USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 17
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 17
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 17
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First I bequeathe my Soule into the hands of Almighty God my Creator and my Body I comitt to the Earth to be decently interred at the discretion of my deare and loving wife and Executrix hereafter named: And concerning my small portion of worldly goods I dispose thereof as followeth Vizt:
Imprimis I give unto my Brother Henry Heale my gray Cloth Cloke my best Hatt and a Satten Capp and one Hollond shirt. The rest and residue of all and singular my Goods and Chattles and Debts whatsoever and wheresoever I give and bequeath unto my beloved wife Mary Heale whom I make constitute and ap- point full and sole Executrix of this my last will and Testament hereby revoking all former Wills and Bequests. In witness whereof I have hereunto sett my hand seale this fourth day of Aprill one thousand six hundred fifty and two.
Giles Heale.
The parish records show that "Mr. Giles Heale" was buried February 3, 1652-3, doubtless in the church or churchyard, of St. Giles-in-the- Fields. This edifice still stands in London, near Drury Lane.
The signature to his will as above shown, is a complete proof of identification as the same Giles Heale, chirurgeon, who witnessed in Plymouth thirty-two years before the dying statement of William Mul- lins.
Missing Man of "Mayflower"-The following editorial is from the "Boston Transcript" of February 12, 1927 :
The discovery of the name and the ferreting out of the story of a "Mayflower" passenger whose name has never before been included in the immortal roster of the people who came with the Plymouth Pilgrims will furnish a real thrill to all the "Mayflower" descendants and others interested in early New England history. Giles Heale, who, for some reason, either of want of interest or of per- sonal prejudice, was not mentioned in Governor Bradford's wonderful relation of the "Mayflower's" voyage and the founding of the Plymouth colony, was un- doubtedly real. His name is found duly signed as a witness to the oral will of William Mullens, father of Priscilla, who died in Plymouth in the February follow- ing the landing. This will is said to have been made on Mullens' deathbed in Plymouth. Heale must have been considered of some standing among the "May- flower's" company, for his fellow witnesses on the will are no less men than John Carver, first governor of the colony, and Christopher Jones, the captain of the ship. Colonel Charles E. Banks, who has dug out in England the copy of this will, not heretofore known, has also traced the London record of Heale, and concludes with reason that he was the barber-surgeon on board the "Mayflower." At that epoch the professions of barber and surgeon were commonly united in one person; and Heale had been officially qualified as a member of the joint profession in London in 1619. Presumably he was quite a young man, and evidently he returned to London on the ship when she sailed for the return in April, 1621.
Therefore Giles Heale was not a real member of the Plymouth Colony, and inasmuch as his ministrations during the winter of the fearful sickness had been
-
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quite useless from the medical point of view he was deemed not worthy of mention by Bradford. What a chance he had to save life, and how feebly he must have seized it! There were not enough well to take care of the sick that winter. Five of the 102 died in December, eight in January, seventeen in Feb- ruary, thirteen in March; and before help came fifty of the little band were dead. Thus Bradford:
"In the time of most distress, there were but six or seven sound persons, who (to their great commendation be it spoken) spared no pains night or day; but, with abundance of care and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood; made them fires, dressed them meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and unclothed them . .. and all this willingly and cheerfully without any grudging in the least."
May Alden Ward has said :
Instead of scoffing at the narrowness and bigotry of the Puritan we can en- deavor to judge him by the standard of the seventeenth century and not that of the nineteenth century. We shall find that instead of being narrower than his generation he was, in all essentials, broader. If he drove out a heretic now and then, it was because, in their hand-to-hand battle for existence, he did not dare to run the risk of the presence of a disturbing element. Those were dark days for Protestantism, and men needed to be on their guard. The fires of the inquisition were still smoking in Spain; Holland had been well nigh blotted from the face of the earth; Germany had been for thirty years a bloody battlefield, and France had driven the whole of her thinking population into exile. In England the dungeons were overflowing with men whose only crime was attending a dissenting church, and the horrors of torture inflicted on the Scotch Presbyterians make the blood run cold at the recital. What wonder that the second generation of Puritans were more strict than the first? As for superstition,-if the Puritans believed in witches, how was it with the rest of the world? There was not a nation in Europe in which a belief in demoniacal possession was not prevalent .... Nor was theology the only science that was still groping in darkness. Other sciences were still in the grasp of superstition, notably the science of medicine. Witness the following prescription sent by Sir Kenelm Digby, a London physician, to John Winthrop, Jr. "For all sorts of agues, I have of late tried the following magnetical experiment with infallible success. Pare the patient's nails when the fit is coming on, and put the parings into a little bag of fine linen or sarsanet, and tie that about a live eel's neck in a tub of water. The eel will die and the patient will recover. And if a dog or a hog eat that eel, they will also die."
