USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 25
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 25
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 25
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ยท "I don't remember of ever having any difficulty with Him," was the reply.
It is said that "history repeats itself" and apparently it has done so in recent times, in cases where municipalities have adopted a curfew law. Brockton and some of the larger towns in Plymouth County have received numerous petitions from women's clubs and other organiza- tions requesting a curfew hour for children, and also a police woman.
The great door of the meeting-house continues to be used as a bulletin board to advertise the church business meetings and occasional con- ventions, social events and suppers, but the "sluggard-waker" and "dog whipper" are as out of date as the town crier.
CHAPTER XVI OLD TAVERNS, TURNPIKES AND STAGECOACHES.
Guests Could Literally Hang Their Wraps on the Ceiling-Some Stages Passed Near "The Old Oaken Bucket" But That Did Not Interfere With the Popularity of the Bar-Horses Were Changed on Baggage Wagons at Brimstone Corner-Some Laws Under Which Landlords of the Old Taverns Had to Conduct Their Hostelries-Idling Much Decried by the Ministers of That Period.
The days of the old turnpikes and the stagecoaches are frequently recalled as there is a romance associated with those early methods of travel. Mail and passengers were transported between Plymouth and Boston and farther on, to New York and Philadelphia. At short in- tervals wayside taverns awaited the travelers, at which food, lodging and social life served to make the journeys more or less pleasurable. Long journeys were tiresome. and tedious. Starts were usually made before daybreak and the journey continued long after dark, with fre- quent changes of horses. The journey from Boston to New York took from three to six days.
In the early part of the nineteenth century stage coaches afforded the only commercial means of transportation. The individual traveled on horseback or pacquet. Two men of Plymouth, Leonard and Wood- ward, in 1810, ran a line of coaches from Sandwich to Boston, passing through the Plymouth woods and town, and on through Kingston, Duxbury, Pembroke, Hanover, Scituate, Hingham, Weymouth and Quincy to Boston, the same identical route which is now traversed by motor cars in such large numbers that there is practically a continuous procession. A turnpike through Braintree and Weymouth had been built in 1803 and this was taken in on the route. Stops were invariably made at the "Old Half Way House" in Scituate, a tavern kept by one Leonard. The fare from Plymouth to this tavern was $1.25 and the same fare was collected from Scituate to Boston.
The "Old Half Way House" was a popular place for the gentry in the stagecoach days, as were all the taverns, as the "waits" at these places gave opportunity for refreshment, to hear the latest news and associate with people seldom met elsewhere in the colonial life.
Taverns were usually situated in the centre of the town and, as the meeting-house was almost inevitably placed in the centre, the two colonial institutions were near neighbors and on terms of friendly in- timacy. As soon as town meeting was adjourned those who had, per- haps, thrashed out their differences before the moderator, gathered
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around the bar at the tavern and became good friends, "even as you or I."
The villagers gathered at the taverns to hear the latest news, the same as they gathered at the postoffice after that institution had been devel- oped by Benjamin Franklin from his original idea. It is asserted that the first postoffice was in Benjamin Franklin's hat.
All the buildings in colonial times had low ceilings to the rooms, to make it an easier matter to heat them in the winter. There was no real ventilation problem, as the ample open fireplaces served to take the foul air as well as most of the heat "up chimney." Sometimes hooks or nails were driven into the ceiling of the kitchen or living room from which various things were suspended as a matter of convenience, as it was an easy matter for a person of ordinary height to touch the ceiling without extraordinary effort.
It was in the tavern, many times, that the selectmen held court, and settled such matters and made such records as were called for and were customary. It saved the discomforts of the meeting-house, which was usually not heated, and was a more congenial place in which to meet, with frequent adjournments to the bar.
The country tavern, like the country hotel of today, was a shining mark for the clergymen, as a place where all kinds of people gathered for all kinds of purposes afforded some chances for criticism, and the clergymen considered themselves the heaven-inspired critics.
At a general convention of ministers held in Boston in May, 1694, they went on record as declaring :
Ye Liberty taken by Towne Dwellers to mispend their Time in Taverns which are places properly & honestly designed but for ye Accommodation of Travellers- It is most earnestly prayed That some effectuall check may be given unto this way of sinning.
