History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 74

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 74

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"That it is the humble opinion of your Committee that a strict and religious observation of the Lord's day is one of the greatest caracteristicks of a Christian People, that the supreme monarch of the Universe hath an indisputable Right to ordain Laws binding all his rational beings in an absolute Sovereign manner, that this Great Governor of the world hath revealed to man, that he hath made a special Reservation of one whole

natural day out of seven for himself, which (according to the sacred Scriptures and the confesion of the most Learned part of the world) consists of twenty-four hours, wherein all our secu- lar consearns ought in the most desent and devout manner be folded up to give way to the more important service of divine worship and adoration, and all our Laws and conceits of things ought to be regulated by scripture and not according to the Phil- osiphy of the heathen or the supersticious opinions or traditions of man, and when the Laws of any Kingdom or State co-operate with and are agreeable to the Commands of the great Law giver, then and only then may such communetees expect to enjoy di- vine favours and blessings, prosperity in this and eternal hap- piness in a future state of existance; your Committee acknowl- edge it was surprizeing to them that our honourable Court should at this day when we are just amerging from the horrors of a most barbarous and unparraled war curtail a part of the forth Com- mendment by tolerating secular concerns or servile Labour to be carried on six hours of the same to the great disturbance of every sober and Consciencious Person in this State for no other Reasons saith the Honourable Court than that because their are defirant opinions among the sober and Consciencious Per- sons of the same Concerning the commencement of the sabath and lest they should be thought to lay unnecessary restrictions on the subject.

There can be no question that individually the people of Braintree then felt very poor. Those who could had borrowed at usurious interest to pay taxes, and now no one had any ready money. The town debt apparently was not large. A few thousand dollars in hard money would have discharged the whole of it. There was, for instance, an amount of

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£150 due to the estate of Col. Quincy, which ran along for sixteen years, from 1775 to 1791. There was another of £84 due to Capt. John Vinton, which was adjusted, in 1786, only after " extra- ordinary trouble and expense." Another note of £84 was in the hands of Deacon Moses French. In 1791 the treasurer was authorized to borrow a sum not exceeding two hundred pounds for the pur- pose of discharging the town debts. Each of these settlements was attended with much vexations liti- gation. The lenders had first taken the select- men's security for the repayment of their loans, and afterwards time-notes of the town treasurer. The currency had then depreciated. The collectors had been unable to get the taxes in, and had defaulted. One owed the town a balance of nearly two hundred and fifty pounds. This was in 1785. Again, in 1791, John Vinton, as one of the bondsmen of Gaius Thayer, then collector, came forward in town-meeting and announced that Thayer was likely to fall short in his payments, and he was then in the hands of an officer on two executions issued by the town treas- urer ; and the town thereupon voted that the assessors should " consult any gentleman learned in the law respecting the aforesaid difficulty." Under these circumstances Braintree seems to have shared to the full in the general discontent, and in May, 1786, after choosing its representative, a committee of nine was appointed to prepare instructions for him. This committee was further directed to present these in- structions to the town "for their approbation pre- vious to their being delivered to the representative." Accordingly, at the adjourned meeting three weeks later the instructions were submitted, and, in the words of the record, " were debated upon untill it was dark in the house, and the inhabitants Dispersed without passing any Vote whatever." Ten days later a special town-meeting was summoned to further consider the instructions, and a new committee of five was appointed. The town was now clearly bent on action, for it gave its committee thirty minutes only in which to consider the subject. At the end of that time the moderator called the meeting to order, and the committee submitted its report. The town's representative was thereupon instructed to use his efforts to secure the following results :

Ist. To remove the Court from Boston.

2dly. To Tax all Public Securities.

