History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 70

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

USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 70

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HISTORY OF NORFOLK COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

up. It was voted to appoint a committee of eight to consider the subject, and to report at an adjourned meeting. Of this committee Major John Quincy was chairman, and upon it were several other prominent men. They presented their report on the 25th February following. It was unanimous and consisted of eight articles, looking apparently towards the pro- posed division. The reception it received was, con- sidering the names that were attached to it, quite singular. The townsmen had evidently come to the meeting prepared to take the matter into their own hands. The report having been read before the meeting, the record proceeds as follows :

" After which, upon a motion made, the question was put whether the agreement of the committee should be voted arti- cle by article, and it passed in the negative.

"The question was then put whether all the articles thereof should be voted upon at once ; it passed again in the negative.

" The question was then again put whether they would ac- cept of the Report of the said Committee. It passed again in the negative.

" After this, upon a motion made, the Question was put whether they would Reconsider their last vote, viz., of non- acceptance, and it was voted in the affirmative.

" Then again the Question was put whether they would accept of the Report of the Committee, and it passed in the negative.

" Upon which, the meeting was dismissed."

At another town-meeting held in the following May the report was again brought up, and the ques- tion was put whether the town would reconsider its former action ; and again it passed in the negative. It is almost needless to add that nothing more was heard on the subject of dividing the town. The | people had emphatically shown that they were not ready for it, and the leaders, who seem to have worked the plan up, were obliged to abandon it. It was more than sixty years before the project was revived in a

" That they had been with Mr. Thomas Vinton and had asked of him on what terms he would quit his Claim to the practical form. In 1730 the warrant contained | River aforesaid; To which (they said) he made no answer. an article to see whether the town would " comply And Mr. Vinton being present at the meeting the moderator [Benjamin Neal] put the Question to him whether he would part with his Right in the River. To which he made answer that he would not sell his Right therein on any tearms what- ever. The moderator then put the Question to the meeting whether they would defend their Rights in said River against the claims of all persons whatsoever. It passed in the affirm- ative; against which John Hunt entered dissent. Then the Question was put whether they would raise money to defray the charge that may arise in defending their Rights. It passed in the affirmative; against which Ensign John Hunt and Benjamin Ludden dissented. with a motion or desire of the House of Represent- atives (Recommended to all such as have a Regard to New England's welfare) to raise money for the supply of Francis Wilks and Jonathan Belcher, Esqrs., agents for the said house in the Court of Great Britain ; to enable them to sollicite the affair and perpetuate the peace and tranquility of this country and prevent the mischief that is likely to ensue on the want thereof." The action of the town upon this matter showed that the leaders of public " Then voted that One Hundred Pounds shall be assessed on the Town (if need be) to defray the charge of defending their Rights abovesaid. opinion had not lost their heads. The article was " discoursed upon and the meeting being sensible that they could not (as a town) Raise money upon that Head the thing was Dismissed and the Inhabitants left to subscribe as they pleased."

Col. John Quincy at this time became Speaker of the provincial House of Representatives, which was engaged in its long and tedious dispute with Governor Belcher over its right to audit public charges before money which had been appropriated should be paid out of the treasury. That Braintree fully sympathized in the stand taken by the representatives on this sub- ject became manifest the following year, when the advice and direction of the several towns to their members was desired. At a special town-meeting held on the 27th of September, 1731, it was

"Then Voted, that the thanks of this meeting be Returned to the honorable House of Representatives for their faithful service in asserting and defending the Just Liberties of this Province (as we esteem they have hither done and which we highly approve) and Desire that they would continue strenu- ously to endeavour the maintaining and defending the same."

But the matter which alone during this period seems to have stirred the town to its lowest depths was a controversy with Mr. Thomas Vinton, who in 1720 had purchased the land on which the Monato- quit Iron-works stood. The attempt to manufacture iron there had some time before been finally abandoned as unprofitable. The dam which fur- nished water-power was still standing, and it seems now to have obstructed for no sufficient cause the passage of fish up the river during the spawning season. At the May town-meeting of 1736 the sub- ject was brought up, and, after a warm debate, a com- mittee was appointed to treat with Mr. Vinton for the surrender of his rights in the river. At a special meeting called a month later to receive the report of this committee, its chairman, Lieut. Joseph Crosby, stated verbally

"Then the Question was put whether they would chuse a Committee to Take care that the River be kept clear of all obstructions to the passage of the Fish and to prosecute in the Law all such as shall hinder or obstruct their passage in said River. It passed in the affirmative."

