USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 34
USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 34
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 34
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Rev. Mr. Massey preached a sermon in 1722 against "The Danger- ous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation." His text was, "So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot until his crown." Mr. Massey argued that the devil was the first inoculator and Job his first patient. This was the view of the matter taken by clergymen and physicians gener- ally.
During the time Dr. Boylston was in hiding in his house a hand- grenade was dashed into the parlor in which his wife and children were sitting. The family escaped death by the fuse being knocked off against a piece of furniture before the fuse had a chance to burn as far as the explosive.
Dr. Boylston was the first American to be made a "Fellow of the Royal Society." He was nominated for that honor by Sir Hans Sloane, the court physician, with whom he had been in correspondence dur- ing the period of his experimentation and persecution.
Diagnosis By Popular Vote-In the town of Bellingham in April, 1777, a town meeting was called to decide whether one of the inhabi- tants, ill with an apparently serious disease, had the smallpox. It was voted that the man had the smallpox and that a hospital be established in the woods for his accommodation.
On the records of that town is recorded the following: "Voted that the town forbid any person from having the smallpox in the house of Daniel or Silas Penniman, except said Silas, now sick, and if any per- son or persons be so presumptious as to have the smallpox in either of them two houses they shall forfeit to the town ten pounds, to be recov- ered by the treasurer."
In the town records of Weymouth it appears that at a meeting held September 11, 1792, the town refused to permit inoculation for the smallpox, and March 11, 1793, permission was granted for the erection of a hospital for the care of such cases, agreeable to law, under direction of the selectmen.
Back in the days of the colonies there had been terrible experiences
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"THE THREE LEARNED PROFESSIONS"
with smallpox. During an epidemic in the decade before the landing of the Pilgrims the Indians had been greatly reduced in numbers and this was one of many such epidemics. One in every seven cases proved fatal in 1721, when there was a large number of cases. Boston had an epidemic in 1752 in which one in every three of the inhabitants was stricken with the disease. There was another epidemic in Boston and vicinity in 1764. Not much thought was given to sanitation at that time and not too much for a hundred years thereafter. Boston had 3,722 cases of smallpox in 1872 and 1,040 proved fatal.
Pulling Teeth, Bleeding and Cupping-The planters of Massachu- setts Bay, at a meeting held March 5, 1628, made a proposition "to Intertayne a surgeon for (the) plantacon." John Pratt "was ppounded as an abell men" for the position and he came to New England to care for the health of the planters of the commonwealth. Evidently the members of the company had some doubts of Pratt's surgical ability and trusted to the barbers for that service, as was the custom in minor surgical cases. Robert Morley was appointed "to serue as a barber and a surgeon (on all) occasyons belonging to his Calling to aney of this (Company) that are planters, or there seruants." Pulling teeth, bleeding and cupping were among the services expected of the tonsorial artist in those days. In addition to these, the Puritans had plenty of ministers and the clergy were, after all, the court of last resort, whether in divinity, law or medicine. They were the educated people of the times, made pretensions to universal excellence and, as the expression is in these days, usually "got away with it."
The General Court in 1716 favored building a hospital at Squantum but the location was opposed by Milton, Braintree and Dorchester. The following year the hospital was built on Spectacle Island, and was used for infectious diseases. In later years the hospital was on Rains- ford's, Deer and Gallop's Islands at different times.
Women physicians are nothing new under the sun. Colonial records show that Ann Hutchinson, Mrs Sarah Alcock, Margaret Jones and others practiced medicine. There was considerable jealousy in the medical profession then as now, evidently, since Ann Hutchinson was banished to be tomahawked by the Indians and Margaret Jones was the first person hanged as a witch.
The ministers took a leading part in the introduction of variolous in- oculation, especially Rev. Cotton Mather. The earliest treatise on a medical subject was written by Rev. Thomas Thacher, first minister of the Old South, on "A Brief Rule to Guide the Common People of New England How to order themselves and theirs in the Small Pocks, or Measels." It was dated January 21, 1677.
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Discovery of Painless Surgery-Among the first medical practi- tioners in the Bay Colony it used to be said, according to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, "Whatever the tacamahacca has not cured the car- anna will." These two gums and Burgundy pitch were very popular remedies, many vegetables substances, also lime water, saltpetre and other mineral substances. A certain black powder, made by burning toads to charcoal and reducing the charcoal to powder, was used for small-pox, "ye plague, purples, all sorts of feavers, poyson, either by way of prevention or after infections." This remedy remained in use till some years after the Revolution.
