USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 68
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 68
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 68
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Election Held No Contests-The New England town meeting is an institution which has brought about good government since the Pil- grims adopted the method but it has not always been without its contests and "town meeting oratory," sometimes of a lurid hue and much given to personalities. The town meeting which was held at the Plympton Town Hall, March 6, 1927, however, passed off without a contest. All the town officials were elected or reelected without competition.
At the meeting the following were given the unanimous endorse- ment of their fellow-townsmen: Selectman for three years, Minot P. Bradford; town clerk, John S. Robbins; town treasurer, Minot P. Bradford; tax collector, Zina E. Sherman; highway surveyor, Lewis E. Billings; assessor for three years, Martin W. Keevey; tree war- den, Clifton A. Bricknell; school committee for three years, Mrs. Hope Keevey; trustee of the public library for three years, Roy L.
Plym-40
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Keith; constables, Lewis E. Billings and Arthur Lobdell; auditor, Al fred Bonney.
Two Living George Washingtons - On February 22, 1927, two Plympton veterans of the Civil War, both born February 22, 1843, and both named George Washington, observed their eighty-fourth birth- days. George Washington Thomas, born in Plympton in the same house in which he still lived and which was his home the greater part of his life, was one of the "Boys of '61" who enlisted in Company G, Thirty-eighth Massachusetts Infantry, under command of Captain Charles C. Doten of Plymouth, at the first call for volunteers; and George Washington Lewis, born in New York, a volunteer, with the minute-men in Company C, Tenth Rhode Island Volunteer Infantry. He had made his home in Plympton since 1914. Both were members of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Some Town Statistics-The town of Plympton is one of the small members of the Plymouth County family, having only one hundred and fifty-six male residents above the age of twenty years, and eighty children enrolled in the schools. The appropriation for schools is $13,000. The Public Library has about 3,300 books.
There are 9,025 acres of land in Plympton, according to the assessors' records, and the number of dwellings is one hundred and ninety-four. There are four hundred and twenty persons assessed on property and of this number one hundred and ninety-two are residents and one hundred and sixty-eight residents.
Poultry raising, as well as agriculture in general, are important in- dustries in Plympton.
Elsewhere in this volume is a story of Deborah Sampson who en- listed from Plympton and served in the Revolutionary Army. The cause of independence was constantly and earnestly supported by the town, meetings being frequent to raise money and men. At a meet- ing held May 25, 1776, the town voted unanimously "independence of Great Britain."
In the Civil War, under several calls made by the government, the town was credited with eighty-two enlistments of three-years' men, thirteen nine-months' men, and four men in the naval service. Ninety residents of the town volunteered and, of this number, fifteen were killed in battle or died in service. Many Plympton men served in Company H, Third Massachusetts Volunteers.
There was the same patriotic response in the Spanish War and again in the World War. In the latter John F. Shaw gave his life and the Shaw school was named in his honor.
Early Settlers and Industries-Before the incorporation of the town
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of Plympton it was called the Western Precinct of Plymouth. The Indian name was Wenatuxet. The territory was incorporated as a precinct on November 26, 1695, "for the setting up of the worship of God, and the support of a learned and orthodox ministry," and Rev. Isaac Cushman began to preach to the inhabitants of the precinct the same year. He was ordained in 1698 and held the ministry for thirty- seven years. Beore the precinct was incorporated, the first settlers attended church at Plymouth, and generally had to walk. Settlements were made in Plympton as early as 1680, and probably some years earlier. Some of the first settlers were John Bryant, who came from Scituate and settled near John Bryant, son of John Bryant, of Plym- outh; Stephen Bryant, Isaac King, William Bonney, William Church- ill, Thomas, Elkanah, and Eleazer Cushman, brothers of the Rev. Isaac Cushman; Benjamin Soule; Joseph King, and Nathaniel Harlow.
Plympton was incorporated as a town June 4, 1707. It then included the town of Carver, about three-quarters of Halifax, and a strip of Kingston. The territory of the town was afterwards, of course, re- duced, by the incorporation of Kingston, in 1726; of Halifax in 1734; and of Carver in 1790. The census of 1866 listed the town as having 924 inhabitants.
