy its symmetry and its usefulness for any purpose.

A law of the colony forbade the settlers to build their houses above half a mile from the meeting- house, and this law was enforced for more than fifty years .. As late as 1682 complaints were made that this law had been disregarded.

It has been seen that in choosing a place for the plantation the settlers were careful to provide for their cattle. In the summer the cows and oxen fed on the common lands near home. The herds in- creased rapidly, and in 1659 there were four hundred and seventy-two cattle feeding on the common lands. The horses were turned into the woods, and, though fettered, broke into the corn-fields. Sheep were not introduced until a later period, when they were kept in one flock, and guarded by a shepherd from the wolves. Swine, with yokes upon their necks, were allowed to run in the woods. There was a scarcity of English grass for many years, and in 1649 the wet. season prevented the making of hay upon the mead- ows, and the inhabitants went to Wollonomopoag to cut grass. Wheat was raised until about 1700 on the newly-cleared lands, and flax was cultivated to some extent.

The village of Dedham in 1664 is thus described in Worthington's History (1827), and it probably gives a substantially correct idea of the first collec- tion of houses built upon the plain near the meeting- house :

" In 1664 ninety-five small houses, placed near each other, were situated within a short distance of the place where the court-house now stands, the greater part of them cast of that place and around Dwight's Brook. A row of houses stood on the north side of High Street, as that road was then called, which extends from the bridge over Dwight's Brook westerly by the court-house. The total value of these houses was six hundred and ninety-one pounds. Four only of the houses

were valued at twenty pounds each. The greater number were valued at from three to ten pounds. Most of these houses were built soon after the first settlement commenced. There were then very few carpenters, joiners, or masons in the colony. There was no saw-mill in the settlement for many years. The only boards which could be procured at first were those which were sawed by hand. The saw-pits now seen, denote that boards were sawed in the woods. The necessary materials- bricks, glass, and nails-were scarcely to be obtained. These houses, therefore, must have been constructed principally by farmers and not by mechanics, and were very rude and inconven- ient. They were probably log houses. Their roofs were covered with thatch. By an ordinance of the town a ladder was ordered to extend from the ground to the chimney as a substitute for a more perfect fire-engine. Around these houses nothing could be seen but stumps, clumsy fences of poles, and an uneven and unsubdued soil, such as all the first settlements in New England presented. The native forest trees were not suitable shades for a door-yard. A shady tree was not then such an agreeable object as it now is, because it could form no agreeable contrast with cleared grounds. Where the meeting-house of the first parish now stands there stood for more than thirty years a low building, thirty-six feet long and twenty feet wide and twelve feet high, with a thatched roof and a large ladder resting on it. This was the first meeting-house. Near by was the school-house, standing on an area eighteen feet by fourteen feet, and rising to three stories. The third story, however, was a watch-house of small dimensions. The watch-house was be- side the ample stone chimney. The spectator elevated on the little box, called the watch-house, might view this plain on which a part of the present village stands, then a common plough-field, containing about two hundred acres of cleared land, partially subdued, yet full of stumps and roots. Around him at a further distance were the herd-walks, as the common feeding lands were called in the language of that time. . . . The herd-walks were at first no better cultivated than by cut- ting down trees and carrying away the wood and timber, and afterwards, when it was practicable in the spring, by burning them over under the direction of town officers called wood- reeves. . . . The meadows were not yet cleared to any extent. Beyond the herd-walks was a continuous wilderness, which was becoming more disagreeable to the inhabitants, for the cattle, goats, and swine seem to have allured the wolves to their neigh- borhood. The dense swamp about Wigwam Pond was not yet cleared."

After King Philip's war the inhabitants began to abandon their first habitations, and built houses in all parts of the town. In sixty or seventy years the humble village of the first settlers was swept away, and their places were occupied by a few farmers for the next hundred years. Some removed to Boston by reason of King Philip's war. In 1642 the number of persons taxed was sixty-one, and in 1666 the number was ninety-five, and in 1675 the number continued the same.

DEDHAM.

CHAPTER IV.

DEDHAM-( Continued).

Mother Brook, or East Brook-Dedham Island-Long Ditch-

Indian Village at Natick-Pacomtuck, or Deerfield-Bogas- tow, or Medfield-Wollonomopoag, or Wrentham-Decease of Leading Men among the First Settlers.

