USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 65
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 65
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 65
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July 2, 1655, "At this Court libertie was granted to the town of Plym- outh to purchase lands of the Indians at Sepecan to winter cattle upon."
June 3, 1679, an Act was passed preliminary to the sale of these lands to certain persons, which was confirmed at the next Session of the Court in July, and the settlement commenced in 1680.
The first house was erected by Samuel Briggs, who had as some of his companion settlers, Samuel Arnold, John Hammond, Moses Barlow, Samuel White, Samuel Hammond, John Wing, Aaron Barlow, Joseph Dotey, Jacob Bumpus, Joseph Burgess, John Haskell, a man by the name of Sprague, Abraham Holmes, and Job Winslow.
The first settlement commenced near the entrance to Little Neck and soon after extended to Great Neck and towards Rochester Center. Their first minister was Samuel Shiverick, from 1683 to 1687. He was succeeded in the latter year by Samuel Arnold, who died February 11, 1707. Timothy Ruggles was ordained in 1710, and held the pastorate fifty-seven years. The church was organized October 13, 1703. The first meeting-house was a building constructed for a "corn-house" by Samuel Briggs and moved on to Little Neck near a huge rock, around which the Indians used to perform their noisy demon-worship, some- times at the same hour when the Christian worshippers were engaged in their service.
The first burial place was laid out, according to their usual custom, in the rear of the meeting-house. The first person buried there is said to have been Eliza Briggs, aged twelve years.
The next church was built in Rochester Center, not far from 1730. The first house built on Great Neck was by John Allen, near the head of the cove.
The first house in the lower village was built by John Clark, about 1760, and in the upper village John Keen built the first house, this being swept away by the great tide in 1815.
The Sepecan Indians do not appear very prominent in the history of Massachusetts. They were, at some remote period, more numerous.
MARSHFIELD
Present View of the Town-Marshfield, the town of the first public school and of three centuries of controversy over the Green Harbor dike and reclamation of land; the town of Daniel Webster and Brant Rock ; the first town set apart from Plymouth, and the home of McFingal; in 1926 appropriated $205,055 and of that amount spent $38,000 for schools. The population in 1925 was 1,776. The town is included in the Sixteenth Congressional District, the Second Councillor District, Norfolk and Plymouth Senatorial District and Second Plymouth Repre- sentative District.
As a town of summer homes, Marshfield counts 1,876 non-residents
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who pay taxes on real estate, while the residents who pay real estate taxes number eight hundred and twenty-five. There are 1,900 dwell- ings assessed and 15,900 acres of land.
Not only is the number of non-resident taxpayers more than one thousand greater than the number of residents, but the non-residents are assessed for $3,126,850, while the residents are assessed for $2,518,301. The total valuation is $5,645,151. The number of male residents twenty years of age or older is six hundred and forty-eight. The figures are those of 1916.
There have been several water companies which have supplied the rapidly growing summer resorts at Brant Rock, Humarock Beach, at Fieldston and Rexham, but one of the problems before the town has been to provide adequate water works to supply the interior of Marsh- field and provide suitable fire protection. Upon petition of the town, an act was passed in 1920 authorizing the town to issue bonds to build water works, the amount of the bond issue not to exceed $350,000. The water commissioners are working on a plan for a general water supply.
Something About Early Settlers-Twenty years after the landing of the Pilgrims, Marshfield was incorporated, the date being March 2, 1640. The place was called by the Indians Missaucatucket. By the English the southwest part of the town was called Rexham or Green Harbor. The latter name is still given to a part of the town in the vicinity of Brant Rock. The North River furnishes the northern boundary of the town and separates it from Norwell and Scituate, while its eastern boundary is the Atlantic Ocean. Duxbury is on the south and Duxbury, Pembroke and Norwell on the west.
The North River and the South River, the latter flowing through the central part of the town, unite near the centre of its coast line and form a pleasant harbor. Green Harbor is where Cut River, which rises in Duxbury, meets tide water at Marshfield Beach. One of the hills of the town is called Cherry Hill and it was on this high ground that Daniel Webster made his last public address July 24, 1852.
Of the two hundred and ten men whom Marshfield furnished in the Civil War, twenty-five were lost, among them Colonel Fletcher Webster, son of Daniel Webster.