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The committee now appointed was especially au- thorized to submit the whole matter in dispute to a reference of "indifferent men," if Vinton would con- sent to so doing. He would come to no terms; and apparently the committee was afraid to do anything. In any event, their action certainly was not energetic enough to meet the views of the townsmen, and another meeting was held on the 23d of August. A vote was then passed that " all such things as obstruct the Passage in Monaticut in any part thereof be re- moved." It was further voted not to continue the | former committee, nor to add to it other "meet per- sons," but a wholly new committee was chosen, at the head of which was " The Honble. Leonard Vassal, Esq." This committee appears to have had recourse at once to high-handed measures. They pulled the dam down. In consequence of this action another meeting was held on the 14th of September, at which Mr. Benjamin Neal, a member of the committee, was chosen moderator. It was then voted that the com- mittee should be empowered to defend all individuals against any action which Mr. Vinton might bring, " excepting any charg Mr. Vinton shall or may re- cover of any person or persons by making out a Riot."

Three weeks later still another special meeting was called, and a vote was passed offering Vinton three hundred pounds in bills of credit if he would quit- claim to the town all his right in the river, and dis- continue legal proceedings against those who had been concerned in the pulling down of the dam. "Mr. Vinton being present, declared his acceptance of the Town's offer, and promised to comply with their de- mands concerning a Deed of his Right in said River." It was then voted that, after the committee had done what they should see cause to do about clearing the river, Mr. Vinton should be at "liberty" to take away the remainder of the stuff at any time at his leisure.

Yet another meeting was held before this matter was fully disposed of. There seems to have been a strong feeling that the town had dealt too liberally with Vinton. Accordingly, the meeting had hardly come to order and chosen its moderator when "Peter Marquand appeared and declared that he had no warning to the meeting, and therefore desired his desent might be entered against the meeting and all that might be therein transacted." Nevertheless, the town proceeded to tax itself to the amount of the three hundred pounds which it had agreed to pay Mr. Vinton. But its action did not pass without a strong protest from the minority. No less than twenty-four persons insisted upon having their names recorded in opposition.

Not content with thus removing obstacles in the way of the passage of fish, the town a few years later tried its hand at the artificial development of an infant in- dustry, thus foreshadowing the national protective policy of a century later. At the March meeting of 1755 a formal vote was passed for the encouragement of the " Bank Codfishery to be sett up and carried on within this town." Those concerned in this business, whether inhabitants of Braintree or elsewhere, were to have their poll-taxes remitted to them for the space of three years. A proviso was added that all such persons from other places should be subject to the approval of the selectmen ; and, if not approved by them, might be " warned out of Town according to Law." Fortunately for the town, the bounty thus offered does not seem to have been sufficient to build up an artificial industry. Accordingly, as the years went by, the people were not drawn on from point to point in the singular process of taxing profitable indus- try to keep alive some industry which is not profitable.

In the record for the year 1757 there is a passage which shows in a curious way how thoroughly the parliamentary system had become a part of political habit. In the rough town-meeting they evinced as much respect for precedent as was shown at West- minster. They had their customs, with all the force of law. The question was on the election of select- men. The record is as follows :

"The votes being called for, brot in and examined, it appeared that Col. Josiah Quincy, Mr. Jonathan Allen, Mr. Benjamin Porter were chosen by a majority of votes. Capt. Richard Brackett and Capt. Eben Thayer, Junr., were chosen according to the usual custom of said Town as having more votes than any others, and were Declared Selectmen by the Moderator according to the custom of said Town. Upon which and much Dispute Respecting the Legality of the aforesaid choice, Messrs. William Penniman, Samuel Bass, Peter Adams, Jonathan Raw- son, Ebenezer Adams, John Adams, John Hunt, Samuel Bass, Junr., Josiah Capen, and John Clark entered their Dissent against the proceedings of the said meeting. After much De- bate Respecting the Legality of Capt. Brackett and Capt. Thayer's choice as selectmen, the Question was put by the Modr. whether the Town would then confirm said choice. Voted and passed in the affirmative."