Most of this sinning must have been done at a seemly hour because when the Court of Common Pleas gave an inn-holder a license to keep the tavern it was nominated in the bond that he should not "suffer any children or servant or other person to remain in his house tippling or drinking after nine o'clock in the night." Those were days when laws were enforced, and the tavern-keeper who upset the dignity of the Court of Common Pleas would have an opportunity to sit in the stocks or pillory and suffer other inconveniences, to say nothing of having his license revoked. A tavern-keeper might die but the tavern would be continued by the family. There is an epitaph in a New Eng- land cemetery which informs the curious that
Beneath this stone, in hopes of Zion, There lies the landlord of the Lion. His wife keeps on the business still, Resigned unto the Heavenly will.
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The bell in the meeting-house was rung at nine o'clock in the evening and the bar was closed and the villagers wended their way home, carry- ing lanterns of the period to find their way over the rough roads.
When the Revolutionary War was coming on, several of the tavern- keepers in the Plymouth Colony were loyalists. Most of the discus- sions concerning the tyranny of King George had taken place at the taverns and a tavern-keeping Tory was the most offensive of all Tories in the colonies.
Old-time Stage Drivers-One of the stagecoach drivers in 1840 was "Jake" Sprague, whose route was from Duxbury to Hingham, to con- nect with the steamboat at Nantasket. The route was through Marsh- field and Scituate, a pretty country, and was most popular, made as pleasant as possible by "Jake," a character in his day, jovial and a good judge of human nature. The fare between Hingham and South Scituate was thirty-seven and a half cents, as is attested by a receipt still in existence signed by Sprague.
The Sprague coach changed horses at the stable of John Nash and Mr. Sprague was assisted in doing this quickly by Benjamin Foster, a boy at the time, who was frequently bawled out by the genial "Jake" if he passed up the reins with a single twist in them. "Augers in those reins, Ben," was the expression he used, accompanied by a merry twinkle in his eye which took the sting out of the rebuke. "Ben" was the successor to Sprague in driving the coach and had some of the same characteristics.
Another boy who sometimes assisted in changing horses at John Nash's was Seth Foster who, on one occasion, was given a tip of a silver quarter by Daniel Webster. Seth Foster was another boy who eventu- ally became a stage driver, succeeding Reuben Gardner who ran a stage over the same route to Hingham. Foster changed the route in 1854 to run through Assinippi and West Scituate, to connect with the boat at Hingham in summer and the steam train in winter, which by that time had been put on. In 1875 he sold out to Allen Wright of West Scituate. William Collamore was his successor and enlarged the route to accommodate Rockland. Seth Foster had extended his line to take in North Marshfield, Hanover and Greenbush, where "the old oaken bucket hung in the well." The Greenbush route was operated as late as 1902. Mr. Foster was a stage driver 48 years and carried the mail 43 years. He always regretted that he had not preserved the silver quarter presented him by Daniel Webster.
George S. Hatch was the last stagecoach driver over the Greenbush route, holding the reins until the transportation facilities were motorized.
Many people of the present generation recall Frank Hatch who ran
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a stage and express from Marshfield through Scituate, over the Country Way to Cohasset, which was the last station on the Old Colony Rail- road. When the Duxbury and Cohasset Railroad was built by the South Shore towns he gave up the route, but continued to run a stage from Marshfield station to Brant Rock and carried on a general livery and express business, until John Flavell succeeded him.
Seth Foster and Frank Hatch both had built during the Civil War a sixteen-passenger coach. Both "Tally-ho" coaches are still in existence and have figured in gala occasions at the Brockton Fair and the Marsh- field Fair as well as special occasions far and near.
