USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 6
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 6
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 6
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Again referring to the name Agawam, the purchase of the planta- tion of Agawam from the Indians in 1666, included a part of the town of Wareham, "unloading place for fish." Lemoine, in Montag- naise Dictionary of his compilation, gives the definition of Agwanus as "an unloading place." This is supposed to have been the same word although the spelling is different, as was the case with most words and names in that period, when Queen Elizabeth and those after her period themselves upon not being held down to any arbitrary way of spell- ing. One who has attempted to follow some of the family names of the first-comers easily comes to that conclusion. Take the Tom- sons, for instance, and juggle the spelling as you will, with or without an h or p, one used and the other unused, either way, or back to the way in which John Tomson signed his will (as last given) and you are talking about the same family.
The Manomet Hills, the southern part of Plymouth, bring back a name which is found in Bradford's "History." The following is an ex- tract from Bradford's diary, July, 1621: "One John Billington lost himselfe in ye woods and wandered up and downe some five days. At length he light on an Indian plantation 20 miles south of this place, called Manamet." The name is spelled slightly different today and is applied to the hills, a few miles south of the center of Plymouth and not twenty miles. It is possible that the place now called Monu- ment is what Bradford referred to in his diary and both names have the same origin, which one writer believes to be the Indian word Mainayeumauet, a free translation of which, according to Lincoln Newton Kinnicutt, would be "The burden pathway." He believes this refers to the Monument River, across which the Pilgrims erected a rude bridge about 1627.
A tract of land of about four acres at the top of Watson's Hill in Plymouth is still referred to as Hobbamak's Ground. This was a grant to Hobbamak, a friendly Indian who frequently served the Pil- grims as an interpreter. Squanto was another, and of him it is said that Caunbitant, one of the chiefs, made the remark: "If he were dead the English had lost their tongue."
South Pond, in Plymouth, was known to the Indians as Kamesit, also the surrounding territory.
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PLYMOUTH, NORFOLK AND BARNSTABLE
According to an Indian deed of 1664, there was an area in the south- eastern part of Plymouth called Kawamasuhkakamid, which Hon. Nathaniel Freeman in 1792 suggested was probably the vicinity of Herring Pond.
Another Indian deed, given in 1678, uses the name Kowpiscowonko- nett as a boundary. It signifies a place where squaws and papooses were secreted in time of danger, presumably a swamp near Bart- lett's Marsh in Plymouth and Wareham.
Plymouth County is the cranberry-producing county of the world, exceeding Barnstable County in that line, although Cape Cod and cranberries are synonymous in the public mind, and Barnstable, rather than Plymouth County is Cape Cod. Evidently cranberry growing, in their wild state, was something of sufficient importance in the time of the Indians to be the distinguishing sign of an area in the vicinity of Herring Pond in Plymouth because the Wampanoags gave it the name of Massassoomineuk, which means "much cranberries."
Near Agawam River or Red Brook there was a vicinity called in an Indian deed recorded in Volume 1, on Page 231 of Plymouth Colony records, Meshmuskuchtekutt which is interpreted as "at the great grass brook," evidently "great grass" being the name for bulrushes for which the Indians had no word in their language.
The Massachuestts Historical Society has an Indian name for a lo- cality in the southeastern part of Plymouth, near the ocean, called Monechchan, sometimes called Breakheart Hill in English but the Indian signification of Monechchan is "place of darkness, or black bank." This name appears in a deed given in 1674. Paukopunnakuk was another name for Breakheart Hill, "where the path is narrow."
According to Bradford's "History" there was a path from Naumska- chett to Manamoyack Bay, a distance of two miles, and it was on this path that Squanto died. The latter word means "the path where they carry on their shoulders," referring doubtless to canoes and other burdens.
There is a swamp near Agawam River or Red Brook, referred to in Indian deeds and other records by both the names Muchquachema and Mauthquohkoma. It is believed these words meant to the Indians "where it is difficult to paddle a canoe." Longfellow uses the name chemaun as the word for canoe in his poem "Hiawatha." The In- dians had a verb moosqhean which means "it troubles."