A few rudely constructed mills were built by the first settlers. The first grist-mill was erected by Adam Wright soon after he settled here. The water wheel, with an upright shaft, turned horizontally and the millstone was attached to the upper end of the shaft and turned no oftener than the water wheel did. The mill was called a gig mill and ground four or five bushels a day, but as the inhabitants increased, it was found to be insufficient to meet their wants, and the owner built another mill, on a different construction.
Iron works were started in Plympton about the year 1720. Two forges were erected, one being partly owned by Joseph Scott, of Bos- ton. Scott was a Tory and during the Revolutionary War the town took possession of his property and the forge was fitted up and used to make cannon shot. After the Revolution, for a period of twenty-five years, the water power of the town was not much employed except in sawing lumber and grinding grain, and manufacturing was con- fined chiefly to the domestic purposes of the inhabitants. But the War of 1812, by stopping the importation of foreign goods, gave manu- facturing a start, and in that year a cotton factory was built, and dur- ing the fifteen years succeeding 1812, a woolen factory and rolling- mill, and factories for the manufacture of cut nails were also built.
Rev. Jonathan Parker was the second minister of Plympton. He was the son of Judge Daniel Parker, of Barnstable, and was ordained as colleague with Rev. Isaac Cushman in 1731, preaching for forty- four years.
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Dr. Caleb Loring was the first physician who settled in Plympton. He came from Hull in 1703 and bought a farm in the north part of the town.
ROCHESTER
Rochester was one of the largest towns territorially in Plymouth County up to April 9, 1836, when a part was annexed to Fairhaven and bounds established. Since that time sections have been taken away and established other towns or parts of towns. Previous to the date mentioned the township contained about sixty square miles, the prin- cipal industry was making salt from sea water and about sixty mer- chant and coasting vessels were owned in the town. The present area is 18,546 acres and, in 1926, there were three hundred and fifty-two male residents above the age of twenty years. There were three hun- dred and seventy-five dwellings and the valuation of the town was $1,211,399.
A part of Rochester was established as the town of Marion, May 14, 1852. Another part was established as the town of Mattapoisett, May 20, 1857.
Rochester has five grade schools with an enrollment of two hun- dred and twelve pupils. Those attending high school go to the Ware- ham High School by arrangement with that town, the town of Roch- ester paying tuition and transportation.
Town Sold by King Philip-A sketch or draught made by King Philip in 1668 is preserved in the records of Plymouth Colony. The land described seems to fall within Rochester, on the seashore.
This may inform the honorable court, that I, Philip, am willing to sell the land within this draught, but the Indians that are upon it may live upon it still; but the land that is mine may be sold, and Watashpoo is of the same mind. I have put down all the principal names of the land we are now willing should be sold.
From Pacanaukett, the 24th of the month, 1668.
Philip: P: his mark.
Know all men by these presents, that Philip has given power unto Watash- poo and Sampson and their brethren, to hold and to make sale of to whom they will, by my consent, etc. etc. Witness my hand that I give it to them.
The mark P of Philip, 1668. John Sassamon is a witness.
First Service On Ministers' Rock-Rochester, called by the Indians Menchoisett, was settled by persons from Scituate, Marshfield, Plym- outh and Sandwich, who, in 1638, obtained a grant from the Provin- cial Court at Plymouth "to locate a township and organize a religious Society in Sippican," an Indian locality near the head of Buzzards Bay. They named the settlement Rochester, from the town of that
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name in Kent County, England, whence many of them emigrated. These settlers did not, however, actually take up their residence in Rochester until 1651, when Rev. Samuel Arnold, John and Samuel Hammond, Moses and Aaron Barlow, Samuel White, and others, es- tablished themselves and erected their church in that part of the present town of Marion, known as Little Neck.
Tradition is that until their church was done, they worshipped upon and around a large flat rock, since known as Ministers' Rock. About this time a few familiies from the old town of Dartmouth, now Acush- net, who were friendly to the Indians in this vicinity, came and built a village between the Indian settlements of Sippican and Mattapoi- sett. Here lived an old chief by name Totosin, a friend of King Philip, who frequently visited here.
