USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 16
USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 16
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 16
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The minister took a fling at fashions two hundred and seventy years ago, as is done today. Rev. Nathaniel Ward said in a sermon, he would borrow "a little of their loosed tongued liberty and misspend a word or two upon their long-waisted but short-skirted patience. I honor the woman that can honor herself with her attire; a good text always de- serves a fair margent but as for a woman who lives but to ape the
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newest court fashions, I look at her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter of a cipher, the epitome of nothing; fitter to be kicked if she were of a kickable substance than either honored or humored. To speak moderately, I truly confess, it is beyond my under- standing to conceive how these women should have any true grace or valuable virtue, that have so little wit as to disfigure themselves with exotic garbs, as not only dismantles their native, lovely lustre but transclouts them into gaunt bar-geese, ill-shapen shotten shellfish, Egyptian hieroglyphics, or at the best into French flirts of the pastry, which a proper Englishwoman should scorn with her heels. It is no marvel they wear drails on the hinder part of their heads; having nothing, it seems, in the forepart but a few squirrels' brains to help them frisk from one ill favored fashion to another."
The town of Wareham in 1806, voted "To procure Rales anuf to Fence the min ner stree Fresh meddo the Rev Noble Evrit to make the Fence & keep it in Repare."
In another town action was taken, contingent upon whether the min- ister "will fence with cedar" the glebe or ministry meadow and, if so, his heirs "may have the fence after his decease."
A Wareham parson a few generations ago was hired to sweep the meeting-house at a salary of three dollars a year, as an additional stipend, he to "winge or rub down the principal seats" on the day after the sweeping. This probably left him free to pass by the seats intended for Indians and Negroes or possibly those occupied by "wretched boys," who might do their own dusting. This minister also ran a fulling mill to extract grease from homespun cloths made by women in the neighborhood.
In many towns the early minister was also the physician. Rev. Samuel Parker of Falmouth ministered to the souls and bodies of the people in that town and there is a line on his gravestone which says "His virtues would a monument supply." Rev. John Avery ministered in the same dual capacity at Truro for forty-four years, and had a reputation for great skill with the lancet and in distilling potions from herbs of the field.
Whatever the compensation agreed upon between the parsons and the towns in which they settled, it was almost impossible for the parson to collect what was justly due him. In some cases he was to receive pay in provisions, firewood or anything except money, and was required to collect these things from various men of the town at seasons when they were obtainable. Some ministers were hired with the under- standing they were to receive a part of the drift fish that came ashore, in other words the dead whales claimed by the town.
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Military Drills and Weapons -- The enrolled militia, consisting of male persons from eighteen to forty-five, was called out for annual inspection the first Tuesday in May. That was the time for May training and was looked forward to by the youth with much pleasure. On three several days, in addition to the inspection, each company was called upon to parade his men and there was great pride taken in their appearance. The rules and articles were read publicly to the companies on the day of the annual inspection. As might be imagined the turning out of the militia was more popular with the young men than with their elders, who looked upon the annual spring "playing soldiers" as as great a nuisance as many men of the present day regard jury duty. Accordingly those between the ages of forty and forty-five were exempted from military duty, if they paid annually to the town treas- urer the sum of two dollars, on or before the annual inspection day.
There were sham battles, shooting matches, wrestling matches and other means of entertainment, as well as evolutions and parades, and May training served as a holiday occasion.
In 1822 the exemption was lowered to thirty-five by a law passed, and in 1831 there was another important change. This provided that "Treating with ardent spirits on days of military duty, and at elections of officers is prohibited ; and Courts Martial may punish for all offences by reprimand, removal from office and fines not exceeding $200, at their discretion."
To mention some of the ancient weapons and their accessories, is equivalent to speaking in another language to the Militia roll of today. "A flash in the pan" has a certain significance to the present generation but few of them ever saw a flintlock gun and, if they have seen one, in a museum, have had no opportunity to see "a flash in the pan" as such weapons are no longer in usable condition. It is more than a hundred years ago since fines were collected for failing to have "two spare flints, priming wire, and brush" and a flint is a relic seldom exhibited.
