USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 36
USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 36
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 36
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The first settlement in Braintree was in 1625, when it was called Mount Wollaston. In its early days it included Quincy and Randolph. Braintree was incorporated in 1640.
Brookline, once a cow pasture for Boston in the time when the corn was growing, belonged to Boston until 1705. Elsewhere is told how there was an agreement by which Brookline, or Muddy River Hamlet as it was once called, was freed from the burden of taxes as a sort of special grant from Boston.
In the days when Dorchester included Canton, Foxborough, Sharon and Stoughton, the south precinct of Dorchester was what is now called Canton. It became the first parish of Stoughton, as the latter was in- corporated in 1726 and Canton not until 1797, four years after the naming of Norfolk County. In Canton is the Massachusetts Hospital School for crippled children.
Cohasset was originally a part of Hingham, now in Plymouth County, but was incorporated in 1770.
Ten years after the original settlement of Mount Wollaston, now Braintree, there was a settlement made ten miles southwest from Boston, and thirty-five miles northwest from Plymouth, to give the distances from the original Pilgrim and Puritan strongholds in the early days. This settlement, in 1635, was called Dedham and became the shire town of Norfolk County.
Dorchester, once an important part of Norfolk County, was incorpo- rated in 1630, having a settlement of considerable importance before Ded- ham was settled. At various times it became annexed to Boston. Dover was a part of Dedham but had ambitions to be incorporated as a sepa- rate precinct, which was accomplished in 1748. It was incorporated as a town in 1784.
There was a part of Wrentham, Walpole and Stoughton which com-
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plied with the requirements of that time to be given separate existence and so was incorporated as the town of Foxborough. This section had a settlement previous to 1700. The Foxborough State Hospital is located here with Dr. Albert C. Thomas as superintendent.
When Benjamin Franklin was in France, representing the colonies, in 1778, a part of Wrentham was set apart as a new town which chose to take the name of the brilliant colonist. It had been a distinct parish since 1737, but, even at the time of incorporation as a town, did not possess a bell to summon the inhabitants on the Sabbath. 'A Boston friend wrote to Dr. Franklin, suggesting that he present the new town which had taken his name with such a calling force for the new meeting-house under process of erection. Dr. Franklin responded that "he presumed the people in Franklin were more fond of sense than of sound; and accordingly presented them with a handsome donation of books for the use of the parish," accordingly to Smalley's "Centenniel Sermon."
Medfield is one of the towns which was originally a part of Dedham and Medway was a part of Medfield. Medfield was incorporated in 1650. Medway was incorporated in 1713. A State hospital for mental diseases is located at Medfield.
In 1662, the town of Dorchester voted that Unquety should be a township and it was incorporated as the town of Milton in that year. The Indian name of the localty was Uncataquisset, so it is supposed that the vote of Dorchester meant the same thing, although the spelling varies considerably.
Another town, taken out of original Dedham, was Needham, incor- porated under that name in 1771.
Although Braintree is given as the oldest town in Norfolk County, the scene of the first settlement was in what is now called Quincy, a town taken out of Braintree. Quincy is the only city in Norfolk County, famous for having been the birthplace of two of the early presidents of the United States and for various other things of importance.
Braintree gave up another portion of its territory when Randolph was incorporated in 1793. The town took its name in honor of the first president of the American Congress, Peyton Randolph of Virginia.
Roxbury, a town which became annexed to Boston and so became a part of Suffolk County, relinquished its Norfolk County membership much to the regret of the other towns. It was incorporated in 1630.
The first parish of Stoughton became Canton and the second parish was incorporated as Stoughtonham in 1765. It changed its name to Sharon a little later. It is in that town, that Deborah Sampson, heroine of the American Revolution, lived during her married life, the wife of Benjamin Gannett. A monument in Sharon marks her resting place.
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She was a native of Plympton in Plymouth County. A story of her enlistment, under the name of Robert Shurtleff, is given in the volume of this history referring to Plymouth County. Sharon is also the town in which is located the bird sanctuary maintained by the Massachusetts Audubon Society at Moose Hill.