Radiating from these centers the population spread to the North and West, making the next village at Rochester proper. Here the first corn-mill in this part of the county was erected by the town in 1704, attended by Peter Blackmer, who was appointed to that office as well as that of town clerk. Each year people settled in the vil- lages from Boston, Salem, and Plymouth, and in 1709 Rev. Timothy Ruggles was ordained the first minister. In 1733 the settlers in Matta- poisett were set off as a distinct parish, under the pastoral care of Rev. Ivory Hovey.
Still another religious society in the North Village, or Snippatuit, was formed in 1748, under the ministry of Rev. Thomas West. These four precincts agreed in 1670 to hold their town meetings in the cen- tral village, thereafter to be known as Rochester town, the other vil- lages retaining their Indian names. In 1685 the town was incorpora- ted by the Provincial Court.
In 1775 Rochester voted to sustain the Continental Congress when- ever they might see fit to withdraw their allegiance from the crown, and in the succeeding struggle for independence, this town furnished more men in proportion to territory or inhabitants than any other town in the Old Colony.
In 1816 the population of the entire town was 2,800, and in that same year the yellow fever made fearful ravages in the village of Mattapoisett, and the western part of the central village.
Of the volunteers in the Civil War four were killed in battle, one died on board the receiving ship, three died in hospitals, and one died at home of disease contracted in service.
ROCKLAND
Until March 9, 1874, Rockland was a part of Abington, hence the early history of the two towns as they are now incorporated was iden- tical. During more than half a century, however, Rockland has main-
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tained an independent and prosperous existence. March 23, 1878, bounds between Rockland and Hanover were established and part of each town was annexed to the other town. Since that date the town fences have remained the same and the population inside has occupied itself diligently in making the town one of the energetic members of the Plymouth County family.
The area of the town consists of 5,831 acres, the number of dwell- ings, according to the annual report of the assessors in 1926, 1,690; and the number of residents twenty years of age or older, 2,396. The run- ning expenses of the town are a trifle short of $300,000, although the total tax collections, including the town's share in the State and county taxes and fire prevention tax amounted in 1926 to $324,510.
Rockland presents to the casual visitor a well-kept, well governed, neat and prosperous appearance, and all of these things are found to be true upon investigation. Much interest is taken in educational mat- ters and at the time of this writing there are two hundred and twenty- five pupils of the Junior High classes holding afternoon sessions at the high school building, waiting for the town to build a new high school building for both High and Junior High pupils.
A new fire station and better health conditions are problems under present consideration. The rock and clay formation of the soil of Rock- land makes proper drainage a difficult matter. A plan of sewerage system was adopted in 1911 and a special act of the Legislature author- ized the town to borrow outside the debt limit and install a system.
In 1926, seventy-five marriages, one hundred and thirty births and one hundred and twenty-nine deaths were registered in Rockland.
The town has several parks and playgrounds and a sterling citizen who was tireless in the acquiring and developing of the parks was the late Judge George W. Kelley who passed away in 1926. He was a member of the park commission and, to quote from the report of the park commissioners, "Every inch of Memorial Park was hallowed ground to him. .... He was intensely interested in creating a me- inorial to those who had made the supreme sacrifice in the making of the history of our country and believed that we could not do enough to show our appreciation of all that our soldiers and sailors, both living and dead, had done for our welfare."
Work was begun in 1925 in preparation for the soldiers' memorial, on the north side of Goddard Avenue. There is to be a bronze memorial at the centre with three bronze tablets, one bearing the names of the unreturned for each of the three wars. The monument will be sur- rounded by lawns dotted with trees in groups of three, one group for each unreturned soldier, each group bearing a marker with the name of the soldier in whose memory it was planted, making about one hun- dred and forty trees in all.
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CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, MIDDLEBORO
MEMORIAL LIBRARY, ROCKLAND
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There are small parks in various parts of the town, affording recrea- tion centres with playground equipment and supervision. The pres- ent park commissioners are B. L. Cushing, Thomas A. Reardon and Harry Fihelly, the latter having been elected at a joint meeting of the park commissioners and selectmen to fill the vacancy caused by the death of the late Judge Kelley.
Rockland has a public library, established forty-nine years ago. The number of books in the library, December 31, 1926, was 16,146. The average daily circulation for that year was one hundred and sixty- three.