After Dr. Samuel Fuller, physician at Plymouth who came on the "Mayflower," treated the first load of Puritans, he made an entry in his diary: "I have been to Matapan (now Dorchester) and let some twenty of those people blood." There are people still living who can remember when a physician carried a lancet in his case as much a matter of course as a thermometer is carried today.
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in a chapter which he wrote for the "Memorial History of Boston," said: "It is but a fractional power that the physician has over disease, and a comparatively small fraction over the issues of life and death. But he can avoid the errors of the past which over drugged the sick in the belief that whatever was loathsome to the senses and perturbing to the functions was likely to be useful in disease. .. The greatest of all improvements since the first operator took a knife in his hand, is unquestionably the discovery of the art of painless surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston."
District Medical Society-The Norfolk District Medical Society was organized in 1850, and consists of members of the Massachusetts Medical Society residing inside the old county lines, which were changed when Roxbury and Dorchester were annexed to Boston. It corresponds to other district medical organizations "wherein the communication of cases and experiments may be made, and the diffusion of knowledge in medicine and surgery may be encouraged and promoted."
In all matters wherein the general society is concerned, the district society is subject to the regulations of the larger body. A large share of the allopathic and homeopathic physicians of Norfolk County are members of the district society.
CHAPTER LI GENESIS OF NORFOLK COUNTY
Union of Farming Villages With Dedham as Shire Town-Importance of Dorchester and Roxbury, Which Eventually Became Annexed to Boston and Suffolk County-John Craft First Child of English Par- entage Born in Norfolk County Territory-Claim of First Special Town Meeting in New England and First Public School Supported by Taxation - Famous Experiment in Community Life at Brook Farm-"The Mother of Towns," Dedham-Patriotic Resolutions Written by General Joseph Warren-First Recorded Resolutions to Try the Issue With Great Britain-Credit Due the Famous Adams Family-Framework of Government Which Has Stood Test of Time-Coming of Domestic Animals and Farming Implements- Members of the County Family of Towns in Brief-Oldest House in County-Replica of Lincoln Log Cabin-Oldest Singing Society in America-Dedham Horse Thief Society-Weymouth Agricul- tural and Industrial Society.
Before the county of Norfolk came into existence the territory which it included was embraced in Suffolk County, which had been incor- porated in 1643, and also took in the towns of Hingham and Hull in Plymouth County. Since Norfolk County was set apart from Suffolk, Dorchester, Roxbury and Hyde Park have been annexed to Boston and so moved back into Suffolk County.
In the past century Norfolk County, in spite of losing the large towns mentioned, has increased in population from 36,471 in 1820, to 219,081 in 1920. According to the State census in 1925, the popula- tion was 262,065.
Much of the surface of Norfolk County is broken and uneven, lend- ing picturesqueness to the scenery. The most noted elevations are the Blue Hills in Milton, the most beautiful elevations in this part of the State, overlooking Boston and Quincy harbors and the bay. There are numerous beautiful estates in the county. Industries are sufficiently varied to make for continued prosperity. Quincy is the only city and is surrounded by twenty-seven towns interesting for their historical ex- periences and happy in the possession of most of the qualities in which one's lines may be cast in pleasant places.
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It was on March 26, 1793, that the General Court of Massachusetts passed the act incorporating the county of Norfolk, to embrace all the territory of the county of Norfolk, except Boston and Chelsea. The act took effect June 20, 1793. Dedham was the shire town. There was another act passed at the same session which excepted the towns of Hingham and Hull, and these towns were later annexed to Plymouth County.
Most of the towns in the new county were farming villages, includ- ing Dedham, which had a population of about two thousand persons. There was no court house in the shire town until 1795. The first jail was erected the same year. Both were wooden structures, served their purposes for a time, and were replaced by structures of stone. The lawyers residing in the county were Fisher Ames and Samuel Haven of Dedham, Horatio Townsend of Medfield, Thomas Williams of Rox- bury, Edward Hutchinson Robbins of Dorchester and Asaph Churchill of Milton. There had been a time, under colonial government, when lawyers were forbidden in Dedham.