This was in July. In September following, three months before Shay's outbreak, these instructions were more fully matured at another town-meeting. In their final shape they breathed the full commun- istic spirit of the time, and contrast singularly with the better papers of ten years before. A new set of men had come forward in town affairs who could neither write English nor grasp principles of political action. They accordingly now indulged in the fol- lowing rhetorical bombast :

" The clouds are gathering over our heads pregnant with the most gloomy aspects, we abhor and detest violent measures. To fly to Clubs or Armes, to divert the impending Ruin the consequences of which would render us easy victims to foreign and inveterate foes. No as Loyal Subjects and Cytizens inflamed with true Patriotism we feel ourselves chearfully willing to lend our aid at all times in supporting the dignity of Govern- ment, but in as much as there are numerous Grievances or in- tolerable Burthens by some means or other lying on the Good Subjects of this republic. Our Eyes under Heaven are upon the Legislature of this Commonwealth and their names will shine Brighter in the American annals by preserving the in- valuable Liberties of their own People than if they ware to Cary the Terror of their Armes as far as Gibralter."

Then followed in ten specifications a statement of the grievances complained of, and the remedies sug- gested therefor. These it is needless to repeat. What the people peculiarly objected to was paying their debts. The machinery through which debts were collected was consequently peculiarly obnoxious to them. In regard to it they expressed themselves as follows :

"2dly. That the Court of Common Pleas and the General sessions of the Peace be removed in perpetuam rei Memoriam. "6thly. We humbly request that there may be such Laws compiled as may crush or at least put a proper check or restraint on that order of Gentlemen denominated Lawyers, the comple- tion of whos modern conduct appears to us to tend rather to the distruction than the preservation of this Commonwealth."

Yet in this matter, also, the town-meeting would seem to have served as a safety-valve. The dis- content, for which some ground did exist, there found expression, and the people felt better for it. The spirit of dissatisfaction at least had its say. Afterwards, when the time for decisive action came, the town arrayed itself on the right side. In Decem- ber came news of the disturbances in the western counties and the adjournment of courts confronted by bayonets and hickory clubs. On the 12th of Jan- uary Governor Bowdoin's appeal to law-abiding citi- zens was issued, and the Suffolk militia were called

out. In a few hours a company was organized at Brackett's Corner, in Braintree North Precinct, and on the 19th of January it marched away, as part of Col. Badlam's regiment, towards the Connecticut.

3dly. To Tax money on hand and on Interest.

4thly. To Lower the Sallery of place men.

5thly. Make Land a Tender for all debts at the Price it stood at when the debts were contracted.

6thly. To take some measure to prevent the growing Power of attorneys or Barristers at Law.

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It was composed of thirty-eight men besides the offi-

The vigorous action of the authorities had put down the rioters; but the depth of discontent may be in- ferred from the popular odium which seems to have attached to the authorities for so doing. Take Brain- tree, for instance. In April, 1786, Governor Bowdoin had received there 41 votes,-all that were cast. One year later, having in the mean time actually saved civil government to the State, he received 40 votes, and Gen. Lincoln, his military agent in the work of suppression, 3, while his opponent, Hancock, had 181. Yet time, in which to let matters adjust themselves, was all that now was needed. Twelve months later, when John Adams returned from England, after nine years of absence, he spoke of the increase of population as " wonderful." As compared with what he had seen in Europe, he was amazed at the plenty and cheapness of provisions, though the scarcity of money was cer- tainly very great. The industries of the country he found in a much better condition than he expected. Politically the state of affairs was less to his taste, and he wrote that " the people in a course of annual elec- tions had discarded from their confidence almost all the old, staunch, firm patriots who conducted the Revolution, and had called to the helm pilots much more selfish and much less skillful." The Braintree records bear testimony to the correctness of his judg- ment.

For the next few years no matters of considerable importance would seem to have engaged the atten- tion of the town. The people were hard at work repairing the losses of war. The question of the annexation of Squantum and that portion of Dor- chester south of the Neponset again came up. The division of Suffolk County was agitated. How best to take care of the poor was a standing subject for debate. One party wished to build a poor-house and provide for them in it. In 1785 this party car- ried their point, and the town ordered that an alms- house should be built " in the form of a Barrack, to be thirty-three feet in length and sixteen feet wide." But the other party succeeded in having this vote reconsidered at another meeting, held during the same month. The next spring, the almshouse people found themselves again a majority, and they not only voted the building but clinched the matter by adding that this vote should not be reconsidered at any future meeting unless one hundred and seventy-three mem-

bers of the town were there present. This was a new cers, and upon the roll are found all the old Braintree ; principle introduced into the conduct of town business. names. On the 22d of the following February these men were disbanded at Northampton, and the expense incurred by the State on their account was £154 98. 4d. No such restriction on the power of a town-meeting had ever been attempted before, and it is a matter of surprise that no one recorded his dissent to it now. But under this vote the almshouse was built and the town poor moved into it, the overseer receiving £3 10s. for his services the first year, and his suc- cessor £6 for the second year.