The school department is maintained at an annual expenditure of about $114,000. There were in 1927 two brick buildings and nine wooden buildings in commission, with the Jefferson Building a model edifice, newly erected, accommodating one hundred and twenty pupils. This building was erected in memory of Thomas Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence. The building was begun in 1926 on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his birth. The plan is to grad- ually do away with all the wooden and frame school buildings and have new ones, like the Jefferson building, as nearly fireproof as possible.
The high school enrollment for 1926 numbered three hundred and sixty-five. The total number of pupils in the schools numbered 1,425.
Rockland is prominent industrially, including shoemaking, some of the most prosperous shoe manufacturing firms of the county having their locations in the town. One of them is the E. T. Wright Com- pany. Alfred W. Donovan, president of that company and a member of the New England Council, is capable of speaking with authority con- cerning the shoe industry in this part of the country. In an article which he wrote for the Brockton and South Shore Magazine in July, 1927, he stated : "New England is the cradle, the home, the centre of the shoe industry. Shoes are made all over New England but very few realize that the output of the city of Boston alone is over 50,000 pairs daily, while more good shoes are made in Brockton and the South Shore District than anywhere else in the world. With this back- ground, experience and ideals, plus quality and inherited craftsman- ship, I feel the supremacy of New England industrially is secure for years to come. The self complacency as the result of maturity has vanished. The new New England spirit is at the helm. .. The span of mass production and the greatest New England prosperity has been since 1900."
Separation from Abington in 1874-Before the name Rockland was given to the town in 1874, two-fifths of the town of Abington com- posed the industrious village of East Abington, as it was called. Ezek- iel R. Stydley was a member of the board of selectmen of Abington
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before the separation and, at the first town meeting of Rockland, was elected town clerk, treasurer and collector. He was one of the early diplomats to whom both towns owe much gratitude. Rockland started with a population of a little over 4,000. The town valuation was about $1,900,000. The first child born in Rockland was George Rockland Hunt, son of Samuel A. and'Mary E. (Tucker) Hunt, and his advent into the world came the day after the incorporation of the town.
The shoe business in which all this section is engaged began in Rock- land in 1793, when Captain Thomas Hunt located in East Abington (Rockland) near the Weymouth line. He learned shoemaking of a Mr. Webb in Quincy, returned and taught his six brothers and others in the vicinity. As fast as they made shoes for sale, they carried them to Boston on horseback, returning with another stock of leather. This was the beginning of Rockland's principal industry but was not its first industry.
The first industry was a sawmill erected in 1703 by one of the orig- inal proprietors from Hingham named Thaxter. There was a small house west of the mill in which lived a slave who tended the mill. The first frame house was built a few rods south on what is now known as East Water Street.
From 1820 to 1835 Loud & Hunt manufactured shoes extensively. The New Orleans market became an extensive one and several firms in this vicinity took advantage of it. A profitable trade sprang up in Cuba and Abner Curtis who succeeded Loud & Hunt specialized in making shoes for that island. One of the first shoe factories to em- ploy steam power was the Jenkins Lane factory, which was eighty feet long and half as wide, four stories high and in which were em- ployed seventy-five hands.
From these small beginnings Rockland has forged ahead in the shoe industry wonderfully. The largest firms engaged in the industry at present started insignificant in appearance but with determination and knowledge to make their ventures grow. The E. T. Wright Company started in its original shop which measured twelve by twelve feet. This was as late as 1875, when Mr. Wright started with the assistance of his wife and father.
The Hurley Brothers Company started at No. 12 Foundry Street, Brockton, in 1893, in a room eight by twelve feet. The firm moved to Rockland in 1900, manufactured high grade shoes and made the first wo- men's shoes ever manufactured in the town.
Pioneer Probation Advocates-The probation system in Massachu- setts which spread to nearly all the States in the Union, owes much to the late Judge George W. Kelley and the late Edwin Mulready, two Rockland men. Mr. Mulready was appointed probation officer for the
T
HIGH SCHOOL. ROCKLAND
1
E
J.A.RICE CO.