As a matter of fact, the representatives from Dedham in 1786, a full decade after the Revolutionary War, were instructed as follows:
The Order of Lawyers-We are not inattentive to the almost universally pre- vailing complaints against the practice of the order of lawyers, and many of us too sensibly feel the effects of their unreasonable and extravagant exactions; we think their practices pernicious and their mode unconstitutional. You will there- fore endeavor that such regulations be introduced into our courts of law that such restraints be laid on the order of lawyers as that we may have recourse to the laws and find our security and not our ruin in them. If, upon a fair discus- sion and mature deliberation, such a measure should appear impracticable, you are to endeavor that the order of lawyers be totally abolished, an alternative preferable to their continuing in their present mode.
The wooden jail, erected in 1795, was in use until 1833, although a new stone jail was built in 1817, and at the same time a house for the keeper. The wooden jail's further use was as a house of correction, until the erection of a new brick building on the site in 1833. The jail and keeper's house, erected in 1817, were of stone. The jail was thirty-three feet square and eighteen feet in height. It was in use until 1851, and was that year removed to make room for the structure which succeeded it. The stone house for the keeper stood until 1880.
The present court house dates back to July 4, 1825. White granite from Dover was transported the eight intervening miles, and a Gre- cian structure erected, ninety-eight feet long and forty feet wide, with porticos at either end, having four Doric columns, three feet and ten inches in diameter at the base and twenty-one feet high. It was com- pleted and dedicated February 20, 1827. The High School addition
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GENESIS OF NORFOLK COUNTY
was erected in 1861 and, with its surmounting dome, changed the ap- pearance of the building greatly.
The old court house in Dedham, a noted landmark, is said to have been one of the best imitations of the models of antiquity in the United States. Situated on a beautiful green, containing more than two acres, the edifice, of hewn white granite, was ninety-eight feet long and forty- eight feet wide, with a projection at each end, ten feet from the main body of the building, resting on four Doric pillars, which were twenty- one feet high. The whole building showed graceful lines, just pro- portions, had an appearance of stability as befits a temple of justice. The architect was Samuel Willard of Boston. The material was Ded- ham granite, procured from a quarry about eight miles away.
There was some dissatisfaction in the make-up of Norfolk County, notably in the case of the town of Weymouth which preferred to be- long to Suffolk County, as Dedham seemed a long way from Wey- mouth when a visit to the county seat was occasioned. After the Revolutionary War, when the question of forming a county was under consideration, some of the towns had one preference and some another, but the General Court placed the towns south of Boston in Norfolk County, as far as the Plymouth County line. August 26, 1793, a com- mittee was appointed in the town of Weymouth to petition the General Court to have the town set off from Norfolk County and reannexed to Suffolk County, but the movement was unsuccessful.
At one time it was proposed to make Medfield the shire town. Ob- jection was made by the inhabitants of Medfield on the ground that holding court would divert the attention of the inhabitants from in- dustry.
Norfolk County has not escaped the variations in county lines, the give and take occasioned by growth of individual towns and changes suggested by public convenience and necessity, which is true of all counties in Massachusetts. As far back as 1868, Hyde Park, now one of the wards of the city of Brockton, was taken from Dorchester, Ded- ham and Milton, and incorporated as a town. This was April 22, 1868.
The town of Norfolk was made up of portions of Wrentham, Frank- lin, Medway and Walpole. The date of its incorporation was Feb- ruary 23, 1870. Just two years later, February 23, 1872, the town of Norwood was incorporated out of territory previously parts of Ded- ham and Walpole. One week later, February 29, 1872, Holbrook was taken from Randolph and made a separate town, as a Leap Year pro- position. Wellesley was the next new town, taken from Needham, and incorporated April 6, 1881.
The population of the county in 1880 was 70,922 and the number
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of square miles of territory was 445. Roxbury, West Roxbury and Dorchester were originally included in Norfolk County but became annexed to Boston, bringing them back into Suffolk County, out of which Norfolk County was taken March 26, 1793.