The need of a reorganization of the schools also began to make itself felt. In 1790 an attempt was made to divide the town into districts. A committee was appointed to consider the matter, but its re- port, when it made one, was rejected, and the town decided to go on in the old way. It accordingly ap- propriated £150 for " schooling" during that year, and ordered

" that there be a Gramer School keept nine months, three in each precienct beginning in the North and so on to the Middle and South, which will include all the time to next march, such a Master to be agreed with as will be willing to Teach english as well as Latten, and also to teach wrighting and Cypering."

That at this time the town felt unusually poor may be inferred from the fact that the warrant for the March meeting of the following year contained an article " to see if it be the minds of the Town that all Town Officers that may be chosen this year serve without any pay from the Town." Though the tenth and last article in the warrant, this was first taken up, and, " after a considerable debate," a division was called for. Whereupon, the record says, " the House divided. 98 against paying and 99 for paying; so it was Voted that the Town officers should be paid."

The action of April, 1790, adverse to the division of the town into school districts, seems to have caused great discontent in the North Precinct. Those living there felt that they were numerous enough and suffi- ciently prosperous to have a school of their own. They naturally did not like sending their children, during three of the nine months' yearly schooling, two miles away to the Middle Precinct, and, during another three months, four miles away to the South Precinct. Yet the only alternative to so doing, under the arrangement which the town had voted, was to give the children but three months' schooling a year ; and this was what the vote really meant. Accord- ingly, the question of political separation, first agi- tated eighty years before and which had now slept for over thirty years, was again discussed. There was an article relating to it in the town warrant for May 10, 1790. After considerable debate, it was then dismissed. In the latter part of that year one hundred and twenty inhabitants of the North Pre-

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cinct, and fifteen inhabitants of that portion of Dor- chester and Milton lying immediately south of the Neponset, joined in a petition to the General Court that the regions in which they lived might be incor- porated together as a distinct town. The petition came before the Senate for its action in January, 1791. While it was still pending a Braintree town- meeting was called to consider it.

The struggle between the precincts took place over the choice of moderator, and the record says that " after a long dispute it was finally voted to chuse the moderator by ballot and Maj. Stephen Penniman was chosen by 93 votes out of 152." In other words, the Middle and South precincts were united against the North, and outnumbered it. A committee of six was then chosen to appear before the Legislature by counsel to oppose the division of the town, and its representative was instructed to use his influence to the same end. Nor did the other precincts desist from their opposition to the inevitable so long as

thing which looks like political dismemberment seems ingrained. In the case of New England it is diffi- cult to say which the people most objected to-the surrender of local independence through consolidation or the supposed loss of local influence through sepa- ration. Action towards either has never failed to awaken a conservative feeling, which saw nothing but political disaster in not keeping things exactly as they then were. This was the experience of Braintree in 1791; and in September of that year another town- meeting was held which voted to put forth one last effort before the legislative committee in behalf of the ancient limits. It was unavailing. On the 22d of February, 1792, one hundred and fifty-two years lacking only three months, after its original incorpo- ration as Braintree, the North Precinct was set off, and ordered to be called by the name of Quincy. The act, also, was signed, as Governor of the State, by John Hancock, who had himself been born, brought up, and married in the territory thus made a town.