No, Mad Speed For "Baggage Wagons"-Along with the stagecoaches in earlier days vehicles without springs were used to transport bag- gage. In the South vehicles of this type were called Conestagos but the matter-of-fact Plymouth County Yankee was content to call them "baggage wagons." The line from Sandwich, traversed by Leonard and Woodward's coaches took a long time to negotiate, because the baggage wagons moved at a walking pace for the horses. Horses were changed at Brimstone Corner in West Duxbury and at the Howard House at Hanover Four-corners and elsewhere. Much of the travel was done in the night as well as the day to facilitate the delivery of freight. James H. West, of Pembroke, one of the last of the Quakers in Ply- mouth County, had many boxes delivered in this way from his mill. One of the last of the freighters was "Honest Tom Alden," who served his district for several years in the General Court and was one of the best known and most respected public men on the South Shore.
Something For Man and Beast-George Lyman Kittredge, who wrote a book in 1904 concerning the "Old Farmer and His Almanack," in recalling the old-time taverns, said :
"On the whole, it appears that the inns or taverns of New England were pretty comfortable places, and that some of them were rather dis- tinguished. Tourists are proverbially hard to please, and it is natural that we should hear more of the unpleasant than of the agreeable in- cidents that accompanied traveling in a new country. But the good repute of our hotels nowadays is merely a continuation of the character which they bore in old times. The administrative capacity for which the Yankee is famous has applied itself successfully to the complicated business of innholding. Many noted landlords in other parts of the country have been New England men. Good cheer has become a cherished American institution. We can hardly venture to assert that its home is New England; but one would find it hard to make out a better case for any other part of the continent."
So far as the old-time landlords of the taverns, along the turnpike
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from the tip of Cape Cod to Boston, through Plymouth, are concerned they were typical tavern-keepers, dispensing "for man and beast" and making both comfortable and full of "good cheer." Again we are in- debted to Mr. Kittredge for a list of these landlords, the locations of their respective taverns and the number of miles from one to the other. It will be seen from the following list, for instance, from Roxbury to Kent's tavern was four miles, and from Kent's to Pierce's tavern at Milton an additional three miles, until the whole 117 miles from Rox- bury to Provincetown is taken into consideration. From Sandwich to Wood's Hole was 82 miles and the distance to Martha's Vineyard, by ferry, an additional nine miles. If the ferry was late, there was a chance at Parker's tavern to get refreshment before embarking on the sea voyage. The list :
To Plymouth & Cape Cod
Roxbury
Kent 4 Harwich
Silk 7
Milton
Pierce 3
ditto
Clark & Snow 1
Quincy
Marsh 2
Eastham
Knowles 6
ditto
Salisbury 2
ditto
Knowles 3
Weymouth
Arnold 1
Wellfleet
Collins & Lombard 9
ditto
Rice 3
Truro
Knowles 7
Hingham
Waters 3
ditto
Stevens 1
Scituate
Collamore 4
Provincetown
Nickerson 7
Hanover
Wales 5
Pembroke
Baker 4
Kingston
Little 6
Plymouth ditto
Bartlett & Witherell 4
To Martha's Vineyard
Sandwich
Fessenden 60
Falmouth
Fish 10
Sandwich
Newcomb & Fessenden 7
Over the ferry to Vineyard
9
Howland, Baxter & Chipman 8
ditto Loring & Crocker 4
Yarmouth Baffet & Thatcher 5 91
Plymouth Mail Stage passes through Hingham; sets off from King's Inn, Market-Square, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, at 6 o'clock in the morning, and arrives at Plymouth the same days, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon; leaves Plymouth every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at 6 o'clock in the morning, and arrives in Boston the same days, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
The above is an advertisement of the stage which served the Old Colony District the first year of the nineteenth century, and it might safely be said of it, in the words of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,"
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
There was a hospitable custom of entertaining strangers at private houses and the experience of being ushered into a cold "spare room,"
117
ditto
Ellis 5
Falmouthtown Hatch 8
Wood's Hole Parker 4
Barnstable
Corinth 6
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containing a high feather bed, so high that there was a step or "cricket" beside it, on which to begin the journey upward, before falling into the depth of goose feathers, was something long since out of date. Usually the top of the voluminous feather bed was warmed by passing a warming pan, containing hot coals, over it, just before the guest was ready "to call it a day."