Marshfield was the home of Peregrine White, the first child of the Pilgrims; Susanna Winslow, the first mother, also the first bride, as she married Edward Winslow after the death of her first husband, the father of Peregrine, before any of the Pilgrim maidens were wedded; Josiah Winslow, the first native governor, son of Edward Winslow; John Winslow, grandson of the governor, born in Marshfield, May 27, 1702, famous in connection with the expulsion of the Arcadians from Nova Scotia in 1755, major-general in the expedition against Canada,
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1758-59, and founder of Winslow, Maine, in 1766; John Thomas, major- general in the Revolution, born in Marshfield in 1725, died in Chamblee, June 2, 1776; George Little, captain in the United States Navy, 1799, born in Marshfield in 1754, died in 1809; and many other early citizens; Daniel Webster, of more recent date; and distinguished residents of the present and preceding generations, as worthy in their day and gen- erations as any before them.
The name Marshfield indicates the nature of a considerable portion of the soil. Its three rivers, North, South, and Green Harbor, are navigable to some extent. Small vessels were built in Marshfield a century and a half ago, when shipbuilding was an important business on the South River. Agriculture is a leading occupation of the in- habitants.
Marshfield was occupied twelve years after the landing at Plymouth. The first church was organized in 1632. The first settlement of the town was made in its southwest part, then called Green's Harbor, and afterwards Rexham. The town was incorporated in 1641, and the Second, or North Parish was organized in 1739. The Indian name of the place was Missaucatucket.
In 1658 a man was killed by lightning and again in 1666 three more were killed in the same manner, which events at the time made a deep impression upon a generation which regarded all such occurrences as direct manifestations of the wrath of God.
Edward Winslow was the leading man among the first settlers. He called his place Careswell, in memory of the land of his birth. Governor Winslow, who married for his second wife, Susanna Fuller White, mother of Peregrine, was buried at sea, after years in the service of the colony, both in the Old and New World. The event occurred while he was on his way to the West Indies with a commission from Cromwell.
For several generations the Winslows were a prominent family. A house, built about 1696, known as the Winslow House, is a familiar one to historians. Josiah Winslow, son of Edward, was the first gover- nor of Plymouth Colony born in this country.
General John Winslow, noted in connection with the removal of the Arcadians, commemorated by Longfellow, was of this family.
The ancient Winslow Burying Ground contains the remains of the first child of the Pilgrims, the first mother, also the first bride, and the first native governor.
Peregrine White settled near the joining of North and South River, and lived to an advanced age.
John Bourne, who died in 1859, a man of sterling worth, was a soldier of the Revolution, dying at the age of one hundred years.
General John Thomas, who fortified Dorchester Heights, was also a native of Marshfield.
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The most distinguished name connected with Marshfield is that of Daniel Webster. He came for recreation to the place which he after- wards made his home, in 1827, and became a resident of the town about 1832. He purchased the residence erected by Nathaniel Ray Thomas, the noted Royalist, adjoining the Winslow estate. He remodelled the house, his daughter Julia designing the part containing the library. He greatly enlarged the grounds, the Winslow estate comprising a part of them. By setting out trees and enriching the soil, he changed the place from a waste of sandy hills to a charming landscape of fertility and beauty. The tomb was built by himself in the Winslow Burying Ground, in a lot abutting on his estate.
William Carver, grandnephew of Governor Carver, died October 7, 1760, nearly one hundred and two years old. On one occasion it is said he worked in the field with members of three generations, while another was in the house in the cradle-five generations living at one time.
Colonel Fletcher Webster, before his father's death, had a residence which he called Careswell, but afterwards occupied the Webster mansion.
Though at the time of the Revolutionary War there was an influential Tory element in Marshfield, giving occasion for the stationing of a company of British Regulars on the farm since associated with Webster, the town was active and outspoken on the patriotic side.
In the Civil War Marshfield furnished for the Army and Navy in 1861, for three months, one man; 1861, for three years, forty-three men ; 1862, three years, twenty-six men; 1862, nine months, thirty-three men ; 1864, three years, nine men; 1864, one year, nineteen men; 1864, one hundred days, five men.