In the northeastern part of Plymouth there are a number of hills and a pond, the latter being called "Clear Pond." The former name, Narragansett Pond, was given that body of water because on its shores was fought a battle between the Narragansett Indians and the Pokono- kets. A large number of the Narragansetts were killed and their
47
INDIAN NAMES IN PLYMOUTH COUNTY
bodies thrown into this pond. The Narragansetts were so called be- cause they at one time occupied the territory about Point Judith and the name means "people of the point."
Saquish, the point of land past which the Pilgrims sailed in the "Mayflower" from Provincetown to Plymouth, is interpreted by some writers as "plenty of clams." William T. Davis in many of his his- torical writings gives the meaning as "small creek." It is said the present-day Saquish was once a small island, with a small creek be- tween it and the long arm of Plymouth Beach. The Indian word sohq- ussuog means "they squirt," a noticeable characteristic of a clam.
White Island Pond in Those Days Was Called Sanqutagnappie- panquash-There is an Indian deed in the Plymouth Colony Records on Page 231 of Volume 1 which gives as a part of the boundary of the land conveyed "to a pond called Sanqutagnappiepanquash." This was probably White Island Pond in Plymouth. It is said to mean "the fording place where the stream comes out of the ponds," and this might be a description of that shallow pond.
Massasoit was sachem at the time the Pilgrims landed, and for many later years of the Wampanoags. This was according to Drake the tribe of third importance among the Indians of New England at that time. The name means "where the daylight is, or the Eastern God," and was probably given to the Indians by those who lived farther west.
Other Indian names of places in Plymouth County, with their in- terpretations, with no attempt to give the locations, include Assinippi, "rocky water;" Cochesett, "place of small pine trees;" Massachusetts, "at or about the great hill;" Massaugatucket River, Marshfield, "great outlet of tidal water;" Titicut (North Middleborough), "at the great river;" Weceketuket brook, flows into Jones River, Kingston, "little wading place;" Asnemscussett, in Middleborough, "rapid brook which flows over stones ;" Chippopoquet, now Pocksha Pond in Lakeville, "the pond that is separated from another;" Muttock, in Middleborough, "a swift river running between hills;" Tihonet, that small part of Plym- outh which, in 1827, was annexed to Wareham, "place where cranes are plenty."
One might go on interminably with these Indian place names and find the spelling different, as they are given by different writers and as they are spelled today, where the original names are supposed to be still in use. There has been no attempt to give anything like an exhaustive list of these names, in Plymouth County, but the few men- tioned serve to suggest, at least, the impossibility of the old-time spelling enabling the inhabitants of the present day to pronounce some of them, or agree upon their pronunciation, and show why the spelling
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PLYMOUTH, NORFOLK AND BARNSTABLE
employed today has been simplified. Indian names furnish an inter- esting study and there are several books which have been produced, with great labor and after faithful research, invaluable for that purpose.
Lord's Prayer in the Indian Language and Its Literal Interpretation -Aside from the words which were used as names of places, it is valuable to furnish something in the dialect of the Indians who oc- cupied Plymouth County in the days of the "First comers," (the Wam- panoags) with which we are supposed to be familiar. Eliot's "Indian Bible" printed the Lord's Prayer in Wampanoag as follows :
Nooshun kasukqut quttianatamunach koosewuonk. Peyaumoouto peyaumooutch kukketaffootamoonk kuttenantamoonk ne n nach ohkeit neane kesukqut. Nummeet- sunogash asceksukokish assamainnean yeuyeu kesukok. Kah ahkuoantamaunnean nummatcheseongash neane matchenenukqueagig nutaquontamounnonog. Ahque sagkompagunnaunnean en gutchhuaouganit, webe pohquokwussinnean wutch matchitut. Newutche kutahtaunnketassootamoonk, kah menunkesuonk, kah soh- sumoonk mickeme, Amen.
Lest anyone should be unable to translate this literally, it is as. follows :
Father, ours above in Heaven. Admired in highest manner be Thy name. Like done thy will on earth as like in Heaven. Let us be forgiven evil doings of ours, as we would forgive wrong doers to us. Not guide us into snares, but help us to escape from evil. Thine Thy Powerful kingdom, thine the strength, thine the greatest glory. Always, always we wish so.
Days When Cod-Fishing Was Leading Industry of Two Counties- It is interesting to find that the earliest English name attached to the coast of Massachusetts should later describe one of the chief industries from which can directly be traced the support of the earliest schools, in a country and in a particular section of that country, whose name has been synonymous with culture and learning.