In short, looking the world over in the seventeenth century, we find that the New England Puritan compares favorably with other men. He may have been hard and angular, but he was honest, manly, and heroic. What he lacked in art he made up in character, and earnestness is still one of the primal qualities of character .... It was George Eliot who pointed out that to be truly liberal you must learn to tolerate intolerance.
Concerning the beliefs in relation to medicine "in the good old days" Charles L. La Wall, professor of the theory and practice of pharmacy and dean of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, tells us in his recent book on "Four Thousand Years of Pharmacy," as late as 1741, long after all the Pilgrims and Puritans had gone to their reward, in
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England, horses' hoofs, vipers' flesh and wood lice were all offered as cures; even well on in the nineteenth century a Dr. Solomon spread his nostrums in Great Britain, while a Dr. Dyott of Philadelphia functioned as "a most audacious distributor" of them in the United States. Professor LaWall in his work ridicules "the ignorance and credulity of much of the past," and makes us wonder if most and perhaps all of the boasted remedies of the present day may not suffer from the fate meted out to so many of their predecessors.
To some degree, at least, superstitions in regard to medicine as well as demoniacal possession have given way to merchandizing in what H. I. Phillips some time ago called the "rather dingy herb-scented hole in the wall to which a man went when somebody was either sick or in need of a postage stamp." To continue Mr. Phillips' description of the modern drug store, printed in the "Atlanta Constitution": "Today, a drug store has become a combination quick lunch room, mail order house, department store, novelty shop, candy kitchen, ice cream parlor, bakery, soup kitchen, hardware store, camera supply branch, sporting goods store and saloon. Some of the drug stores have put in flowers, millinery, mufflers and radio sets. Once a druggist regarded himself as a disciple of Pasteur. and Jenner. Today he regards himself as a rival of Wanamaker, Marshall Field and Sears-Roebuck and Montgomery Ward. About all that remains to be done is to issue catalogues and arrange for time payments."
The "Ordeal By Touch" -- It was generally believed by people in the Plymouth Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony as well-that is by Pilgrims and Puritans alike -- that, when a murder was committed, the corpse of the victim would bleed afresh if touched by the murderer, and this was evidently recognized in legal procedure up to the time of the Revolutionary War. The ordeal by touch was nothing which originated in this country but was a belief which the Pilgrims and Puritans brought with them from the old country.
Cotton Mather, who seems to have made a record of everything as well as having a finger in every New England pie in his time, relates in his "Magnalia," the case of a victim of a murder who was found with his head bruised, his canoe pole stuck in his side and his canoe sunk in the river. "His wife (being a lewd woman, and suspected to have fellowship with one Footman) coming to her husband, he bled abundantly, and so did he also, when Footman was brought to him; but no evidence could be found against him. The woman was convicted."
Another case recorded by the same persistent diary-keeper tells of a woman who had killed her child and "when she was brought before the jury, they caused her to touch the face of it, whereupon the blood came fresh into it." She confessed the truth. The quotation is from
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a diary kept by Governor Winthrop but, according to Mather, the blood actually flowed anew and did not merely "come fresh into the face."