As has already been stated, Stoughton was originally. a part of Dor- chester and from it came Foxborough, Canton and Sharon.
Walpole was incorporated in 1724. Previously it was a part of Ded- ham. It is in Walpole that the Norfolk County Agricultural School is located.
Weymouth is the town in which the second settlement in Massachu- setts by the British took place. It was there that Captain Myles Stan- dish and others fell upon unsuspecting but suspected Indians and mas- sacred them, taking back to Plymouth, for display on a pole on the fort, the head of one of the chiefs, suspected of plotting against the Pilgrims. The place was called by the Indians Wessagussett.
Wrentham was set apart from Dedham in 1661. It was incorporated as a town in 1673. The Wrentham State School is located in the town.
The town of Avon, which holds the northern gateway to Brockton, the only city in Plymouth County, was incorporated February 21, 1888, taking a part of Stoughton. Parts of Holbrook and Randolph were annexed April 16, 1889.
Millis, now a town of more than 1,800 inhabitants, was a part of Medway until February 24, 1885.
The town of Westwood was a part of Dedham until its incorporation April 2, 1897. It has a population at present exceeding 1,700 inhabitants with a total valuation of more than $4,000,000 at the end of three dec- ades of separate existence.
The latest town to come into the Norfolk County family as a separ- ate municipality is Plainville, incorporated April 4, 1905. Previous to that date it was a part of Wrentham. Its population in 1925 was 1,512. The total valuation of real and personal property is a million and a half dollars. Less than a quarter of a century old, the town has made com- mendable progress and has modern municipal departments functioning in a way which makes the town thoroughly up-to-date and progressive.
Old Fayerbankes House In Dedham-The oldest house in Norfolk County and one of the oldest in New England, is the Fayerbankes House in Dedham. It was erected in 1636, the year Dedham was founded. "The sturdy race of Fairbanks through eight generations have been born, have lived and died in this quaint old house." It was built by Jonathan Fairbanks, the ancestor of the family in America. He came to Boston in 1633 and three years later moved to Dedham and
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built the house. It is in three sections. The middle part has a pitch roof extending down over the lean-to at the back to within a few feet of the ground. There are two wings with gambrel roofs. The whole length of the house is seventy-five feet.
The first Colonial houses were of one story, with very steep roofs, built of clay, mud or hewn logs, covered with poles and thatch. Thatched roofs were early prohibited on account of danger from fire. Then came the frame buildings of two stories in front, sloping down to one story in the rear. They usually faced south. Frames and board- ing were usually of heavy oak, built to last for centuries. The Fair- banks house is a good sample. Many early houses had the second floor project beyond the wall of the first, so that the Indians might be treated to hot water or fired upon from above. Few houses were painted, even at the close of the seventeenth century.
Replica of Lincoln Log Cabin-Travelers to Denmark are sometimes taken by well-meaning guides to Elsinore and shown, in all seriousness, Hamlet's Castle, in which the melancholy Dane is supposed to have lived, stabbed Polonius, repeated his famous instruction to the court players, fought a duel with Laertes, fallen in love with Ophelia, seri- ously contemplated the relative advantages "to be or not to be," and otherwise ran the gamut of life as presented in Shakespeare's play of "Hamlet." It is a castle well worth seeing, even though Hamlet never saw it. Norfolk County is a long way from the wilderness of Kentucky but it contains a Lincoln Cabin, just like the one in which the great emancipator lived and ciphered with charcoal on a shovel. Even though not one and the same it attracted not less than 15,000 visitors last Feb- ruary.
An interesting event, annually on February 12, is the observance of Lincoln's Birthday, which is held in the log cabin replica of the Eman- cipator's birthplace, constructed in 1924 for Miss Mary Bowditch Forbes. Thomas W. Murdoch, the contractor, went to Hodgenville, Kentucky, took careful measurements and carried them out. The cabin is located at No. 215 Adams Street, Milton. Markham W. Stackpole, chaplain of the 102d Field Artillery, Twenty-sixth Division, American Expeditionary Forces, and Headmaster Stacy B. Southworth of Thayer Academy, and John Mahoney, a Milton school boy, were speak- ers in 1927.