First Marshfield Farms Owned by Non-Residents-All matters of government, whether colonial, municipal or parochial, were for many years concentrated in Plymouth, although many of the "first-comers" had taken up farms far from Plymouth Rock and the common house on Leyden Street. All freemen were required to be church members and to attend religious services regularly. Consequently it was a severe hardship for John and Priscilla Alden to journey in from Duxbury, the Winslows, Fords and Thomases from Marshfield, John Thomson from Halifax, and other worthies from settlements which are now in- dividual towns in Plymouth County. All were obliged to perform important political and religious duties, whatever the sacrifice. A few precincts were formed which developed into towns, with a church as a centre, and provision made for land and a living for the clergyman. This was one of the first provisions. Numbers did not count for so much in those days and it was necessary to have some "people of im- portance" in every settlement before the men of Plymouth gave attention to any suggestions that a separate town be incorporated.
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There was no intention on the part of Plymouth itself to have many of its valued settlers move elsewhere, allured by the prospect of getting more land. Consequently a plan was decided upon by means of which some of the men of quality were granted land at a distance if they would agree not to transfer their residence from Plymouth. They might have the distant farms tilled by servants in their employ.
Such grants were made of land in what was known as Green's Harbor about 1632, when the vicinity was known to the aborigines as Mis- saucatucket.
On March 2, 1640, Josias Winslow was "sworne to execute the office of Constable" at Rexame, as the Plymouth people called it. His com- mission was to continue "untill June come twelve months." The name was soon changed to Marshfield, as that name appears in the records as early as March, 1641. Thomas Bourne and Kenelm Winslow were chosen as deputies to represent the town in the colonial government in 1641. Their assistants named were Edward Winslow and William Thomas. These names appeared in the earliest list of freemen, taken about 1644, and there were seven others, Thomas Burne, Edward Buck- ley, Robert Waterman, John Dingley, Thomas Shillingsworth, John Russell and Nathaniel Thomas.
Controversy Over Encouragement for Minister-The first pastor of the church was Rev. Richard Blinman, a Welchman, whose coming to New England was at the solicitation or recommendation of Governor Winslow. His admission to the freedom of the Massachusetts Colony was in 1641, having been previously propounded at Plymouth March 2, 1640. He remained at Marshfield a short time, then took other brief pastorates, and finally returned to Wales.
An order had been passed by the court at Plymouth, March 3, 1639-40, for suitable land for the encouragement of a minister, also taking into consideration a controversy with the town of Duxbury, as appears from the records as follows :
"Whereas there is a controversy betwixt Greens harbour & Dux- burrow about the lands betweene the fresh of Greens Harbour riuer and the South Riuer It is ordered and graunted by the Court of freemen to Mr Edward Winslowe & the rest of the Neighbourhood of Greens Harbour a competent 'con of vplands and meddowe betwixt the said Riuers for a farme for a ininister and one other competent porcon of land nere vnto the said lot for the minister either for Nehemiah Smyth or some other as the said inhabitants of Greens harbour shall place in."
Evidently Nehemiah Smyth was not sufficiently impressed with the chances for a living in the new town as his name does not appear in the list of early ministers. After Rev. Mr. Blinman came Rev. Edward Bulkeley. He was settled about 1642, and left in 1658 for Concord and succeeded his father, Rev. Peter Bulkeley, in that town.
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Rev. Samuel Arnold came from Sandwich in 1658 and Rev. Edward Thomson in 1696.
There were forty-nine inhabitants of Marshfield enrolled as able to do military duty, between the age of sixteen and sixty, in August, 1643. Among them are found the names of Winslow, Sprague, Bourne, Waterman, Bradford, Howland, Dingsley, Russell, Weston, Eames, Holmes, Adams, Snow, Sherman, Williamson, Truant, Chillingsworth, Carver, Rouse, Barker, Beesbeech, Bisbee, Beare, White and Ford.
There were twenty-seven in "the names of such as have taken the Oath of Fidelity of the Toune of Marshfield in the year 1657."
MATTAPOISETT
The Indian word Mattapoisett is said to signify the place of rest. The Indians living five or six miles north of the village, used frequently to come down to the shore for the purpose of obtaining clams and fish; one or two miles north of the village, they used to stop at a spring and rest. From this circumstance, it is said, the river and place derived their names.