It has already been explained how the name of Quincy chanced to be selected. At the time the choice was not wholly satisfactory. Governor Hancock was then at the height of that personal popularity which he enjoyed in Massachusetts to a degree which no other public man has since equaled, and there were those who did not forget that he was a native of the North Precinct. They wanted the new town to be named after him. Richard Cranch, who, it will be remembered, had selected the name of Quincy, was at this time, and in the absence of John Adams, the leading citizen of the town, for Gen. Palmer had been

overtaken by financial disaster, and was now dead. Born in England in 1726, Mr. Cranch came to Mas- sachusetts before he had yet attained his majority. In 1851 he became interested in the Germantown land speculation, and nine years later he married the eldest daughter of Parson Smith, of Weymouth, whose sister, Abigail, two years later, in 1764, be- came the wife of John Adams. Consequently, Mr. Cranch and John Adams were brothers-in-law, and their wives were granddaughters of Col. John Quincy. Hence, probably, the selection of the name. Mr. Cranch, after representing Braintree repeatedly in the General Court, had been in the State Senate. Subsequently he was a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, as well as Quincy's first post- master ; but his name is now chiefly remembered through his son and among lawyers, in connection with that series of reports which contain the early decisions of Marshall.

Mr. Cranch was the justice of the peace designated opposition to it could be made. The dislike to any- | by name in the act incorporating the new town to warn its first town-meeting. It was held on the 8th of March, 1792, and the usual officers were chosen. Maj. Ebenezer Miller was put at the head of the board of selectmen, showing that his former Church and Tory proclivities were not remembered against him. At the meeting in May for the choice of a representative the question of the town name was brought up, and a strong effort made to have it changed. After what is reported to have been a long and somewhat heated discussion, it was voted by a narrow majority not to take up the article in the warrant relating to that matter. This settled the question ; and the name of Quincy, thus preserved, has since been multi- plied and made familiar in connection with other and larger towns in regions which had then been hardly explored.

The political history of Quincy as recorded in the town-books during the thirty-eight years which next ensued shows few points of general interest. It was a period of peace. The people had in a great degree made good the losses of the war, and they were in- tent on bettering their condition. Year after year the town offices were filled, the regular appropriations made, new roads laid out, and local questions dis- cussed. One generation went off the stage ; another came upon it. Richard Cranch and Ebenezer Miller gave place to Benjamin Beale and Thomas Greenleaf. An almshouse was built on the old Coddington farm in 1815 at a cost of $1973.18; and when in the same year the town hall and school-house was burnt down, it was presently rebuilt at a cost of $2100. Through long years the question of where the new

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building should stand-whether " adjoining the bury- ing-ground," or "adjoining Mr. Quincy's sheds," or " north of Mr. Burrell's house," or " opposite the en- gine-house"-was earnestly discussed. Finally it was placed next the burying-ground. It was then only eight years since this had been inclosed. In it lay the bones and dust of four generations that had lived and died in the North Precinct. It stood by the side of the Plymouth road, an open and uncared for com- mon, in which the swine ran at large and cattle grazed. Nor was there in this apparent desecration anything offensive to New England eyes. The gravestones were rooted up by hogs and trodden down by cows ; the children played among them : but it had been so from the beginning, and that it should be so now wronged no one's sense of fitness. On points such as these the fathers were the reverse of refined, and another generation had to grow up with a nicer sense of decency before the graveyard was fenced in. At last, in 1809, a number of the inhabitants bought up the rights of passage, herbage, and pasturage on the bit of ground in which their ancestors lay, and, through John Quincy Adams and Josiah Quincy, deeded it to the town to be thereafter " set aside as exclusively a place of human burial."

But incidentally the records of eighty and ninety years ago are apt to be suggestive. They reveal con- ditions which seem to have a middle-age flavor. For instance, in 1792 it was voted " to have Hospitals in town for the purpose or benefit of those who chuse to have the smallpox." And again, in 1809, at a special town-meeting, the subject of vaccination was discussed, and, after prolonged debate, the majority decided against it. Piracy, or, as it was more deli- cately called, privateering, had strong attractions then for the more adventurous spirits. The United States was at peace with the world, but England and France were at war; accordingly, on August 12, 1793, just as the French reign of terror began, Benjamin Beale, Richard Cranch, and Moses Black were made a stand- ing committee " to see that there be not any privateers fitted out from this place by any of the Citizens of the United States or others against any of the belig- erent powers, in order that a strict neutrality be kept between us and them." Having thus disposed of international questions, local affairs next occupied the attention of the town, and the hours were fixed at which " for the future the Bell tole on Sunday for beginning divine service." A few years later, in 1804, the singers are granted twenty-five dollars "to pro- cure a bass viol for the use of the congregation ;" and in 1818, Mr. Daniel Hobart is " authorized and di- rected to keep the boys in order in the meeting-house

on Sundays." All, be it remembered, by formal votes of the town-meeting.