The story has already been told in this volume how John Sassamon, at one time King Philip's secretary, was murdered on the ice on Assa- wamsett Lake, and his body plunged beneath the ice. This is supposed to have been a murder at the royal command of King Philip, because Sassamon had warned the governor at Plymouth of hostile intentions on the part of Philip. Three Indians were charged with the murder and a jury empanelled consisting of both white men and Indians, as was the custom when the accused was an Indian. Increase Mather wrote in his diary that when Tobias, suspected of having dealt the fatal blow, "came near the dead body, it fell a bleeding as fresh as if it had been newly slain, albeit it was buried a considerable time before that." The three Indians were convicted of the murder and executed at Plymouth in June, 1675.
Cotton Mather always has the last word when it comes to telling a good story involving the miraculous. In one of his diaries he wrote :
Several Indians were made horribly drunk by the drink which the English had sold unto them. Returning home over a little ferry, eight of them were drown'd (from December to March) one of their dead bodies came ashore very near the place where they had been supplied with their drink; and lying on the shore, it bled so plentifully, as to discolour the water and sand about it. Upon which the considerate spectators thought of that scripture "the stone shall cry out of the wall against him that gives his neighbor drink." They thought there was a loud cry of "Blood! blood!" against some wicked English in this matter.
Potent Influence of the Moon-In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the influence of the moon on animal and vegetable life was not merely an article of faith among the ignorant. It was an accepted tenet of science, though there was some doubt as to the precise limits of this influence. Cotton Mather, perhaps, will hardly be allowed to "qualify as an expert"-though his reputation for exceptional credulity comes rather from his having put himself on record than from any peculiarity in his mental temper. But no one will deny that Robert Boyle, the founder of the Royal Society, the improver of the air-pump, and the discoverer of Boyle's Law of the elasticity of gases, was a genuinely scientific personage. Mather writes :
One Abigail Eliot had an iron struck into her head, which drew out part of her brains with it; a silver plate she afterwards wore on her skull where the orifice remain'd as big as an half crown. The brains left in the child's head would swell and swage, according to the tides; her intellectuals were not hurt by this disaster; and she liv'd to be a mother of several children.
And Boyle records "an odd observation about the influence of the moon" in the following terms :
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I known an intelligent person, that having, by a very dangerous fall, so broken his head, that divers large pieces of his skull were taken out, as I could easily per- ceive by the wide scars, that still remain; answered me, that for divers months, that he lay under the chirurgeons hands, he constantly observed, that about full moon, there would be extraordinary prickings and shootings in the wounded parts of his head, as if the meninges were stretched or pressed against the rugged parts of the broken skull; and this with so much pain, as would for two or three nights hinder his sleep, of which at all other times of the moon he used to enjoy a com- petency. And this gentleman added, that the chirurgeons (for he had three or four at once), observed from month to month, as well as he, the operation of the full moon upon his head, informing him, that they then manifestly perceived an expansion or intumescence of his brain, which appeared not at all at the new moon (for that I particularly asked), nor was he then obnoxious to the forementioned pricking pains.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century it was generally held by physicians that the new or full moon, or the approach to the new or full moon, was a powerful exciting cause of fever. It had also been observed that persons in extreme age usually died either at the new or at the full moon, though it is not clear how this was brought into accord with the usual theories of the moon's increase.
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in a lecture before the Lowell Institute in 1869, concerning "The Medical Profession in Massachusetts," said: "We have seen it in the first century divided among clergymen, magis- trates and regular practitioners; yet, on the whole, for the time and under the circumstances, respectable, except where it invoked super- natural agencies to account for natural phenomena.
In the second century it simplified its practice, educated many intelligent practitioners, and began the work of organizing for concerted action, and for medical teaching.
In the third century it has built hospitals, perfected and multiplied its associa- tions and educational institutions, enlarged and created museum's, and challenged a place in the world of science by its literature.
In reviewing the whole course of its history we read a long list of honored names, and a precious record written in private memory, in public charities, in permanent contributions to medical science, in generous sacrifices for the country.
Dr. Maurice H. Richardson, in an address at the Sixtieth Anniver- sary of the organization of the Plymouth District Medical Society ob- servance at Abington, May 27, 1911, said: "I have faith that we are far from the end of progress, and that we have not as yet any idea of the splendors of our art, especially in the conservation of life and limb. I never cease to wonder at what we have already accomplished. What lies before us will go far beyond the imagination of the most hopeful."
