USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 5
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 5
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 5
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now living in this present year 1650. Besides many of their children which are dead, and come not within this account. And of the old stock (of one and other) there are yet living this present year 1650 near thirty persons. Let the Lord have the praise; who is the High Preserver of men.
Two persons living that came over in the first ship 1620, this present year 1690. Resolved White and Mary Chusman the daughter of Mr. Alderton.
And John Cooke the son of Francis Cooke that came in the first ship is still living in this present year 1694.
And Mary Cushman is still living this present year 1698 .*
Descent Proved from Fifty-Four "Mayflower" Passengers-There are fifty-four "Mayflower" passengers from whom descent can be proved.
Some idea is obtained of what the "Mayflower" people did in the early days from references made by Bradford in his diary. It was on De- cember 25, Christmas Day, in 1620, that they began to erect the first house, about twenty feet square, for their common use. The first pub- lic worship ashore was January 31, 1621. The first offense against the law of the settlers was committed March 24, 1621, by John Billington, adjudged to have his neck and heels tied together for contempt to obey a command of Captain Myles Standish. The second offense was on June 18, when Edward Doty and Edward Litster, servants of Mr. Hopkins, attempted to settle a dispute by a duel with sword and dag- ger. One was wounded in the hand and the other in the thigh. Both these offenders were pardoned by the governor, upon promise by the offenders to mend their conduct.
The first corn was planted April 5, under instructions by Squanto.
In November the "Fortune" arrived with thirty-five additional colon- ists, twenty-seven of them adult males. In that month the partnership with the London "Merchant Adventurers" terminated by buying them out.
In 1627 a trading post was established on Buzzards Bay.
In 1628 a representation system of government was adopted.
The New England Confederation began in 1647.
The Provincial Charter of Massachusetts, in October, 1691, put an end to separate existence of New England.
Coming of Samoset and Squanto-We have the record that there was no communication with the Indians until the middle of March when an Indian, simply clad, marched straight into the settlement and uttered the English word "Welcome." This was Samoset. He is supposed to have learned the word from English fishermen on the coast of Maine, also a sufficient number of other English words to enable him to inform the Pilgrims that the territory about them was
* The last three paragraphs are not in the same handwriting as the rest and were added.
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governed by Massasoit, chief sachem of the Wampanoags, and that his headquarters were thirty miles southwest, on Narragansett Bay.
After partaking liberally of the "strong water, biscuit, butter and cheese and pudding," which the Pilgrims furnished, Samoset went away, to return within two days with five companions, and, in the language of the present day "a good time was had by all," the Indians "did eat liberally of our English vituals. They sang and danced after their manner, like antics."
Later in the week, Samoset again appeared, bringing with him Squanto, who had been kidnapped and taken to England in 1614. He came back in 1619 and found himself the only survivor of his tribe. A pestilence had swept away the red men of the Plymouth territory and that of Cape Cod. Being without a tribe Squanto was much with the Pilgrim settlers and proved friendly and of great benefit to them. Samoset eventually returned to his tribe in Maine.
Punishment for the First Offense in Plymouth-The first offense in the Plymouth Colony which has come down in history was perpetrated by John Billington who offended Captain Myles Standish and was sentenced to "have his neck and heels tied together," but "he humbled himself and begged pardon" and the penalty was remitted.
Planting time came and Squanto instructed the Pilgrims how to plant corn with a dead herring buried frequently with the seed, in lieu of better fertilizer. The harvest was abundant and a day was set apart which became the first Thanksgiving Day, "now kept with glad- ness in the homes, and with worship in the churches, all the way from Plymouth to the Golden Gate." There was additional reason for Thanksgiving a few days later when the "Fortune" arrived, bringing Robert Cushman, thirty-five additional recruits and much needed sup- plies. Cushman also brought a new patent, the first granted by the council for New England, which superseded the unused patent issued in the name of Wincob. It conveyed a tract of land to be selected by the planters, a hundred acres for each emigrant, fifteen hundred acres for public buildings, and conferred self-governing powers.