RIGE COMPA
UNION STREET, ROCKLAND
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Southeastern Massachusetts district for Plymouth and Norfolk coun- ties in November, 1898. In 1901, he was appointed deputy probation commissioner and became secretary of the Massachusetts Probation Commission, having charge of all the probation offices of the State, with offices in Boston. He was secretary-treasurer of the Massachu- setts branch of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Crimin- ology.
The probation system started in Massachusetts in 1891. Mr. Mul- ready was largely responsible for its adoption in many other States, until nearly all copied the Massachusetts probation laws. Then the probation system was adopted by thirty-seven countries at a meeting of the Prison Congress held in Washington, District of Columbia, in 1912.
Judge George W. Kelley succeeded Judge Jesse N. Keith as judge of the Second District Court, December 12, 1883. He was one of the first to put the probation system into practice in his court. He was much interested in the preparation of this history and was a member of the advisory board, but passed away, in 1927, when the work was hardly started.
SCITUATE
Scituate is one of the Plymouth County towns which is possessed of about the same number of inhabitants at present as at the time of the Civil War. Its growth has not been in the number of people but it has kept up-to-date, one of the unusually attractive towns on the South Shore, a favorite resort for vacationists in the summer and a good town in which to live at any time. According to the census of 1865, the population numbered 2,269. The population for 1925 was 2,713. The town is a part of the Sixteenth Congressional District, the First Councillor District, Norfolk and Plymouth Senatorial District, Second Plymouth Representative District. It is in the Norfolk-Plymouth Dis- trict of the Income Tax Division.
There were 1,029 polls assessed in 1926 which shows there was that number of male residents twenty years of age and older. The non- residents outnumber the residents in listing property owners, owing to the large number of summer homes for those whose legal residence is elsewhere. The resident taxpayers number 1,293 and the non-resident taxpayers 1,380.
The value of the assessed property in 1926 was $11,792,169, the real estate being $10,383,785. The number of acres of land was 9,696 and the number of dwelling houses 2,209. The estimated expenses for 1927 were $341,848. The financial condition of the town is excellent and, at the annual town meeting in March, 1927, the voters for the first time
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in a long period, defeated all sections carrying long-term serial notes, and the spirit prevailed to adopt a pay-as-you-go policy.
For a long time there have been inadequate facilities in the municipal building to meet the needs of the various departments, in the opinion of the selectmen, and for two years they had advocated a new building. At the town meeting in March, 1927, the article calling for a $90,000 building was defeated.
The enrollment in the public schools of Scituate in 1926 numbered five hundred and seventeen, of which the grade schools had three hun- dred and ninety-four and the high school one hundred and twenty-three. For several years past private individuals or agencies at the north end of the town have provided an evening school for groups of foreign- born residents, many of whom have become citizens after their courses. It is likely that the work will be incorporated as a part of the public school system. The annual expenses of the school department are approximately $67,000.
Miles of Charming Beaches-Some of the handsomest summer homes on the South Shore are located at North Scituate; and included in the summer population are many noted persons. There is another Scit- uate beach which is especially beautiful but until the summer of 1927, has been considered exclusive, as prohibitive signs were numerous. That is the section known as Humarock. The attitude of some of the property owners at Humarock led to the selectmen sending a painter to paint out all such misleading signs and the public was informed that Humarock was not a private beach but open to the world, under restrictions similar to those governing the use of any beach. The conviction that the attitude of exclusiveness assumed by some of the summer residents was injuring the reputation of Scituate as an open- hearted town led to officially putting an end to the apparent snobbish- ness.
The beaches in Scituate help make it an altogether charming town, in harmony with the cordial attitude of the townspeople.
One of the assets of the town of Scituate is its eight miles of seacoast, with a harbor formed by Cedar Point on the northeast, and Crow Point on the southeast. There is a lighthouse at Cedar Point. The town is bounded on the north by Cohasset, on the east by the ocean, on the south by Marshfield and Norwell and on the west by Norwell. There is a brook with especially cold spring water running into the ocean and this "cold brook" was called by the Indians Satuit, which was corrupted into the name Scituate when the town was incorporated October 5, 1636. The town is in the northeast part of Plymouth Coun- ty, twenty-five miles southeast of Boston. The North River separates Scituate from Marshfield and this stream formerly had numerous busy
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