At the beginning of King Philip's War, the Indians had become possessed of a great many guns and some supplies of powder and bullets through their barter with the white men. Fighting with bows and arrows, spears and such weapons as they had before the landing of the Pilgrims was largely a thing of the past. Of course the older weapons were still in use, as the Indians did not have a sufficient supply of guns and ammunition, but the French settlers in Northern New England were desirous of having the English exterminated and not especially careful of how much cruelty was mixed up in the process, as long as the French gained the ascendency. King Philip, therefore,
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was able to secure considerable assistance from the French and evidently thought that, with such an alliance, his successful undertaking of wiping the white men off the face of the earth would be assured. Undoubtedly he cherished some plan of exterminating the French, should they come into his domain, after he had finished with the English, as presumably all white men looked alike to him.
The firearms possessed by the Pilgrims at the time of their arrival at Cape Cod and Plymouth and the supply which was received by ship- ments on vessels which arrived in later years included weapons which seem very strange at the present day. The Puritans, who came a decade later than the Pilgrims, were possessed of more property of all kinds, including firearms. Some of these were of a later type, at least of a more effective type and presumably more expensive.
One of the most famous weapons of the First Comers, exclusive of the sword of Myles Standish, which has found its way into songs, poetry and stories galore, is the John Tomson gun, mentioned several times in this history.
It is related in Bradford's "History" that cannon were brought on the "Mayflower" and planted on the fort which was erected near the meeting-house on Burial Hill in Plymouth. There were several match- locks and perhaps some snapchance guns and pistols, with which Captain Myles Standish armed his standing army, selected from the forty-four adult males among the one hundred and two passengers. So far as known the flintlocks, which are still remembered as being in use seventy-five years ago, first made their appearance with the coming of the Puritans to the Massachusetts Bay Colony about 1630.
Many matchlocks were used in the Pequot War of 1637 but by that time wheel-locks had been brought into the colonies and were a much superior fighting arm ; and snapchances were popular. The King Philip War opened in 1675, and the colonists all the way from Virginia northward knew it was a serious struggle which confronted them. They had had their lesson in the Virginia massacre, and sent to Europe for a supply of arms. It was for that war that the flintlocks arrived in large numbers. The matchlocks were still in use, however, and, as a matter of fact were used by the British Army until a few years before 1700. One of the old matchlocks, with a four-foot barrel, 12-gauge caliber, weighing about twelve pounds, is in the collection of the Massa- chusetts Historical Society.
It is well to recall the enrolled militia at various times in contem- plating the problems of the inhabitants hereabouts of generations ago as it enables one to better understand some of their acts and customs. Before the great sickness the first winter there were one hundred and
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two persons who took up the "white man's burden" in New England in 1620 on Cape Cod. At the end of the first decade, there were in the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies an aggregate of eight hun- dred white people. In another decade the number had increased to 9,000. It is believed that in 1650 the population was about 16,000; in 1670, about 35,000; and in 1700, according to Dr. Holmes, about 70,000, approximately the same number of people there are now in Brockton. The first official census of Massachusetts was taken in 1765, showing the population of the whole State to be 220,000, including 2,717 Negroes, and 1,569 Indians. The Commonwealth at that time included the Dis- trict of Maine.
After the merging of the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies in 1693 the Plymouth section is supposed to have had about 17,000 people. Most of the wealth was, where it had always been, with the Massachusetts Bay colonists, although, after the first few years, the people of Plymouth and Cape Cod accumulated some means of com- forts. Inventories and wills of that period make such revelations. The Pilgrims started with a large debt to the adventurers. They were robbed before they left England and when the ship "Fortune" returned with practically all the goods which they had gathered up to that time, it was seized by a French profiteer and the Pilgrims gained nothing by sending the goods.
When May training brought out the male population, they were largely fishermen, farmers and a few who had sawmills, grist-mills, fulling mills, or workers of bog iron or in dressed lumber. The Massa- chusetts Bay Colony supplied a market for all the Plymouth colonists could raise, greatly stimulating trade.