Concerning cod fish Morton wrote as follows: "The coast aboundeth with such multitudes of Codd, that the inhabitants of New England doe dunge their grounds with Codd; and it is a commodity better than the golden mines of the Spanish Indies."
There was a time when the principal industry of Plymouth and Barnstable counties in Massachusetts was cod-fishing. The first Eng- lish navigator to land on these shores in an attempt to found an Eng- lish colony, was Bartholomew Gosnold and he it was who gave the name to Cape Cod, after having been delighted and surprised at the large number of cod fish which his men took from Cape Cod Bay in a time of necessity. Someone, so far back in the history of Massa- chusetts that no one knows who it was or when it was, caused to be placed in the primitive House of Assembly in Boston the figure of a cod fish.
49
INDIAN NAMES IN PLYMOUTH COUNTY
The House of Assembly was burned December 9, 1747, and pre- sumably the cod fish with it. The Old State House, standing today at the head of State Street in Boston, was erected the following year. How long after the successor to the original cod fish was given a place of honor in that building, no one knows, but there was a bill presented in 1773, by Thomas Crafts, Jr., to the Province of Massa- chusetts Bay, calling for 15 Shillings "for painting cod fish." Later it disappeared but the following entry appears in the Journal of the House of Representatives of Wednesday, March 17, 1784:
"Mr. Rowe moved the House that leave might be given to hang up the representation of a Cod Fish in the room where the House sit, as a memorial of the importance of the Cod-Fishery to the welfare of this Commonwealth, as had been usual formerly. The said motion having been seconded, the question was put, and leave given for the purpose aforesaid."
Ever since that time, and no one knows how long before, such an emblem has been suspended above the heads of the representatives of the People in the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massa- chusetts. "The lessons that may be learned of it are nobler than any to be drawn from what is only beautiful; for this sedate and solitary fish is instinct with memories and prophecy, like an oracle. It swims symbolic in that wider sea whose confines are the limits set to the ac- tivities of human thought. It typifies to the citizens of the Common- wealth and of the world the founding of a State. It commemorates Democracy. It celebrates the rise of free institutions. It emphasizes progress. It epitomizes Massachusetts."
John Rowe, maker of the motion quoted above, is said to have been the instigator of the famous "Boston Tea party." In an address at the Old South Church he said: "Who knows how tea will mingle with salt water?"
Thirty years ago a writer truly said: "If Massachusetts ever had a tutelary genius among the brute creation it was the cod fish.
"They were to us what wool was to England or tobacco to Vir- ginia,-the great staple which became the basis of power and wealth," said Adams, concerning the cod fish.
The first product of American industry exported from Massachusetts was a cargo of cod fish.
When the present State House was erected there was a question whether the historic cod fish should have a place in the new capitol. Representative Richard W. Irwin of Northampton, the town from which President Calvin Coolidge went to become president of the United States, closed a notable address as follows :
Plym-4
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PLYMOUTH, NORFOLK AND BARNSTABLE
Is this emblem said to be too common and plain to accord with the painted splendors of this place? It is no more common, simple and plain than the fathers who founded our State. It tells how the lowliest may rise and win and rule; how the fishermen may be the peer of the marshals of France and the admirals of England. Are there those who laugh at it? It speaks of pathetic deaths for many years in lowly but honorable livelihood. Do you say it is unimportant? The ablest of statesmen have contended about it at the council of kings Do you cavil or deride it? It tells you of victories on sea and land which history crowns with lustrous and unfading glory, which our proud State tells over as among her priceless jewels, which children and children yet unborn shall learn and tell to others, with heightening cheeks and brightened eyes.
Let us not say-we, sons of the weaver, the carpenter and the fishermen-that the day of small things is to be despised; that the lowly and plain condition of our fathers is to be forgotten or that anything for which they cared or which they preferred is not worthy of us. Let us take it in reverence and honor, and place it on high as one of the proudest decorations of this great hall; and let it remain there so long as this State House shall stand, a memorial of the Pilgrim, his privations and simplicity; an emblem significant of the hardiness, courage and faith of those who dare and defy the seas, and daily telling of the great and surpassing glories of Massachusetts and her sons.