The last struggle with the French and Indians was at this time already two years old. Braddock had been defeated before Fort Duquesne in July, 1755, and in May, 1756, war between Great Britain and France had been formally declared. Pitt was in office. The massacre at Fort George occurred in 1757 ; in 1758 Cape Breton was captured by the Eng- lish, and on the 17th of September, 1759, Wolfe and Montcalm both fell on the Heights of Abraham. The next year the conquest of Canada by the English was complete. John Adams was then a young man, keep-

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HISTORY OF NORFOLK COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

ing school at Worcester. He describes how Amherst with his little army of four thousand men passed through the town on his way from Louisburg to Crown Point. "The officers were very social, spent their evenings and took their suppers with such of the inhabitants as were able to invite them, and entertained us with their music and their dances. Many of them were Scotchmen in their plaids, and their music was delightful ; even the bag-pipe was not disagreeable." Then came the siege of Fort William Henry, during which almost every day couriers came down from the frontier bearing earnest appeals for men and supplies.

While the colony thus resounded with warlike preparations, Braintree pursued the absolutely even tenor of its ancient ways. In the records of the town there is no trace of these great events. The usual town-meetings were held, but even less than the usual interest attached to them. Questions of commons and ways were discussed, fines were imposed or remitted, schools were provided for, and from £60 to £150 was annually ordered to be levied to meet the current ex- penses of the town. But of the stress of war in the form of calls for men, supplies, and money there is no indication. Yet these must have come and been felt, and that severely. A partial examination of the provincial muster-rolls has shown that between 1756 and 1760 more than two hundred Braintree men did military service. Some were impressed ; the greater number volunteered. Twenty-eight took part in the unfortunate Crown Point expedition of 1756, serving during that season only. Hutchinson says that " when the main body of the enemy went back to Canada, the provincial army broke up and returned to the government in which it had been raised. Many had deserted and more had died while they lay encamped. Many died upon the road, and many died of the camp distemper after they were at home." Upon the rolls Joseph Blanchard, of Braintree, ap- pears as a deserter.

The next year the capitulation of Fort William Henry spread a panic all through New England. Those living west of the Connecticut were ordered to destroy their wheel carriages and to drive in their cattle. The authorities hoped to hold the line of the river. Nearly the whole military force of the colony was called to arms. From Braintree, Capt. Peter Thayer's company was marched as far as Roxbury. They lay there in camp for some days, and then, the alarm having subsided, returned home. Some seven or eight Braintree men are known to have been in the garrison at Fort William Henry at the time of the surrender.

appeal of Pitt, Massachusetts put forth what she then supposed to be her utmost efforts. A levy of seven thousand men was ordered. Forty-five hundred only could be raised by voluntary enlistment, and the re- mainder had to be drafted. They composed part of the force which operated against Ticonderoga, and at their head Lord Howe was killed. Among them were at least thirty men from Braintree ; and during the same season twelve more enlisted on the ship of war " King George." The next year (1759) witnessed the fall of Quebec, and brought the war to a practical close. While Wolfe, with his regulars, moved against Quebec, the provincial levies relieved the garrisons of Nova Scotia. To this force Braintree contributed a quota of some forty men, while more took part in the operations under Amherst which resulted in the fall of Ticonderoga and Crown Point.

The terms of enlistment during this war were short, and the name of the same man often appears more than once on the rolls. But during these three years it is probably safe to say that Braintree furnished, apart from the promenade of Capt. Thayer's com- pany in August, 1757, one hundred different men for actual service. The population of the town was then about two thousand, of whom some five hundred were males above sixteen. From this it would appear that at least one man in each three capable of bearing arms was put into the field.