About this time a new fort was completed on what is now called "Burial Hill." Bradford's "History of Plymouth" says of 1622: "This somer they builte a fort with good timber, both strong & comly, which was of good defence, made with a flate roof & batllments, on which their ordnance were mounted, and wher they kepte- constante watch, espetially in time of danger. It served them allso for a meeting house, and was fitted accordingly for that use." That was the same year of the coming of the profligates sent over by Thomas Weston, who had been one of the London Adventurers. They nearly ate the Pilgrims
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out of house and home and were "so base in condition, for the most part, as in all appearance not fit for honest man's company." They later set up a separate colony at Wessegussett (Weymouth) but left their sick and dependents to be cared for at Plymouth. Later there was an alleged plot for their extermination by Indians whom they had offended and Myles Standish and eight men went to their aid. A battle was fought and both Englishmen and Indians killed.
First Dairy Cattle Arrived on the "Charity"-Other recruits arrived in the "Anne" and the "Little James," and later the "Charity." The lat- ter brought a bull and three heifers, the first cattle to make the pil- grimage, although dogs, swine and poultry were earlier on the scene.
Already has been described the manner of punishment meted out for small offenses, when John Billington was sentenced to have his heels and neck tied together. A later offender was John Oldham, influenced by John Lyford, a Puritan preacher who came over in the "Charity," for the good of the souls of the Pilgrims, but later left Salem for the good of his own. The youthful 'Oldham, according to Bradford, was committed "till he was tamer." Then the Pilgrims appointed "a gard of musketeers, which he was to pass throw, and every one was ordered to give him a thump on the brich with the but end of his musket, and then was conveied to the water side, wher a boat was ready to carry him away. Then they bid him goe and mande his maners."
There was much of the spirit of adventure and love of exploration among the Pilgrims. People of the present generation, with their policemen, burglar alarms, telephones, and all manner of provisions for protection, sometimes wonder why the Pilgrims, subjected as they were to many dangers, did not reside near one another and combine for self defense in a "safety first" program. Perhaps it was the pioneer spirit which induced even the passengers on the "Mayflower" to scat- ter, until many miles separated them. John Alden and Priscilla Mul- lens, after the romantic wooing which Longfellow describes at length in "The Courtship of Myles Standish," and their subsequent marriage, lived in Duxbury, ten or twelve miles from the fort. Captain Myles Standish lived at South Duxbury, halfway between the two. Brad- ford lived in Kingston. John Thompson who came over in the "Ann" and married the daughter of Francis Cooke, built the first frame house in Plymouth, at what is now called "Cold Spring," where the railroad bridge of the Plymouth and Middleboro Railroad crosses the main highway out of Plymouth toward the north, but later he took up lands in Halifax. His home in that town was thirteen miles from the Plymouth meeting-house, but his numerous family started before day- light on Sunday mornings and followed the Indian trails to and from
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church, arriving home late the following night. So it was with many of the early settlers. They possessed much land at a time when land was of little value, but they worked desperately to possess it.
In 1628 the Council for New England granted lands in Maine to William Bradford, and the Pilgrims began a settlement on the Ken- nebec River, near the site of Augusta.
John Billington, guilty of the first offense under the Pilgrim law, whose penalty, that of having his heels and neck tied together, was remitted because it was the first offense, was, in September, 1630, exe- cuted for the murder of one Newcomen. The record is that Billing- ton "shote him with a gune, whereof he died." It was decided, after a trial and the evidence reviewed by Governor Winthrop, that Billing- ton "ought to die and the land be purged from blood."
George Bancroft says in his history: "The colonists of Plymouth had exercised self-government without the sanction of a royal patent. It was therefore in the virtues of the colonists themselves, that their institutions found a guaranty."
Bancroft also said: "Posterity repeats the consolation, offered from England to the Pilgrims in the season of their greatest sufferings, 'Let it not be grievous to you, that you have been instruments to break the ice for others. The honor shall be yours to the world's end'."
Bradford wrote: "Out of small beginnings, great things have been produced, and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many, yea, in some sort, to our whole nation."