A colonial stamp in 1775 figured a cod as "the staple of Massa- . chusetts."
Schools Began in Marshfield-It is believed that to Marshfield be- longs the honor and distinction of taking the first steps in the Plym- outh Colony toward a public school. Without the coercion of colonial law, impelled by no other motive than a desire for "further light" for the new generation and those yet to come, under date of August, 1645, the records of the town of Marshfield contain the following:
On motion being made for one to teach school, we, whose names are under- written, are willing to pay yearly, besides paying for our children we shall send, vis .:
S.
d.
Edward Winslow
20
0
Thomas Bourne
10
0
John Bourne
10
0
Robert Carver
10
0
Thomas Chillingsworth
10
0
John Russell
5
0
Edward Buckley
13
4
Robert Waterman
10
0
Kenelm Winslow
10
0
Joseph Beadle
-
Josiah Winslow
10
0
Edward Bumpus
-
The last names of the final three and the sums subscribed by Joseph and Edward are illegible in the town records but are given in italics as they are believed to be.
There was a Plymouth Colonial law passed in 1670 which provided
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INDIAN NAMES IN PLYMOUTH COUNTY
"all such profits as may or shall accrue annually to the colony from fishing with nets or seines at Cape Cod for mackerel, bass or herring, to be improved for and towards a free school in some town in this jurisdiction, for the training up of youth in literature for the good and benefit of posterity, provided a beginning were made within one year after the said grant." The school was soon established at Plym- outh.
In 1677 Duxbury had a grammar school kept by Ichabod Wiswell, which he continued till 1700.
Most of the early schools were movable, having sessions in one part of the town for a while and then moving to another part, so the same children would not always have the long or the short distances to walk, according to the location of their homes. Duxbury in 1741, voted that their "school should be kept in course as to the quarterly placing of it, to go round with the sun as it has been kept ever since the said town were provided with a grammar school, till two full years were completed and expired, and then to begin in that part of the town that they ordered that it should first be kept, when the said town divided themselves into four parts concerning their school." Later in the same year Duxbury voted "that the said town shall continue to stand divided into four parts or quarters . . . for the term of twenty years next ensuing." It was also voted: "That the said school shall be a free school for the whole town, for any of the said inhabitants to send their children into any of the above-mentioned quarters where the school may be kept."
In 1716, Plymouth voted that: "Three free schools be set up and erected in the town, one at each end to teach and instruct in reading and writing, and one to be kept in the middle of the town to be a grammar school ... and the said schools shall be for the term of five years."
The three-school plan was not popular, however, and later a town meeting discussed the school question with such confusion that it was impossible to know how the individuals voted by the usual methods; so all went out of the building and re-entered, the clerk recording as each one came in whether he was in favor of one or three schools. The majority favored one school and the meeting broke up in con- fusion. At an adjourned meeting a grammar school was established in the middle of the town and it was voted: "that each end of the town that for two years past had a woman's school among them, be allowed to deduct out of the town's treasury what they are annually voted or taxed for the grammar school, and no more, towards main- taining a school among themselves."
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PLYMOUTH, NORFOLK AND BARNSTABLE
As a result of this vote the north part of the town applied for per- mission to be incorporated into a separate town, which was granted, and Kingston was formed.
In 1721, Cohasset, then a part of Hingham, requested its share of the school tax, and there is a record that a committee of three was chosen by that precinct "to take the money from the town of Hing- ham and dispose of it as followeth; one-third part of it to be paid to a school dame for teaching the children to read; and two-thirds of money to be disposed of to teach the children to write and cipher." Cohasset and Hingham precincts made amicable agreements, much more s) than different villages of other towns, and Cohasset did not become a separate town until 1773.
Schoolmaster material was decidedly lacking in the early days, otherwise, perhaps, the school movement would have received an ear- lier start. Bradford, in his "History," written as early as 1624, said : "Indeed we have no common school for want of a fit person or hith- erto means to maintain one." Most of the early schoolmasters were clergymen who took the young men into their homes and fitted them for Harvard College which had been established in 1635. Some towns, in which someone other than a clergyman was considered sufficiently well-educated to instruct the youth, still required the approval of the clergyman before engaging a schoolmaster. This was the case in Boston.