Recollections of Old Dorchester and Roxbury-No attempt can be made in a volume given to the history of Norfolk County to go into details concerning the political commotions, and the military activities, in which Roxbury and Dorchester were concerned before and during the Revolution. "The Burying Ground Redoubt" was the first de- fensive construction. It protected the road to Dorchester and the en- trance of Boston. During the eleven months of the siege of Boston the brunt was borne by Roxbury. Belknap, the historian, writing in October, 1775, said: "Nothing struck me with more horror than the present condition of Roxbury. .. The houses are deserted, the windows taken out, and many shot-holes visible. Some have been burnt and others pulled down, to make room for the fortifications."
Dorchester was the home of Rev. Increase Mather and Judge William Stoughton who presided at the witchcraft trails. Having these two men as citizens brought the town prominently into the pro- vincial period. Dorchester had no other part in the witchcraft craze than furnishing the stern judge or, as Palfrey describes him, a "rich, atrabilious bachelor, one of those men to whom it seems to be a neces- sity of nature to favor oppressive and insolent pretensions, to resent every movement for freedom and humanity as an impertinence and affront."
The early history, colonial and provincial, of Norfolk County's early towns was much the same and not unlike that of the Plymouth Colony, which has been fittingly described in a previous volume. Bounties were paid for crows and blackbirds, bells were rung at nine o'clock each night, men were selected to keep people awake in the meeting- houses and to whip the dogs out, also handle the boys roughly if they behaved like boys. Much of the time of early town meetings was given to settling small matters concerning the churches. Much con- cern was given to punishing everybody for everything and most people had their days in the stocks. It was a gala day when there was such an occurrence as, on May 28, 1661, when "Judah Browne and Peter Pierson, Quakers, tied to a carts tail and whipt through the town with 10 stripes after receiving 20 at Boston, and again 10 stripes at Dedham."
The Massachusetts Bay colonists are described by J. R. Green as not "broken men, adventurers, bankrupts, criminals or simply poor men and artisans. They were in great part, men of the professions
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GENESIS OF NORFOLK COUNTY
and middle classes, some of them men of large landed estates; some zealous clergymen, some shrewd London lawyers, or young scholars from Oxford .... driven from their fatherland not by earthly want or by greed of gold or by lust of advanture, but by the fear of God and the zeal of godly worship."
The Massachusetts Bay Colony began with the arrival of fifty or or more persons with John Endicott in 1628. The following year five ships brought approximately four hundred settlers. Most of them were servants, bent on bettering their condition in a new country. By the end of 1629, nearly one thousand persons prepared to leave England in seventeen ships, before the winter of 1630. Of early Norfolk County there were two settlements, one at Dorchester and the other at Roxbury. Six other settlements included Salem, Charlestown, Boston, Watertown, Mystic and Lynn. By 1652, the colony included fifty thousand persons, of this number 35,000 coming the last nine years.
In contrast to this rapid growth, Plymouth, settled by seventy-three males and twenty-nine females, had half the number die the first winter. The next fall thirty-five mone settlers arrived.
Thomas Weston and sixty-seven others settled in Weymouth in May, 1622. Most of them returned to England the following year.
Another group arrived and set up housekeeping at Wessagussett in 1623, but within a year had returned to England or had become scattered.
In 1628 there were a few squatters at Nantasket, Noddle's Island and Wassagussett and other small groups at Plymouth, Salem, Chelsea, Thompson's Island, Boston and Charlestown, using the pres- ent-day names.
In 1630 there were only about three hundred in the Plymouth Col- ony. They had a hard time but they came to stay. Captain Jones of the "Mayflower" sought in vain to induce one of the women to returns as ship's cook.
Some of the Winthrop party, under the lead of William Pyncheon, were early settlers of Roxbury, of Norfolk County later. July 10, 1630, John Craft, son of Griffin Craft, was born. Dorchester was settled June 6, 1630, Old Style, and Roxbury about the same time. Of course both were under the same general government. John Craft was prob- ably the first child of English parentage born in the territory which has been a part of Norfolk County. Roxbury was annexed to Boston, January 5, 1868, and Dorchester was annexed to Boston Janu- ary 3, 1870, but both had been settled before the town of Boston. Of course when they became annexed to Boston they went out of Nor- folk County and became a part of Suffolk County. Roxbury had been
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PLYMOUTH, NORFOLK AND BARNSTABLE
in Suffolk County once before and was transferred to Norfolk County June 20, 1793. The same was true of Dorchester.