Many people of the present day find in Mattapoisett a place of rest, if that is what they need; or a place for delightful recreation in the summer, if they wish to have a combination of sylvan beauty, country and seashore, and dwell among interesting and generous-hearted people.
Mattapoisett was a Civil War baby; as the anti-slavery sentiment was beginning to become popular when Mattapoisett was set apart from its mother town, Rochester. This was May 20, 1857, when the town was incorporated. It had been a part of Rochester one hundred and seventy-five years. The first town meeting was held in Purrington Hall, June 20, 1857.
At one time Mattapoisett was famous for its extensive shipbuilding industry. It was in Mattapoisett that Frank D. Millett, the noted Amer- ican artist who was lost in the sinking of the "Titanic," was born.
The whale fisheries was an important industry in Mattapoisett ter- ritory when it was a part of Rochester. Roger L. Barstow was a success- ful merchant who was also largely interested in whaling. In 1842 he was instrumental in organizing a company of light infantry, and became its captain. He became major of the Third Regiment of Light Infantry, of which Stephen Thomas of Middleboro was colonel and Ebenezer W. Pierce of Lakeville lieutenant-colonel. At the time the light infantry company was organized in the village of Mattapoisett, it was believed to be especially exposed to the approach of an enemy in barges from Buzzards Bay. The militia roll of the village at that time contained one hundred and ten men and the petition to have a volunteer company authorized by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was allowed.
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When the Civil War came, Mattapoisett furnished two hundred and fifteen men, eighteen of whom died in the service.
It was while Mattapoisett and Marion were parts of Rochester that the original town was engaged sufficiently in shipbuilding to furnish employment for two hundred and fifteen workmen at one time. Whaling was also carried on and the making of salt from the evaporation of salt water. About sixty merchant and sailing vessels hailed from Mat- tapoisett and vicinity.
Rev. Thomas Robbins was an early minister in that part of the original town now called Mattapoisett. He possessed what was believed to be the most valuable private library in Massachusetts. It consisted of about three thousand volumes and four thousand pamphlets, and a large collection of valuable manuscripts. Rev. Mr. Robbins was also a collector of rare coins.
MIDDLEBORO
Middleboro, Under a Town Manager, Prospers-Two stories, side by side in a Brockton daily paper in July, 1927, set one's thoughts running about Middleboro. One told of the problem which faced the town owing to the automobile traffic through the town to and from Cape Cod. In addition to Cape Cod routes, the town is situated on a direct line from Rhode Island points and gets the heavy traffic from that State which is attracted to Plymouth and the South Shore or Boston and the North Shore. On the previous Sunday it was estimated that ten thousand motor cars had passed through streets which were originally built in the days of yokes of oxen and horses and buggies.
The other newspaper story concerned the recently organized Middle- boro Historical Society and steps which it was taking to mark, with suitable tablets, many of the historical spots within the limits of the town. Among the sites which were being considered for marking were the location of the old town hall on South Main Street, Judge Oliver's residence at Muttock, which was sacked and burned by indignant towns- people ; the site of the First Church, the old court and the place where the decisive battle of King Philip's War was fought, along the brook connecting Long Pond and Lake Assawampsett. It was recalled that there was a white man living in Middleboro earlier than anywhere else, Captain Thomas Dermer, who had command of the ships in one of Cap- tain John Smith's expeditions.
Middleboro is one of the towns in Plymouth County which has an interesting past, is a delightful town in which to live at present, and has all the conditions to make it a successful town and city of the future.
As for the present, it is a town which requires an income of sub- stantially half a million dollars to keep it going. The town appropria- tions in 1926 were $373,304, exclusive of State and county taxes and
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some other things. There were 2,680 male residents in the town above the age of twenty years. The population, according to the 1925 census, was 9,136. A few additional facts about the town, to give them the brief- est mention, are that it has an elevation of one hundred feet above sea level, was settled in 1660, incorporated as a town in 1669, has a valuation at present (1927) of $9,400,946, has municipally-owned water, gas and electric lighting plants, an area of 68.1 square miles, one hundred and fifty miles of streets, a motorized fire department, well equipped hospital.