CHAPTER VIII LAUNCHING OF THREE COUNTIES.
Peculiar Government of New Plymouth Went Out With Second and Third Generations From the "Mayflower" and Later Comers, Estab- lishing A New Order-There Were Pirates in Those Days, Likewise, Indian and Negro Slaves and Quakers-Juggling of Areas to Make Up Present-Day Towns-Officials-Postoffices-Apples, Cranberries and Poultry An Important Trio-"God's Cranberry Bog"-Wonderful Marketing Opportunities.
The second day of June, 1685, might well be considered "County Day" in southeastern Massachusetts, as it was on that date that the General Court, sitting in Plymouth, divided the colony of New Plymouth into Plymouth, Barnstable and Bristol counties.
It was ordered "that Plymouth, Duxbury, Scituate, Marshfield, Bridgewater and Middleboro, together with all such places and villages that do or may lie between the said towns and the patent line be a county ; Plymouth the county town, and said county called the County of Plymouth, in which county shall be kept two county courts annually at the town of Plymouth, one on the third Tuesday in March, and the other on the third Tuesday in September."
There have been some changes in territorial limits since that early date and towns not then having a separate name and existence are in- cluded, making the present area of the twenty-six towns in Plymouth County seven hundred and twenty square miles and the present popula- tion upwards of 180,000. The Atlantic Ocean forms the eastern boundary, and Bristol County, set apart the same day, its western boundary. Bristol, with Barnstable, the third county created that day, form the southern boundary, while Norfolk County is on the north.
Establishing a New Order - The order forming the limits for Barnstable County read: "that Barnstable, Sandwich, Yarmouth and Eastham, the villages of Sippican, Suckonesset and Monomoy shall be a county, Barnstable the county town, and said county shall be called the county of Barnstable, in which county shall be kept two county courts annually at the county town, one on the third Tuesday in April and the other on the third Tuesday in October." The towns named for Bristol County included Bristol, Taunton, Reho-
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both, Dartmouth, Swansey, Little Compton, Freetown, Sowammet, Pocasset, Punkatest, and May and November were the court months.
Thus went out of existence the peculiar government of New Plym- outh, the colony defined in the patent issued in 1629 by the pres- ident and Council for New England, to William Bradford and his associates. The area constituting Plymouth County was, when the county came into existence as such, occupied by the second and third generations from the "Mayflower" and later comers. All the men who had come on the "Mayflower," the "Fortune," "Anne" and some other vessels which were early arrivals, had been gathered to their fathers. The isolation period and that of great dangers from what they knew not were over. There were plenty of new problems and there had been much progress, some changes in sentiments, a certain degree of pros- perity. Slavery was common in Massachusetts, as in some other States, but the horror of the slave traffic had not entered into the conscience and consciousness of the people. There were negro slaves, Indian slaves and attempts were made to make slaves of some of the Quakers, even many years after this notable "County Day."
An advertisement in the issue of March 5, 1705, of the "Boston News- Letter," an early Boston newspaper, read as follows: "An able, healthy Negro woman about 23 years of age, speaks English intelligibly & is well instructed in Household-business, to be sold. Enquire at the Post office in Boston & know farther." This was like many other advertise- ments and proves the traffic at that time, in Negroes.
Another advertisement in the same newspaper, issued February 24, 1707, read :
Ran away the last spring from her Master John Otis Esqr. of Barnstable, in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, an Indian girl named Hannah Wopuck, aged about 20 years, middle sized, full fac'd, a comely Countenance, she speaks good English, not very perfect of the Indian language; had on English Ap- parrel: Whosoever shall apprehend her and take up the said Servant and deliver her to her said Master, or give any true intelligence of her unto John Campbell Post-master of Boston, or unto her said Master, so as that he may have her again, shall be sufficiently rewarded, besides all reasonable costs and Charges paid.