So far as the coaches themselves were concerned and their rattling and swinging over the highways of one and two hundred years ago, there was little in the experience which would spell comfort to the ease-loving people of today. There is a record extant of an experience, chosen from "Melish's Travels," and has to do with intercourse between Boston and New York in 1806:
"Having taken my leave of a number of kind friends, with whom I had associated during my stay in Boston, I engaged a passage by the mail stage for New York, and was called to take my place on the 4th of September, at 2 o'clock in the morning. It is the practice here for the driver to call on the passengers before setting out, and it is attended with a considerable degree of convenience to them, particularly when they set out early in the morning. The mail stages here are altogether different in construction from the mail coaches in Britain. They are long machines, hung upon leather braces, with three seats across, of a sufficient length to accommodate three persons each, who all sit with their faces toward the horses. The driver sits under cover, without any division between him and the passengers; and there is room for a person to sit on each side of him. The driver, by the postoffice regulations, must be a white man, and he has the charge of the mail, which is placed in a box below his seat. There is no guard. The pas- sengers' luggage is put below the seats, or tied on behind the stage. They put nothing on the top, and they take no outside passengers. The stages are slightly built, and the roof suspended on pillars; with a curtain, to be let down or folded up at pleasure. The conveyance is easy and in summer very agreeable; but it must be excessively cold in winter."
CHAPTER XVII RISE OF MORE LIBERAL CHURCHES.
Many Congregational Parishes Became Unitarian and Universalists Sprang Up, Even in the Smallest Towns-Catholics in Boston Sold Into Slavery-Some Clergymen Obliged to Quit Plymouth County Pulpits, After Hearing Rev. George Whitefield Preach-Bible Was Not Read In Colonial Meeting-Houses First Hundred Years-One of the Innovations Which Made Rev. Cotton Mather "Cry Mightily Unto God"-Early Historians Say Pilgrims Were More Tolerant and Mild Than the Puritans-Took Fifty Years to Sing By "Rule Instead of By Rote" Harmoniously-Even First Liberal Church Refused Gift of Organs as Not Suitable Instruments for Public Worship of God.
Out of Salem, the stronghold of the Puritans and from the very church of which Roger Williams was assistant to the pastor, Rev. Samuel Skel- ton, came what has been called an attempt to organize on these shores an established church, which is Congregationalism.
According to Edward Oliver Skelton's "Story of New England": "It was now apparent to the central body of the confederation, to wit, the Great and General Court, that to maintain in close relation the settle- ments, of quasi states of the colony, that the cause of Congregationalism, which was established by Rev. Samuel Skelton at the first immigration to Salem in July, 1629, must be advanced both here and in England, and to the people in England was made known fully the system of church government as exemplified here in the Congregational churches. That system met with the instant approbation of the masses, a majority of whom organized into an independent section, who were opposed to the National Church on the religious side, and to the abolition of the mon- archy upon the civic, and as the years wore on the battle became fiercer and fiercer, involving Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Independent, until the influence of that sectarianism, known as Congregationalism, born that July day in 1629 at Salem, rose to irresistible ascendancy, sweeping through the country to such degree that when Cromwell raised his banner the people by thousands flocked around it, and as the army moved additions were so large that finally it overcame, as is well known, every obstacle, and Oliver Cromwell became the greatest ruler that England had ever had."
The church at Plymouth, founded by the Pilgrims and of which Rev. John Robinson was pastor at Leyden, Holland, was one of the numerous
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Congregational churches, in the Plymouth Colony, and the church at Salem, already referred to, was another. It was a law in those days that a community must have a church and the means and disposition to maintain a preacher before it could be set apart as a town. Among the struggles of the early towns was the problem of maintaining its minister and of getting along with him socially. There was not so much difficulty in accepting his theology, because the word of the minister regarding spiritual things was taken with much more authority then than now.