In 1837 a correspondent in the "Old Colony Memorial," a weekly newspaper printed in Plymouth the past one hundred and five years, was writing reminiscences of his youth and included in his interesting recollections "Old men had a great coat and a pair of boots. The boots generally lasted for life. Shoes and stockings were not worn by the young men and by but few men in farming business." He also said that young women, when engaged in ordinary work, "did not wear stockings and shoes." There is a Yankee proverb "Old enough to go to meeting barefooted." This may refer to the custom of carrying the shoes in the hand on the way to the meeting-house, stopping to put on the shoes after getting in sight of the house of worship, an economy which was evidently practiced generally, and, possibly, necessarily so.
One cannot dismiss reference to the customs of former days without including, in his references previous to dismissal, the Yankee peddlers, who were also distributors of news in those days before newspapers
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were hardly worthy of the name, there were no telephones or telegraphs or other means of communication. Barnstable County was isolated, on account of its geographical location, more than most other parts of Massachusetts. Occurrences in the West Indies came to the notice of Cape Codders as easily and as frequently as news of occurrences on land beyond Boston.
Yankee Traders, the Tin Peddler, for Instance, represented a period and development in the commercial life, not only of the Old Colony but of the country as a whole. While the writer and most people who have resided hereabouts the major portion of half a century have their own recollections, the story of the tin peddler invariably brings up days and scenes enjoyable to project before the mental vision of the rising generation.
The tin peddler was considered an institution throughout New England and even as far west as St. Louis so many years ago that it is great wonder how the heavily laden carts ever made their way over the poorly constructed early roads. One of the last of the tin peddlers in Plymouth County to regularly drive one of the high, red wagons, with brooms sticking up and tin pails hanging down, with an in- terior stocked with pots, pans, tea-kettles, tin-whistles, something for all uses and all ages, and with some canvas bags suspended from the rear in which were stuffed "paper rags," taken in exchange; or bones and old iron-scrap, purchased from the boys, was John Holmes, of Bridgewater. He was a typical tin peddler, a good citizen, fluent conversationalist, good story-teller, one of those who
"Could doff at ease his scholar's gown To peddle wares from town to town,"
like the worthy referred to in Whittier's "Snowbound."
Paper rags were turned into the paper factories. In early days the great Crane Paper Company of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, makers of bank-note paper as well as paper for account books of the finest kind, advertised the sentiment that patriotic housewives should save paper rags for the peddlers and thus help build up their industry.
The earliest New England tin peddlers were William and Edgar Pat- tison who settled in Berlin, Connecticut, in 1738, imported sheet tin from England, and worked it into cooking utensils. Of them, a local poetess, Emma Hart Willard, wrote:
Quoth the good dame, "Tis a tin pan, The first made in the colony, The maker, Pattison's jest by, From Ireland in the last ship o'er. You all can buy. He'll soon make more!"
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For some years the Pattisons and their imitators carried their wares on foot or on horseback, in large tin trunks. With the coming of turnpikes in 1790, the tin peddlers' wagons appeared, with box bodies of special type to fit the use for which it was intended. These were seen at intervals on the Cape Cod roads, through the Old Colony district and in all this region as regularly as ice cream wagons today. It was not unusual for a tin peddler to cover 1,200 miles on a single trip, even going into Canada. On such trips pins, needles, scissors, but- tons, small wares, drygoods, hats and shoes were included. The tin peddler knew what his cart contained when he started forth but had no idea what it would contain when he reached home after a trip, as his stock was frequently bartered for farm produce and things of home manufacture. These things were turned into money as the jour- ney progressed, whenever possible.
The tin peddler picked up droll stories, bits of gossip, good and bad news, became a student of human nature and obtained a broader vision than many other people. From him was learned the condition of the roads, what changes had taken place. He was a social figure who contributed much in many ways. He brought to families many things which had heretofore been whittled out of wood or dispensed with altogether. Those were days of continual toil from early candle-light until late candle-light. The men and women had no time to give to improving the appearance of their houses or surroundings, or self- improvement. Occasionally there was an Abraham Lincoln among them and the thirst for education in our own county and vicinity was so strong that we marvel today at the number who were graduated from Harvard College.