Plymouth County had about thirty miles of seacoast to defend and there were pirates all along the New England coast. The dangers of Barnstable County on account of its coast line, which was nearly all its boundary, were also dangers for Plymouth County. The present Plymouth County seaports are Plymouth, Kingston, Duxbury, Marsh- field, Scituate, Hingham and Hull. The two latter were originally a part of Suffolk County, which was a county in 1643. They became a part of Plymouth County in 1803.
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The seashore of Plymouth County many times kept the early colonists in and about Plymouth from starvation, on account of the oyster beds and clamflats and the excellent fishing, and the seacoast of the county always has been and still is a valuable asset.
Aside from the seacoast, with its assets and liabilities, the now County of Plymouth, consisted of a light soil none too well adapted to agriculture, drained by three principal rivers, with numerous lakes and ponds, especially in the vicinity of Plymouth. The principal rivers are the Taunton River, emptying into Narragansett Bay; the North River, emptying into Massachusetts Bay at Marshfield, and the Jones River, named for the captain of the "Mayflower," emptying into Kings- ton Bay. On the latter river the first war vessels of the Revolutionary War were built in later years, also many other ships which entered into the fishing and coasting trade. Extensive shipbuilding also took place for many years on the North River, while the Taunton River is still a source of navigation and considerable manufacturing takes place along its banks. There are smaller rivers and streams which have contributed materially to the progress and prosperity of the county in the 300 and more years since the beginning of activities at Plymouth.
There have been slight changes in the county line since 1685, one of the most interesting being the time when an area which had been left out of either Plymouth or Barnstable counties, was annexed. Under date of October 29, 1706, there is a record which reads : "Upon reading a petition of Barnabus Lothrop, Esq., in behalf of himself and the heirs of Joseph Lothrop and John Thomson, gentlemen, deceased, setting forth that they formerly purchased a tract of land of William Wetis- paquin, Assemeta, and other Indians, with the approbation and allow- ance of the then General Court of New Plymouth, lying within that colony, between the counties of Plymouth, Bristol and Barnstable, ad- joining and partly bounded upon the lands of Rochester, praying that the said tract of land may be put within the Constablerick of Rochester and within the county of Barnstable, and their deed of grant being shone forth, the wishes of the petitioners was granted." On November 19, 1707, the following order was passed in the House of Representatives, upon the petition of the town of Rochester, praying to be annexed to Plymouth County, viz .: "that the prayer of the petition be granted, the rates already assessed on them in the county of Barnstable to be paid there, and for the future that they be annexed to the county of Plym- outh, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding."
Juggling of Areas to Make Up Present-Day Towns - The towns which constitute Plymouth County by no means have the same boundaries they once had, as they have been subjected to many more
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changes than the county itself to become adapted to conditions which made the changes seem advisable. To speak of them in the alphabetical order, not attempting to give the order in which the changes were made, Abington has had taken from it Rockland and Whitman; Bridgewater has given up East Bridgewater and West Bridgewater and the latter, in turn, gave a small section to Brockton; Abington to Brockton and a part of Halifax; Duxbury has lost Pembroke and a part of Kingston ; East Bridgewater has lost a part of Whitman and of Brockton; Hingham has lost Hull and Cohasset; Pembroke has lost Hanson and a part of Halifax; Plymouth has lost Kingston, Plympton and Carver, a part of Wareham and a part of Halifax; Middleborough has lost Lakeville and a part of Halifax; Plympton has lost Carver and a part of Halifax; Rochester has lost Mattapoisett and Marion; Scituate has lost South Scituate and Hanover, a part of Cohasset and a part of Marshfield; West Bridgewater has lost a part of Brockton.
The Plymouth County towns, the dates of their incorporation, with their population, property valuation and number of legal voters are as follows :
Incorporation Date
1920 Population
1926 Property
1924
Abington
June 10, 1712
5,787
6,703,869
2,494
Brockton
June 15, 1821
66,254
88,372,785
26,063
Carver
June 9, 1790
891
3,229,068
376
Duxbury
June 7, 1637
1,553
5,506,256
791
East Bridgewater
June 14, 1823
3,486
5,567,577
1,365
Halifax
July 4, 1734
563
1,467,137
167
Hanover
June 14, 1727
2,575
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