With the close of the French war a new generation came on the Braintree stage. The last recorded ap- pearance of John Quincy at the town meetings was in September, 1758. The rebuff he then met with at the hands of his fellow-townsmen has already been noticed. Deacon John Adams, though a selectman in 1758, was not again chosen to that office, and he died two years later. But this year, though his name does not appear on the records, the younger John Adams has asserted that he was chosen surveyor of highways. From this time forward his presence in the town made itself most distinctly felt. Upon the smaller stage it was just as it was on the larger one a | little later. The active, inquiring mind was at work impelled by all the nervous energy of youth. Ac- cordingly, in the town-meeting of May, 1761, we find him engaged in his crusade against intemperance, persuading the town to regulate its licensed houses | and restrict their number. Then in 1765 he induced it to abandon the old system of repairing highways, and to do it by means of a tax. A committee, of which he was a member, made a report outlining the new system. The old question about the commons is still undecided, and comes up in dreary shape

The next year, in response to the strong, personal before each succeeding town-meeting. A few years

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later he takes hold of it, and then at last the matter is disposed of. An apparently interminable discus- sion is brought to an end, and all the commons are sold.

Meanwhile a new set of questions begins to loom up. The report in favor of selling the north commons was presented at the town-meeting of April 1, 1765, just ten days before Parliament passed the Stamp Act. When the news reached New England it caused pro- digious excitement everywhere. In Braintree John Adams took the matter up at once. He says,-

"I drew up a petition to the selectmen of Braintree, and procured it to be signed by a number of the respectable inhabi- tants, to call a meeting of the town to instruct their representa- tive in relation to the stamps."

The town met in the Middle Precinct meeting- house on the 24th of September. Norton Quincy was chosen moderator. Mr. Adams then goes on,-

" I prepared a draught of instructions at home and carried them with me. The cause of the meeting was explained at some length, and the state and danger of the country pointed out ; a committee was appointed to prepare instructions, of which I was nominated as one. We retired to Mr. Niles' house; my draught was produced, and unanimously adopted without amendment, reported to the town, and accepted without a dissenting voice. These were published in Draper's paper, as that printer first ap- plied to me for a copy. They were decided and spirited enough. They rang through the State and were adopted in so many words, as I was informed by the representatives of that year, by forty towns, as instructions to their representatives."

These instructions were printed in the Boston Ga- zette of October 14, 1765, and in comparing them with some of an opposite nature coming at the same time from the town of Marblehead, a correspondent of the Evening Post picked out at the time one para- graph as " worthy to be wrote in letters of gold." It was the following :

" We further Recommend the most Clear and explicit assertion and vindication of our Rights and Liberties to be entered on the Public Records that the world may know in the present and all future Generations, that we have a clear knowledge and a just sense of those Rights and Liberties and that with submission to divine Providence, we never can be slaves."

Accordingly, these instructions are spread upon the Braintree records. As they have been reprinted it is unnecessary to repeat them here, though the form in which they appear in the works of John Adams1 is quite inaccurate when compared with the original.

It was certainly a vigorous, stirring production, well calculated to attract the public eye. There was in it an easy reference to the principles of English constitutional law which showed that the man who wrote it was master of his subject. He appealed to

Magna Charta, laying down the principle as " grand and fundamental," that " no freeman should be sub- ject to any tax to which he has not given his own consent in person or by proxy." The courts of admi- ralty were then arraigned :

" In these courts one judge presides alone! No juries have any concern there ! . . . What Justice and Impartiality are we at Three thousand miles distance from the fountain to expect from such a Judge of Admiralty. We all along thought the Acts of Trade in this Respects a grievance. But the Stamp Act has erected a vast number of sources of New crimes which may be committed by any man and cannot but be committed by multitudes and Prodigious Penalties all annexed and all these to be tryed by such a Judge of such a Court. What can be wanting after this but a weak or wicked man for a Judge to render us the most sordid and forlorn of slaves ? We mean the slaves of a slave of the Servants of a Minister of State."