It is well to remember that the Pilgrims came to these shores seek- ing religious liberty for themselves. They had no convictions of a refuge for the oppressed of all lands, and they were not especially liberal in their treatment of those not of their communion, as was shown on numerous occasions in the early days, and is by no means uncommon among their descendants in these latter days. Yet they never entered into the excesses of religious persecution, and their record shines brightly in contrast with that of the Puritans of Massachusetts- Bay.
How Roger Williams and Other "Heretics" Were Dealt With- Roger Williams, a young minister, arrived from England at Nan- tasket, a fugitive from English persecution. Evidently he thought the church in Boston would subscribe to his convictions concerning the sanctity of conscience. Finding his views unwelcome in Boston he became a teacher in Salem but was exiled from there and for a time sought refuge at Plymouth, where a kinder spirit prevailed and greater tolerance. It has been said of Williams that he was the first person in modern Christendom "to assert, in its plentitude, the doc- trine of the liberty of conscience, the equality of opinions before the
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law." John Quincy Adams said that Roger Williams was "a con- scientious, contentious man."
It was while living at Plymouth that Williams wrote a tract, holding that a royal grant of lands must be defective unless the grantee "com- pound with the natives." For this offense he was cited before the Massachusetts General Court. This offense was treated with leniency but Williams soon made another assertion to the effect that "no one should be bound to worship or to maintain a worship against his own consent." James Bryce called him "the first apostle in New England of the theory of absolute freedom for the individual in matters of religion." Roger Williams, like William Lloyd Garrison in the days of abolition, "was in earnest, would not equivocate, would not excuse, would not retreat a single inch, and would be heard."
In October, 1635, it was voted by the General Court that "Whereas, Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of Salem, hath broached & dyvulged dyvers newe & dangerous opinions against the autchoritie of magistraites, as also writt letters of defamation, both of the magistrates & churches here, and that before any conviction, & yet mainetaineth the same without retraction, it is therefore ordered that the said Mr. Williams shall departe out of his jurisdiction within sixe weeks nowe nexte ensueing, which is hee neglect to perform, it shalbe lawful for the gouvernor & two of the magistraites to send him to some place out of this jurisdiction, not to returne any more without licence from the Court."
Williams was in ill health and was granted permission to remain at Salem until spring. While Williams was living at Plymouth he be- came the friend of Massasoit and it is supposed that the sachem of the Wampanoags gave him aid and comfort which prevented him from perishing in the wilderness, the red men being, in that instance, more merciful than the white man.
In 1676, Governor Winthrop advised the court to recall Roger Wil- liams but the request was tabled. Massachusetts made a conditional offer of temporary shelter for the exile during King Philip's War. Two hundred years later an attempt was made to reverse the act of ban- ishment and even in 1900, when Roger Williams would have been within seven years of 300 years of age, had he lived as long as the controversy concerning him a bill was presented in the General Court for his recall, but the petitioners were given leave to withdraw on the ground that Roger Williams had not sanctioned the request and made no such proposition in his own behalf.
Roger Williams was by no means the only victim of Massachusetts religious intolerance upon whom were visited violent penalties. Some- thing of the treatment accorded the Quakers appears in the history of
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Barnstable County as well as in later pages of this volume devoted to the county of Plymouth.
There is a record of "A Quarter Court held at Boston on the First Day of the 10th Month, 1640," when "the jury found Hugh Buets to bee guilty of heresy, & that his person and errors are dangerous for infection of others. It was ordered that the said Hugh Buets should bee gone out of our jurisdiction by the 24th present upon the paine of death, & not to returne, upon paine of being hanged. The court granted the iury 12s for their servise."
Punishment for Quakers-The persecution of heretics, so called, in- cluding the Quakers, by Puritan Massachusetts is not pleasing reading and, inasmuch as it was not duplicated in this county, is only men- tioned as showing something of the spirit of the times and the at- mosphere which was somewhat better clarified in the vicinity of Plym- outh. Henry C. Lea reminds us that in the tremendous struggle of the Reformation "each side was equally sure that it alone possessed the true faith, which was to be vindicated with fire and sword," and he declared that the Massachusetts law of 1658, under which Quakers were put to death on Boston Common, "was the inevitable result of the deplorable doctrine of exclusive salvation, which rendered the ex- tinction of heresy a duty to God and Man," and so the Puritan auth- orities engaged in their orgies about the gallows-tree, ordered that the young daughter of Lawrence Southwick be sold into white slavery, flogged through the streets women bared to their waists and ordered Anne Austin and Mary Fisher stripped naked for examination.