The discovery of America did not so much mark the era of higher discoveries in the realm of ideas as it provided a chance for the applica- tion of those ideas. When the Plymouth Colony started, with its Com- pact, signed on board the "Mayflower," and its newly elected governor and all the scheme of government and religious observances which were required for many years, the conditions were new, the experiment of self-goverment was new, under which all the lesser experiments in religious faith and practice were carried on. Our staunch, daring ancestors knew what they wanted and the ideal to be tested was well understood. They wielded the greatest power in humanizing the world that has ever been witnessed, but they were intolerant toward any religion that was, from their point of view, intolerant. The Baptists and Quakers were harassed, although the records of Plymouth Colony, in which were the Pilgrims, show more tolerance than those of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in which were the Puritans. While there have been so many religious movements started or centered in Boston, the oldest city in the New World, that their name is legion, none have raised their heads without the fiery darts of vigorous opposition being fired at them. The way in which they have flourished recalls the saying "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." So far as the Puritans are concerned, as late as 1734, two Quakers were served with twenty lashes upon the bare back, marched to Roxbury where they re- ceived ten more, then to Dedham where a final ten were bestowed.
It might be said that the Congregational church, or the Orthodox church as it was called, maintained the normal Calvinistic creed. The earliest intimation of dissent was in 1747, when Rev. Jonathan Mayhew was settled as pastor of the West Church in Boston. He was regarded as heretical and, at least, seemed to challenge the teachings and attitude of the Mathers, Edwardses and Higginsons of earlier days. One writer has described these worthies and others like them, "who felt themselves to be in personal covenant with God, like Israel of old, who framed their state as a temple and invited the Eternal to rule over them, whose state assembly was a church council, whose voters were church mem- bers, only voters because members, only citizens because saints."
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There were believers of a gentler order like Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, Dr. Hopkins, the Nortons and Dr. Channing. The reaction questioned the coercive element in creeds and confession of faiths. The Revolutionary War had its influence also, and, in 1780, according to Rev. Andrew P. Peabody, D. D., LL. D., professor of Christian morals in Harvard University, nearly all the Congregational pulpits in and around Boston were filled by Unitarians. At that date they were commonly called Arminians. The distinctive name "Uni- tarian" did not come into general use till early in the nineteenth century, though the specific dogma designated by that name had long been openly preached and professed.
American Unitarian Association-The American Unitarian Associa- tion was formed in 1825, with headquarters in Boston, and at that time and since most of the towns in Plymouth County have had Unitarian churches. Many of them were previously of the Congregational fold and in numerous instances we find a town in which appears the First Congregational (Unitarian) church, while the original "Orthodox" church in the same town is called the Second Congregational church. This came about, in some instances, from the fact that there was a difference between the church and the parish. One could be a member of the parish and have voting power without being a member of the church. Church membership involved confession of faith and other re- quirements, including baptism. There were many members of the parish who did not take this step and became interested in the more liberal doctrine of Unitarianism and the parish voted to become Uni- tarian and the vote transferred the property of the organization. Those who did not wish to be identified as Unitarians formed another society, hence the Second Congregational societies to which reference has been made.
It is not so remarkable that there should be a Unitarian church in nearly every Plymouth County town of considerable size, but the fact that even the smallest towns, like Halifax, had a Universalist church in the early days of Universalism, strikes most students as more indicative of liberal convictions, a breaking away from the so-called Orthodoxy of the Pilgrims. The subject of human destiny had awakened an especial interest. Among the early Universalist preachers in this vicinity, Dr. John Murray held that the Atonement was universal and therefore uni- versally effective. Christ was the head of every man, and redemption, though not salvation, was an accomplished fact. His pulpit in Boston was supplied, during his absence, for ten weeks, by Rev. Hosea Ballou, who, believing God to be impartial in His parental love, was convinced that the decree of human salvation could not be other than universal.
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Such utterances as these fell on receptive ground, even within sight of Plymouth Rock. This is literally true as, in Plymouth, on Cole's Hill, on which lie buried the remains of the Pilgrims who died in the general sickness the first winter, almost directly across Leyden Street from the site of the first common house, the first permanent dwelling erected in New England, was built a Universalist church. It is there today, the place of worship for a large congregation and has been a flourishing branch of Universalism from its early days.
When Dr. John Murray first preached in Boston, so riotous was the opposition to Universalism that he found the cushions of the church had been sprinkled with a noxious drug, the strong effluvia from which was expected to prevent his speaking. During the service many stones were thrown through the windows. Picking up one of them, he re- marked: "This argument is solid and weighty, but it is neither rational nor convincing."
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