Rev. Samuel J. Barrows, in a chapter which he wrote for the "Me- morial History of Boston," said: "Had not the waters of Dorchester Bay been more shallow than those on the other side of Dorchester Heights, we should probably have had to record the annexation of Boston to Dorchester instead of the reverse. In fact there are many of the old residents of the place who prefer to consider the annexation in that light."
Dorchester was the first settled town in Suffolk County, to say nothing of Norfolk County. At a meeting of the Court of Assistants, September 7, 1630, it was ordered the "Trimountaine shalbe called Boston; Mattapan, Dorchester; and the towns vpon Charles River, Watertown."
The second shipload of emigrants from England arrived from Wey- mouth, England, in July, 1633, and landed at Dorchester, giving that town the distinction of priority of growth as well as priority of settle- ment. This second ship brought eighty passengers who settled in Dorchester. Dorcester was the largest or wealthiest town in Mas- sachusetts in those days and Prince says "in all military musters or civil assemblies where dignity is regarded, Dorchester used to have the precedence."
"New England's Prospect" was the earliest typographical account of the Massachusetts colony. In it, the first printed description of Rox- bury reads: "A mile from town (Dorchester) lieth Roxberry, which is a faire and handsome countrey town, the inhabitants of it being all very rich ... up westward from the town it is something rocky, whence it hath the name of Roxberry."
The diary and records of Eliot, Sewall, Winthrop, Danforth and others are still in the possession of Roxbury. From one of these diaries we learn how the punishment was made to fit the crime in a certain instance in the old town. The entry is under date of July 12, 1681 : "Mr. Lamb's negro in a discontent set her masters house on fire in the dead of night and also Mr. Swans. One girl was burned and all the rest had much ado to escape with their lives." September 22, the incendiary, a women, was publicly burned to death in Boston,-"the first to suffer such a penalty in New England."
"The Free Schoole in Roxburie" originated in 1642. Samuel Hag- burne left a bequest of twenty shillings per annum, "when Roxburie shall set up a free schoole in the towne." Some sixty of the more well- to-do-inhabitants, "out of their religious care of posteritie," agreed to make certain annual payments for a term of years, in 1645. John
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GENESIS OF NORFOLK COUNTY
Eliot was active in the establishment of this school as he was in every good work. It became the "Roxbury .Latin School," one of the most richly endowed institutions of learning in New England and having a rich legacy of historical lore. In ten generations the Rox- bury boys have obtained from it an excellent start in life. Of the alumni it might be said that no New England town can show a more distinguished roll.
It is claimed that the first special town meeting in New England was held in Dorchester, and that the first Dorchester record book is the oldest town record in Massachusetts. It covers the period from January, 1632, to 1720. One important item, in the records dated May 30, 1639, laid a tax upon Thompson's Island "for the maintenance of a school in Dorchester." It is claimed that this was the first provision made for a free public school. Thompson's Island had been granted to the inhabitants of Dorchester by act of the General Court, March 4, 1634.
Their first public provision made for a free school in America "by a direct tax or assessment on the inhabitants of the town" was to be paid to "such a schoole-master as shall undertake to teach English, latine, and other tongues, and also writing." The elders and seven men for the time being were to decide "whether maydes shalbe taught w'th the boyes or not."
Individual bequests were made later for the support of the free school, the legacy of John Clapp in 1655, that of Christopher Gibson in 1630, and one hundred and fifty pounds given by Lieutenant-governor Stoughton. Although these funds were made over to the city of Bos- ton when Dorchester was annexed, the income from them is still ap- propriated for the general purposes mentioned in the bequests.
Dorchester is given generous mention in this history from the fact of its importance in ways already mentioned and many others, and from the fact that as early as 1637 Dorchester occupied all the ground at present attributed to it and in addition the limits of the towns of Milton, Canton, Stoughton, Sharon, Foxborough and a part of Wrent- ham, covering a length of thirty-five miles, from Boston to within one hundred and sixty rods of the Rhode Island line. For a description of the town about that time, we quote from Wood's "New England's Prospect," of 1633: "the greatest town in New England, well wooded and watered; very good arable grounds and hay-ground; fair corn fields and pleasant gardens; with kitchen gardens. In this plantation is a great many cattle, as kine, goats and swine."
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