In contrast to such miscarriages of common humanity in the name of religion, it is refreshing to chronicle some other happenings in Massachusetts during the same period of which every son and daughter of Massachusetts may always be proud, and in which the people of Plymouth County participated.
Militia companies began to train and orders were issued to fortify Castle Island in Boston Harbor and the heights of Charlestown and Dorchester against any unrighteous attacks. Thus work began one hundred and four years ahead of the necessity.
Beginning of Public Schools-On October 28, 1636, the Massa- chusetts General Court agreed to give four hundred pounds for a public school, "the first body in which the people, by their representatives, ever gave their own money to found a place of education." Remember, this was only sixteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims.
In 1638 John Harvard left his library and fortune for a school which took the name of Harvard College.
The same year the first fonts of type were sent to Boston and in
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January, 1639, Stephen Daye printed on a printing press which he had brought from England "The Freeman's Oath," which was the first is- sue of the colonial press. This Massachusetts document, approved by the General Court, had as it closing obligation: "Moreover, I do sol- emnly bind myself, in the sight of God, that when I shall be called to give my voice touching any such matter of the state, wherein freemen are to deal, I will give my vote and suffrage as I shall judge in mine own conscience may best conduce and tend to the public weal of the body, without respect of persons or favor of any man. So help me God, in the Lord, Jesus Christ." The oath made no illusion to Eng- land, king or parliament but the freemen swore "by the great and dreadful name of the ever-living God." The lack of allusion to Eng- land and its authorities was an absence which was conspicuous.
In 1642 there was a law that "none of the bretheren shall suffer so much barbarism in their families as not to teach their children and apprentices so much learning as may enable them perfectly to read the English tongue."
In 1647 it was law that "every township, after the Lord hath in- creased them to the number of fifty households, shall appoint one to teach all children to read and write, and when any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families, they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university."
The accounts of Harvard College show that for many years bills for tuition were paid in produce, livestock, meat and articles of bar- ter. In 1649, a student, Rawson by name, settled his bill with "an old cow," and the steward made separate credits for her hide and for her "Suet and inwards."
In 1644, the Massachusetts General Court made provision for "the Indians residing in the several shires instructed in the knowledge and worship of God." John Eliot, "the Indian apostle," in 1646, began to preach to the Indians in their own tongue. Eliot's Indian transla- tion of the Bible was the first Bible printed in the New World, at Cambridge, in 1663.
Rough and "Godless" as the sea captains were in those days, ac- cording to report, there was not a sea captain in the port of Boston who would turn slave dealer and carry out the order of the General Court in 1659, to sell the children of Lawrence Southwick at Virginia or Barbadoes to answer fines imposed upon them for being Quakers.
Pile my ship with bars of silver-pack with coins of Spanish Gold,
From keel-piece up to deck-plank, the roomage of her hold, By the living God who made me !- I would sooner in your bay Sink ship and crew and cargo, than bear this child away!
CHAPTER IV INDIAN NAMES IN PLYMOUTH COUNTY.
Pilgrims Landed at Accomac or Patuxet, Sailing Past Saquish Which Means "Plenty of Clams"-White Island Pond in Those Days Was Called Sanqutagnappiepanquash-Lord's Prayer in the Indian Lang- uage and Its Literal Interpretation-Days When Cod-Fishing Was Leading Industry of Two Counties-Schools Began in Marshfield- Historic Trees Still Defying the East Winds.