ON the twenty fifth day of the first month, March, 1639, it was ordered " that a ditch should be dug at common charge through upper Charles River meadow unto East Brook, that it may both be a par- In 1658-59, Eleazer Lusher and Joshua Fisher agreed to build a saw mill on the Neponset River, near the Cedar Swamp. tition fence in the same, and also may form a suitable creek unto a water-mill, that it shall be found fitting to set a mill upon, in the opinion of a workman to be In 1682, Jonathan Fairbanks and James Draper asked leave to build a fulling-mill below the corn- mills on East Brook, but Nathaniel Whiting was associated with James Draper by order of the town. employed for that purpose." This is the origin of Mother Brook, or Mill Creek, which starts out of Charles River about a quarter of a mile north of High Street, and runs in a direct course through the meadows The descendants of Nathaniel Whiting held these mill privileges on Mother Brook down to the present century. and around the highlands, through the easterly vil- | lage of the town to Neponset River. It is estimated that about one-third of the water of Charles River The turning of the waters of Charles River by means of the artificial channel, and uniting them with head-waters of Mother Brook, in 1640, has proved to be most beneficial and permanent in its consequences through all the subsequent history of the town. Until flows through this channel, and upon it are five mill- dams of great value, and at the present day are two extensive woolen-mills and one cotton-mill, beside the old saw-mill. East Brook took its rise about one hundred rods east of Washington Street, where it | the beginning of the present century it furnished saw- crosses the stream. From Charles River to this point mills and grist-mills, then of the highest importance, with power, and from 1807 down to the present time there have been erected upon it cotton- and woolen- mills, which have been prosperous, and have con- tributed to the substantial growth of the town. the channel is obviously artificial, and was constructed under the order of the town in 1639. The plan was then conceived and carried out, of uniting the waters of Charles with the waters of East Brook, and afterwards with those of Neponset River. The execution of a public work like this in the very infancy of the settle- ment is striking evidence of the energy and capacity | of the settlers. They then had only small hand grist- mills, which had been imported by Governor Win- throp, and their chief design in cutting this canal was to | make a dam, where they might have a grist-mill oper- ated by water-power. The town at the same meeting granted liberty to any one to build a water-mill on that stream who would undertake it. John Elderkin was the first to accept this proposal, and grants of land were made to him accordingly. In 1642 he sold one- half of his rights to Nathaniel Whiting and the other half to Mr. Allin, Nathaniel Aldis, and John Dwight, and in 1649, Nathaniel Whiting became the sole owner. In 1652 he sold the mill and his town rights for two hundred and fifty pounds, but in 1653 he re- purchased the same.

In 1664 a new corn-mill was erected by Daniel Pond and Ezra Morse, but Nathaniel Whiting remon- strated and brought a suit, which he lost. Further

and frequent complaints were made by Nathaniel Whiting to the town, and a committee chosen to regulate the water at the upper dam. Finally, in 1699, it was thought advisable to remove Morse's dam and let the water run in its old channel. As a compensation for this measure, forty acres were granted to Ezra Morse, near Neponset River, at the old saw-mill, or at Everett's Plain, where he may find it most to his satisfaction. In 1700 the Whiting mill was burned, and the town loaned twenty pounds for one year as aid towards the erection of another mill.

At the beginning of the settlement of the town, what is called Dedham Island was a neck of land around which Charles River flowed, with a slight fall in its course, a distance of nearly five miles in an irregular horseshoe bend, leaving a distance of only two-thirds of a mile across the meadows at its heel. This neck is estimated to contain about twelve hun- dred acres, and upon it was a herd-walk and possibly some houses of the early settlers. Across " Broad Meadows," at the heel of the horseshoe bend, the upper and lower channels of the river are distinctly visible at high water. The damage to the meadows arising from the waters remaining upon them, was felt to be serious by the first generation, as it has been by every succeeding generation of riparian owners. The enterprising and public-spirited settlers conceived the plan of cutting a "creek or ditch" through the " Broad Meadows," thus uniting the two channels of the river. The purpose was to permit the flow of the waters through this artificial channel instead of accu- mulating upon the meadows along the river below.

HISTORY OF NORFOLK COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

In 1652 liberty was granted to cut a creek or ditch through the " Broad Meadows" from river to river. Lieut. Fisher and Thomas Fuller were deputed to survey the length of the water-course through the " Broad Meadows," and the manner of the ground through which the same was to be cut, and the height of the water in the lower river.

This was the origin of "Long Ditch," the con- struction of which converted the neck into an island. It is not long since it was possible to pass through this channel in a small boat, but the lower portion has become much obstructed by the growth of bushes and the closing of the channel. Its history, however, is a monument of the energy and foresight of the first generation of the Dedham settlers. The great causeway on the bank of the river, which crosses the channel of "Long Ditch" where it leaves the river, was built in 1701.

In 1646, John Eliot, the minister at Roxbury, began the work of converting the Indians to Chris- tianity and civilization. His first instructions were given at Nonantum, a part of the present city of Newton. He met with success in the conversion of some Indians, among others, of Waban, a wise and grave man of the Massachusetts tribe. Mr. Eliot maintained that the Indians could not become Chris- tians unless they were first civilized. He therefore proposed that the Indians should be collected into one village, and designated a place on Charles River, ten miles west of the village of Dedham. This was in the southerly part of the town of Natick, a name which sig- nifies " a place of hills." To this proposition, when pro- posed to the General Court, Dedham readily assented. Mr. Allin was interested in Eliot's work, and aided him in his new enterprise. The General Court granted two thousand acres at Natick in 1651 for the new Indian town. It has been asserted that the town really had about six thousand acres, and the boundaries were never satisfactorily settled with the Indians. The Naticks, as they were afterwards called, soon built a little town which had three long streets, two on the north, and one on the south of Charles River. Each family had a house-lot. The houses consisted of poles set in the ground, and were covered with peeled bark. A few, built in the manner of English houses, were less perfect and comfortable. There was one large house which answered the double purpose of a school-room and meeting-house. In the second story the Indians deposited their skins. They were supplied with spades, hoes, axes, and other farming implements. A form of government was adopted, and an English magistrate was appointed to hold a court, and, in fact, appointed the Indian con-

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History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 10

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1534

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1534