These were Yankee peddlers. Later the Jewish pack peddler made his rounds and there are many prosperous merchants among our Jewish neighbors and friends who first made their local appearance in that capacity.
Jews were in this country almost from the beginning but it was not until about 1840 that there were many immigrants, aside from the British Isles, and so the Massachusetts counties were later in receiv- ing this race than most other parts of the country. They were in Rhode Island very early; arrived in Carolina shortly after Oglethorpe had laid out Savannah. The first congregation was formed in New York in 1682, largely by Jews from Holland and Brazil. There were some in Philadelphia as early as 1734, two years after the birth of Washington. It was well for the colonists that one of the race, Judah Salomon, was in Philadelphia at the time of the Revolution and loaned the colonists $600,000 to help finance the war.
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The census of 1790 showed the Jews to be less than one-tenth of one per cent of the total population. Following the oppressive marriage laws in Bavaria there was a Jewish migration to this country, about 1835, and many of these German-Jews became peddlers. The great migration of Russian and Polish Jews to this country began about 1882, for political oppressions, pogroms and reactionary movements of the Russian police, after the assassination of Alexander II.
Not all Jews have engaged in commercial pursuits, even in this country, neither are they all engaging in merchandising today in this vicinity. According to the "Jewish Agricultural Report," old farming towns like our neighbor, Colchester, Connecticut, have passed almost entirely into the hands of Jewish farmers. The Jewish farm population in the United States has grown from 1,000 in 1900 to 75,000 in 1927. A million acres in this country are now being farmed by Jews, and the value of their real and personal property is more than $100,000,000.
"The stage-coach and stage-wagon era of America has recently come to life again in the appearance, all over the country, of motor buses. The huge charabanc thundering across country is merely the enlarged, speedier and improved descendant of the rattly and picturesque old stagecoach that, once on a day, afforded the only swift means of road transportation. The peak of stage-coach traffic was reached just be- fore the railroads came in. Out of Boston, in 1832, for example, ran no fewer than 106 coach lines to all parts of the State and contiguous States. Equally abundant were they in other sections of the country wherever good roads existed.
"Such a heavy traffic naturally employed a vast number of men, and they formed a class by themselves almost from the beginning of stage-coach days. A rubicund, prosperous lot of fellows. Some of them owned their own coaches, some owned part, and others were merely employed as drivers.
"At first the going was very bad and the coaches they drove lacked every semblance of comfort. Benches served for seats; then came in strips of leather for backs, then springs appeared and sometimes the body of the coach was swung on leather straps. Colourful and picturesque, they rumbled over the rough roads, and our ancestors, knowing no better means of conveyance, thought them quite smart.
"In addition to his work as driver, the coachman served also as bearer of messages and money, collector and payer of bills. He wore a large hat, and in it kept his messages. Later on he took to carrying small packages. Simultaneously with the passenger traffic arose lines of wagons that carried only freight and express goods. These coaches ran only on the turnpikes; once off the highway, the goods had to be
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transferred to a local and often poorer coach, or else packed on horse- back or into carts.
"When the railroads began to appear, the noble army of coach drivers saw their doom approach. Invariably the price of progress is that someone loses his job. Some of the drivers moved into the frontier areas, and some were employed by the railroad as conductors and brakemen. In the Far West the stagecoach and its valiant drivers continue up to within the memory of the present generation. And what the driver of the Eastern coaches may have lacked in adven- ture, was more than made up by the lurid and dangerous experiences that befell many of the men who drove through the Indian coun- tries."
"This custom of doing errands and carrying packages that had been the habit of stagecoach drivers for fifty years was the inception of a great business. The expressmen and the various express companies that flourished at one time were the direct outgrowth of this accom- modation.