When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth it was a wilderness from the European standpoint, with plenty of "free raw material" at hand but nothing finished. Yet, when Captain Myles Standish and his friend, John Alden, Mary Chilton, the first to step on Plymouth Rock, we are told, and the others walked up the street which was afterward called Leyden, the town had a name, the streets were named, the hills and rivers and lakes and all about them had long since had conferred upon them names, more euphonious, more characteristic of natural descriptions, having more originality and signification than most of the names by which they have since been called-except in the rare instances in which the English and late comers have let the names remain as they were.
The Pilgrims landed at Accomac, the Indian name for Plymouth, which means "land on the other side, or beyond the water," as it was from Provincetown. The Indians had no written language and it was convenient, if not necessary, to have names for the places which would be sufficiently descriptive to act as guides to those who traversed the narrow trails on their journeys. This characteristic abounds as to names of places. Where this signification did not so much mat- ter, the Indian occasionally used his imagination, of which he pos- sessed a great deal. To him the constellation of Orion above his head was Shwishacuttowwaoug, "the wigwam of three' fires." The name for the sunset was Wayont, "when he lost his way." It is easy to use a little of our own imagination and see why the name appealed to the red man.
The town of Carver the English named for the first governor of the colony, John Carver, who was elected the same day the Compact was signed on the "Mayflower," but the locality had long been known to the Indians as Mohootset, "the place of the owl." Abington was called Manamooskeagin because it was the place of "much or many beavers." There is a stream which separates that town from Brock- ton, called Beaver Brook, so in this instance the English observed
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the same preponderance of busy beavers as had been noted by the aborigines. Bridgewater was Saughtuckquett, "at the mouth of the stream," which surely means as much as the English name and identi- fies it while all that the name "Bridgewater" does is to cause people to ask why and receive no satisfactory answer.
The Indians were familiar with Duxbury as a good fishing location, so they called it Namaskeeset, "at the small fishing place." Middle- borough was a better fishing place and so it was called "Namasket," "at the fishing place," the limiting adjective disappearing in the fewer number of syllables. Halifax and Hanson were "Monponsett," "near the deep pond." The twin lakes in Halifax today bear that name. Plympton was to the Indians "Winnetuxet," "near the good stream," and that stream is now called Winnetuxet, the spelling varying at different times as it has appeared in history, but it is still a good stream from the point of view of followers of Izaak Walton. Hull was sometimes called Passataquack, "at the divided stream," more fre- quently as "Nantasket," "place of low-ebb tide."
King Philip was familiar with the territory which we call Lake- ville, but a place by that name would not carry a sufficient descrip- tion to be useful in naming it as a rendezvous. There are too many lakes in the territory once occupied by the Wampanoags, so, to him, Lakeville was "Assawampsett," "at the half-way rock" To the In- dians, the distinguishing mark of Marshfield was the large rock on the shore which we call Brant Rock, called by them Sagoquash, "hard rock." Perhaps a more descriptive name was Missaukatucket, "at the large mouth of the river." Mattapoisett, still retaining its Indian name, means "a sitting down or resting place after portage."
The Indian Samoset told the Pilgrims that the name for Plymouth was Patuxet, "at the little falls." Some historians say the early name for Plymouth was Umpame but do not tell why and others use the name Appaum and leave the reader equally in the dark. Rochester was called Sippican, because it was situated on "a long river." Scituate was Satuit, "cold brook," Wareham was Agawaam, "unloading place for fish," or, sometimes, Wewewantett, "crooked river."
There is an Indian name in West Bridgewater which still serves for the stream which courses through that town to the Taunton River and thence to the sea. It is called Nuncketetest, to use the Indian spelling usually approved, but usually spelled a little easier for the English scholar. By this name West Bridgewater was known to the Wampanoags but no one seems to be sure what the name conveyed to them.
To return to Plymouth, the name of Accomac, already referred to,
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was known in the days of Captain John Smith but, so far as known, it was a name given to the site by those who lived farther north, and not by those who occupied it. By the latter it was called Patuxet, as Samoset said. In "Mourt's Relation" we are told: "On the sixteenth of March, 1621, Samoset suddenly appeared at Plymouth and greeted our Pilgrim Fathers with the words, 'Welcome, Englishmen.' He told us the place where we now live is called Patuxet."
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