The pay of the schoolmasters was small because the towns were unable to give adequate compensation. They occupied places of high regard in the community, received the best sittings in the churches, were often exempted from military duties, had their taxes remitted and sometimes received grants of town lands, the same as the clergy. Most of them were graduates of Harvard College. Plymouth in the hundred years ending 1771 had twenty-eight schoolmasters and all but two were Harvard graduates. The selectmen were often empowered to engage a schoolmaster "as cheap as they can." In 1690, the town of Hingham so instructed its selectmen and added: "Provided they shall hire a single man and not a man that hath a family."
Before the Revolutionary War the average schoolmaster received the equivalent of one dollar and a half a week in addition to his board. In Milton in 1702, a schoolmaster was engaged to set copy for writing, "and the same selectmen do engage in behalf of the town, that he shall be paid for so doing, one penny for each copy in quarto, he bring- ing his account to the selectmen."
The first schoolhouse in Plymouth was built by private subscrip- tion in 1705 and purchased from the proprietors the following year by vote of the town.
53
INDIAN NAMES IN PLYMOUTH COUNTY
Girls were not admitted to the schools as a rule, unless for short lengths of time, but in Hingham, in 1761, it was voted to build a schoolhouse for a female school. Plymouth, in 1793, accepted a report from a committee in favor of a female school.
At Hanover it is stated that "Girls carried their samplers to be wrought and their knitting and sewing. It sometimes taxed the patience of our worthy pedagogues severely to have the little misses come up and ask questions about their knitting. Luke Stetson, it is said, told one of his pupils to "widen, widen, until she had knit her stocking as wide as a meal bag." Private schools for girls were com- monly advertised.
Historic Trees Still Defying the East Winds-The early settlers missed the familiar flowering trees that make the countryside of Eng- land beautiful in springtime, but, perhaps no other tree appealed to the Englishmen more than the oak, and those they found here in abundance. As soon as there was communication between the old country and the new, except for barest necessities, seedlings and cuttings were brought over to this country, and some of them took root as sturdily as the Pilgrims themselves. The Indians made their canoe paddles from the ash tree, and even today oars are made of this tough, elastic wood. Plymouth County is noted for its magnificent elms, which live to a great age of graceful beauty.
Since the oldest living thing in the world is said to be a tree and the literature which has been written concerning trees has included prose and poetry of the gayest and gravest, the simplest and most profound, it is thought fitting not to leave out of the history of Plymouth and Barnstable counties some reference to remarkable trees which still exist in several of the towns and have a story connected with them well worth considering.
What is more beautiful than an apple tree in full bloom? There is in Marshfield, on the estate of Mr. George Livermore, an apple tree which has been buffeted by the east winds from the Atlantic Ocean more than one hundred years. Its trunk is fourteen and one-half feet in circumference and its branches spread thirty feet on every side. It was planted by Stephen Sherman who was a resident of Marshfield nearly ninety years. It is described in a book entitled "The His- toric Trees of Massachusetts," written by James Raymond Simmons. Some of the other trees mentioned in this chapter are also mentioned in that interesting book which was dedicated to the late Judge Robert Orr Harris of East Bridgewater and Brockton.
The beautiful old apple tree in Marshfield has been the delight of generations when it has appeared in full bloom in the early summer,
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PLYMOUTH, NORFOLK AND BARNSTABLE
decked out like a bride for her bridegroom. Bearing the sweet-scented veil of June, with some of its branches nearly six feet in girth, it has surely grown old gracefully. To gaze upon its beauties one is reminded of how persistently Nature, by beauty, scent and fruit, has striven to force upon the people of New England the fact that nowhere in the world do the soil, air and sunshine conspire more successfully to produce this pomonological gift at its best.
In Pembroke on the brow of a hill commanding a magnificent view of the Herring Brook which figures so prominently in the history of that town, is the estate of Deacon Seth Whitman. In front of the old manison is a row of buttonwoods, planted by Joanna, the bride of Thomas Turner, on her wedding day in 1765. The estate had been transferred to Thomas Turner just before his marriage to Joanna, the eldest daughter of Captain Nathaniel Phillips of Marshfield. These names figure prominently and romantically in the history of Plymouth County towns and will again be referred to with stories of scenes enacted when the graceful buttonwoods were first climbing toward the skies, dreaming of the hoary beauty which they attained and have retained for a century.
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