"While there is little or no romance about it, save from the com- mercial viewpoint, the beginning of the express business did have its amusing childhood. In the spring of 1834 the first passenger train ran in New England, and its conductor was one William F. Harnden. He had noticed that some of the erstwhile coach drivers had acquired passes from the railroads and were doing a tidy little business run- ning errands. So, after five years of being a station agent and con- ductor, it occurred to him to make a regular business of this service. In 1839 he advertised himself as 'The Express Package Carrier' and opened a small office in Boston and another in New York. His New York office was part of the store in a basement that is now No. 20 Wall Street. You left your packages at the Boston office and col- lected them in the New York office. At first all he was asked to carry could be packed in a valise-letters mostly. As the business prospered, he extended his service to Philadelphia, Albany and other cities. At Buffalo he took on Henry Wells. His company activities extended even to England. It was called Harnden & Company.
"At the same time Harnden was doing this, Alvin Adams started a rival concern. In 1850 he paid the New York & New Haven Railroad the lordly sum of $1,000 a month for space in the car of an express train. Four years later he absorbed Harnden's concern and two other competing express companies and consolidated them into the Adams Express Company.
"These were only two of numerous express companies-Wells, Fargo, and such-that sprang up in various parts of the country.
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One by one they were absorbed until the business was gathered into the hands of two concerns."
Something of the every-day thrills which were experienced by the express men in the early days are now shown, more or less accurately, on the silver screen for the present generation's education and amuse- ment.
In That Decade Befo' Th' War, and a few years earlier, many of the comforts, luxuries and customs which seem so indispensable to us today were totally unknown. Most modern transportation has come since the close of the Civil War, likewise the general use of the telegraph and telephone. The telegraph was in use before the war and evidently it appeared to those who prosecuted that great fratricidal struggle that it was used to the limit, but there are those who remember that it was a simple matter to cut a single wire and from that time on here would be no wire communication between a division of the army and Washington for a long time. Quite different was the case in the World War, when orders were given by telephone to gunners who fired and directed their guns, in accordance with orders, with- out having any other knowledge of where the shot and shell was landing or its effects. The telephone was not known in Plymouth County until after the war and it was known here as early as it was anywhere, as some of the earliest telephonic experiences were in Brockton.
Most of the contributions to progress made by people other than descendants of immigrants from the British Isles have come about since the days of '61. Up to the time of the war, the United States was an agricultural nation, in the East as well as in the West. The Legislature in recent years has been a haven for young men in the legal profession, old men who had practically retired from business and wanted something to do which could be done without being on their feet too much, and a picking here and there from the profes- sions and businesses from which the candidates could be spared with- out much sacrifice to them or the institutions with which they were identified. This is not said in any spirt of casting reflection upon the make-up of the Great and General Court, but merely to bring out that most manufacturers, merchants and captains of industry have considered themselves too busy to be legislators and left the duty to the classes mentioned, to a large degree.
The Massachusetts Legislature or General Court had in 1850, in the Senate, ten merchants, two editors and printers, eight lawyers, seven farmers, six manufacturers, three physicians, and a mason, auctioneer, clergyman, and granite dealer.
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The House of Representatives contained seventy-six farmers, thirty- nine manufacturers and traders, twenty-five lawyers, sixteen general manufacturers and fourteen boot and shoe manufacturers, thirteen master mariners, nine editors and printers, eight clergymen, thirteen housewrights, three physicians, four each of mechanics, painters, civil engineers, hat makers; two each of masons, shipwrights, tailors, pro- vision dealers, iron manufacturers, druggists, cabinetmakers, paper manufacturers, clerks, stone dealers, and deputy sheriffs; one nailer, museum owner, tallow chandler, glass manufacturer, inspector of fish, teacher, box-maker, sail-maker, clock-maker, grain dealer, stage and livery keeper, railroad jobber, millwright, woolen manufacturer, auger manufacturer, carriage-maker, express agent, cotton manufacturer, currier, sash and door-maker, real estate dealer, wood dealer, book- keeper, caulker, seedsman, agent, book-seller, leather dealer, pump and block-maker, philosophical instrument-maker, iron manufacturer, gen- tleman, cigar manufacturer.
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