Middleboro is thirty-five miles from Boston, twenty-two miles from New Bedford, thirty miles from Providence, Rhode Island; twelve miles from Brockton, is at the "head of the Cape," the centre of the cranberry industry, and has direct rail connections with Fall River, New Bedford, Taunton, Providence, Provincetown, Brockton, Boston and New York. In this railroad centre, the most important of any in Plymouth County, the principal industries are the manufacture of fire apparatus, shoes, boxes, brass goods, varnishes, worsteds, jewelry, drug sundries and thirty other important products.
Middleboro is one of the few towns in this vicinity which employs a town manager.
The year 1926 was one of unusual activities. The town appropriated $175,000 for a new High School building, a new fire station was com- pleted and dedicated December 30, on which date the motorized fire department moved into its new quarters. A new concrete bridge was built over the Nemasket River on East Main Street, a high pressure gas main was laid, a high tension electric line started and other major prob- lems solved or given a good start.
The Middleboro Memorial High School, as it is called, is in honor of those who were a part of the army and navy in the World War, who were residents of this town. In the building is the "Walter Sampson Auditorium," named in honor of the man who was the efficient principal of the school nearly thirty-three years, and brought the standard of the school to a high state of excellence. The science department is called the "Leonard O. Tillson Science Department," in honor of the man who was, at the time of the completion of the building, in his twenty-eighth year of service in the school, as an efficient and conscien- tious science teacher. Both Walter Sampson and Leonard O. Tillson were graduates of the school.
The building is of Colonial architecture. The exterior is of high grade red water-struck brick; the roof of slate. The stairs are of fireproof steel and concrete construction and the vestibule walls are of brick. The finish throughout the building is North Carolina pine, and around all the doors and window openings are metal corner beads, known as the hospital type. In angles of all floors and walls, the base is finished
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with a sanitary cove. All the classrooms and recitation rooms are in accordance with the standard as approved by the National Board of Edu- cation, and the appointments and equipment are worthy of the town which takes a just pride in its highest institution of learning. In 1926 there were three hundred and forty scholars enrolled in the High School. The whole number in the public schools was 1,866. The school appro- priation in 1926 was $114,425.
Middleboro has always held an important place in educational circles. The Pierce Academy was one of the fine old educational institutions in the academy days of New England, and from it were graduated many men of distinction, and a wealth of good citizens. More about the Pierce Academy appears elsewhere in this history.
The Pierce family has taken the part of good citizenship and generous benefactors for generations. There are at present three funds for the benefit of the town, under trusteeship. The trustees under the will of Thomas S. Pierce, for the use and benefit of the town of Middleboro and of the Middleboro Public Library, at the close of business Decem- ber 31, 1926, reported assets of $592,219. The trustees offered to lease to the town, the eighteen acres of cleared land in the rear of the new fire station and new High School building, extending to the Nemasket River, for a public park and playground, for the sum of one dollar a year, for a term of not less than ninety-nine years. The offer was accepted at the annual town meeting in March, 1927.
There is a trust fund of $4,190, "The Maria L. H. Pierce Fund," for inmates of the Town Farm, which brought additional comforts to the seven women and fourteen men who were inmates of that institution in 1926.
The Middleboro Agricultural Society held its first annual fair in the early summer of 1927, at the Camp Joe Hooker race-track. The intention is to take its place with other societies in this vicinity, some of them organized one hundred or more years ago, in holding annual fairs. The officers of the new society are: President, Dr. Leonard A. Baker; vice- president, Ezra F. Shaw; secretary-treasurer, Norman C. Smith; board of directors, B. G. Brown, Benjamin W. Shaw, Merrill A. Shaw, Andrew F. Sisson, Thomas F. Mahoney, Elton L. Pratt, John A. Pratt, E. H. Stafford, Jr., Levi O. Atwood, Frank M. McGowan, George E. Doane, Fred A. Shockley, Alden Sisson, Roland Rand, Frank Noyer, R. E. Bassett, William Egger, W. J. Cromwell, Bartlett Perkins and Ralph M. Bassett. The officers are also included in the board of directors.
Nemasket a Place of Fish-Middleboro has always been one of the important towns of the county. A few years ago it contained nearly 20,000 acres of woodland and there were thirty sawmills engaged in reducing the forests to building material which was shipped away on
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