The authorship of this paper brought the young Braintree lawyer into great popular prominence. Accordingly, it was upon the 18th of the following December that the town of Boston retained him to appear with Gridley and Otis before the Governor and Council in support of the memorial praying that the courts of law might be opened. It was a week later, on Christmas day, that he and his wife " drank tea at Grandfather Quincy's" at Mount Wollaston, and found the " old gentleman inquisitive about the hearing." A few days after, referring to the dangers of the times, he wrote in his diary, " Let the towns and the representatives renounce every stamp man and every trimmer next May !" He probably felt some anxiety at the time in regard to the action of Braintree. The North Precinct, he afterwards de- clared in a letter which has been printed, was at that time " a very focus of Episcopal bigotry, intrigue, intolerance, and persecution." The church influence there was certainly very great, and one of its promi- nent members was on the board of selectmen. So intense was the popular feeling, that politics had now fairly taken possession of the pulpit. For instance, the Rev. Ebenezer Gay, of Hingham, had preached a Thanksgiving sermon in which he inculcated-dis- tinctly submission to authority and a recourse to " prayers and tears, not clubs." This discourse greatly disturbed the Hingham people, who got so far as to believe that their worthy pastor had the stamps in his house, and they even threatened to go and search it for them. This feeling was not allayed when, the next Sabbath, Parson Smith, of Wey- mouth, preached a sermon in the Hingham pulpit in which he recommended obedience to good rules and a spirited opposition to bad ones, interspersed with a good deal of animated declamation upon liberty and the times. A month later Parson Wybird alarmed his parishioners by announcing the following as the

1 John Adams' Works, vol. iii. pp. 465-8.

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HISTORY OF NORFOLK COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

text of his discourse : " Hear, O heavens, and give | This was the meeting at which the popular party achieved only a partial victory, owing to the fact that car, O earth ! I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me." John ! " the north end people," after voting for " Cornet Adams goes on :

" I began to suspect a Tory sermon on the times from this text, but the preacher confined himself to spirituals. But, I expect, if the tories should become the strongest, we shall hear many sermons against the ingratitude, injustice, disloyalty, treason, rebellion, impiety, and ill policy of refusing obedience to the Stamp Act. The church clergy, to be sure, will be very eloquent. The church people, are, many of them, favorers of the Stamp Act at present. Major Miller, forsooth, is very fear- ful that they will be stomachful at home (England), and angry and resentful. Mr. Veasey insists upon it that we ought to pay our proportion of the public burdens. Mr. Cleverly is | fully convinced that they, that is the Parliament, have a right to tax us ; he thinks it is wrong to go on with business; we had better stop and wait till Spring, till we hear from home. . . . Etter is another of the poisonous talkers, but not | equally so. Cleverly and Veasey are slaves in principle; they are devout, religious slaves, and a religious bigot is the worst of men."

Major Miller was then one of the board of select- men. He and all the others mentioned were promi- nent churchmen, and their names will presently be found as those of political "suspects" in the town records.

As the day in March approached when town officers were to be elected, Braintree was alive with excite- ment and intrigue. The church party was anxious not to lose the degree of influence it still had, and its members accordingly professed to have seen new light. Mr. Cleverly, for instance, was not so clear as he had been that Parliament had a right to tax the colonies ; indeed, he was inclined to think it had not. For selectmen he proposed a combination ticket,-Col. Josiah Quincy and Major Ebenezer Miller, the former being a stanch patriot. At last the day for the town-meeting came, and John Adams, who long afterwards spoke of it as " the first popular struggle of the Revolution in the town of Braintree," thus at the moment described what took place :

" My brother Peter, Mr. Etter, and Mr. Field, having a number of votes prepared for Mr. Quincy and me, set them- selves to scatter them. The town had been very silent and still, my name had never been mentioned, nor had our friends ever talked of any new selectmen at all, excepting in the South Pre- cinct; but as soon as they found there was an attempt to be made they fell in and assisted, and although there were six dif- ferent hats with votes for as many different persons, besides a considerable number of scattering votes, I had the major vote of the assembly the first time. Mr. Quincy had more than one hundred and sixty votes. I had but one vote more than half. ... Etter and my brother took a skillful method. . . . Many persons, I hear, acted slyly and deceitfully ; this is always the case. . . . Mr. Jo. Bass was extremely sorry for the loss of Major Miller; he would never come to another meeting. Mr. Jo. Cleverly could not account for many things done at town-meetings."

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History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 70

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