The separation of the precincts had thus once more united town and parish, and the political and religious organization fell naturally back to just what it was a whole century before. The town again regulated every detail of church management. In 1810 the se- lectmen were " authorized to appoint a sexton and to mark out his duty ;" and two years later it was made a part of the sexton's duty " to ring the bell at twelve o'clock at noon and nine o'clock at night." The bell, by the way, gave the town a great deal of trouble, and was long a matter for town-meeting debate and inves- tigation. In 1810 the old bell was discarded, and a new one ordered of Col. Paul Revere. The result was not satisfactory, and in August a town-meeting was warned to consider the matter. A committee of three was then appointed " for the purpose of examining the new bell to see if they can find out where the fault is in it respecting the sound." Another and larger bell was then ordered; but when it was cast its weight became a matter of grave alarm, and yet an- other committee had to be appointed to ascertain if the belfry was strong enough to support it. Not until 1817 was the subject finally disposed of.

The church singing was also matter of grave dis- cussion. The introduction of " the bass viol" in 1804 had only led to new demands from the choir, and in 1821 the question was agitated whether it would not be well to have the selectmen hire a " professed Mas- ter of Sacred Musick." A committee was appointed to consider the subject, at the head of which was T. B. Adams, son of John Adams, then a man of fifty and a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Presently this committee made a report, in which occurs the fol- lowing quaint and suggestive passage :

" The Association [of singers] is voluntary and not exclusive of any who belong to the Town, and no one has authority to select and discriminate between the qualified, or such as by instruction might become so, and such as have neither capacity to learn or voice to execute in a choir of singers. This is ad- mitted to be an embarrassment and an obstacle to the advance- ment of the Singing Society in improvement, which they all feel, without being able to apply the needful remedy ; and as that por- tion of the services and solemnities of the Sanctuary which de- pends on their performance is considered by many not merely an act of devotion which may be done indifferently or any how so that the Psalm be sung, but as a very delightful exercise, calculated to impose solemnity, and to excite or inspire sentiments becom- ing the temple of worship, they are peculiarly desirous that an opportunity be given of calling to their aid the talent and abili- ties which are liberally possessed by the youth of both sexes in our Congregation."

This presentation of the case seems to have been decisive. The town accepted the report, and voted two hundred dollars for the purpose in question, the

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same to be expended by a special committee composed of the selectmen and " Capt. Josiah Bass, Thomas B. Adams, Esq., and Edward Miller, Esq." Edward Miller was the son of Maj. Ebenezer Miller, and the family had for the time being, under pressure of the " suspect" vote of 1777, abandoned the ancestral place of worship, wisely identifying itself with the people among whom its lot was cast.

The salary of the minister also engaged the atten- tion of the town hardly less during this period than it had a century and a half before, in the days of Parson Tompson. Mr. Whitney had always re- ceived five hundred dollars a year, to which the town by annual vote had been in the custom of adding a further sum of one or two hundred dollars. In 1808 Mr. Whitney asked to have his salary increased to eight hundred dollars, but the request was not com- plied with. In April, 1811, he addressed another letter to his parishioners on the subject, which is in- teresting in several ways. It will be remembered that in 1657 a committee appointed to inquire concerning the maintenance of ministers in the towns near Bos- ton had reported that in Dorchester Mr. Mather was allowed one hundred pounds per annum ; in Dedham, Mr. Allen was allowed sixty pounds ; in Roxbury, Mr. Elliot and Mr. Danforth were each allowed sixty pounds; and in Braintree, Mr. Flynt and Mr. Tompson each fifty-five pounds. There were then eighty fami- lies in Braintree. In 1811, one hundred and fifty-four years later, Quincy numbered about two hundred and fifty families. Mr. Whitney then wrote to them as follows :

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History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 74

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