There are a great many authentic Lincoln relics in the cabin.
On Linocoln's Birthday, in 1928, Miss Forbes entertained a large number of guests. She was assisted in receiving by Miss Helen Nic- olay of Washington, District of Columbia, daughter of Abraham Lin- coln's private secretary, John George Nicolay. Mr. Nicolay, with John
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Hay, wrote a life of Lincoln and Miss Nicolay found in her father's desk some notes from which she wrote "Personal Traits of Abraham Lin- coln," and a boy's life of Lincoln.
The speakers in 1928, at the cabin were Rev. Edward T. Sullivan of Trinity Church, Newton, and Mayor Edwin O. Childs of that city. A piece of old rail from the cabin built by John Hanks and Abraham Lin- coln in 1830, was exhibited for the first time. This cabin was shown on Boston Common in May, 1865, and among those who visited it were General Grant and staff, the mayor of Boston, and Honorable Charles Sumner.
Abraham Lincoln addressed the citizens of Dorchester on Monday evening, September 18, 1848, at Richmond Hall, in that town. That night he spent in the house at the corner of Washington and Sanford streets, Dorchester Lower Mills.
The Lincoln cabin is opened by Miss Forbes on Memorial Day each year as well as on Lincoln's Birthday.
Society Has Sung A Century and A Half-The Stoughton Musical Society is said to be the oldest musical organization of its kind in Amer- ica. Notable men of Norfolk County came together on November 7, 1786, and organized and adopted a constitution, in which it was set forth that "every member shall behave with Decency, Politeness and Dig- nity ; and whosoever behaves disorderly shall be punished according to the nature of his offense, as the society shall order."
The first president was Elijah Dunbar, and a history of the society shows that he remained in office until 1806. He was succeeded by Cap- tain Samuel Talbot, one of the original members, by whom the presi- dency was held until 1818. Captain Talbot had been vice-president from the date of organization. The original secretary or registrar was Lieutenant Samuel Capen.
The first singing book used by the society was the "Worcester Col- lection," the first type music published in America, by Isaiah Thomas. In 1829 the society issued its own publication, "The Stoughton Collec- tion." The book was from the press of Marsh & Capen in Boston, and ran through several editions, being the textbook for the society many years. The society again published a singing book called "The Cen- tennial Collection," in 1878, with the assistance of Oliver Ditson.
The old constitution had answered the purpose very well and the members behaved "with decency, politeness and dignity," for the most part, but in 1787, a new constitution was adopted. Lest there be any mistaken ideas, the preamble set forth the consistency of man cultiva- ting the voice, since he was "of that elevated rank of beings capable of sending forth the praise of God."
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When it came time for a new generation to add its conviction, the constitution was changed in 1801, and the preamble asserted that the study and practice of vocal music was a "Divine institution, promotive of friendship and sociability." There have been some revisions since.
The society has lost none of its popularity as it has come down through one generation after another. It is still popular and its mem- bers are proud of their affiliation. The old "tunes" are sung with zest at the annual meeting and other gatherings by descendants of those who used the tone "pitch forks" in olden days.
Society in Dedham For the Apprehension of Horse Thieves is the name of an organization which has also come down from the long ago, is still a going concern, has its annual meetings and includes among its members those who are prominent in the social, industrial and his- torical affairs of the shire town and the county in general.
It is the oldest society of its kind in the United States, having been founded in 1810, when Dedham included the present towns of Norwood and Westwood. In those days horse stealing was common, or, at least, too frequent to be looked upon with impunity. Many such or- ganizations were formed in country communities for mutual protection.
The first treasurer was Eliphalet Baker and he seems to have been the most prominent official.
In 1868 the society was re-organized upon a permanent and business basis with Sanford Carroll as president. For many years the society has been a purely social affair. There have been suggestions that it modify its purposes to include apprehension of poultry or automobile thieves, or both, but the members believe in holding to the traditions of the founders and specializing in their endeavor.
At the one hundred and seventeenth annual banquet and business meeting at Dedham, December 7, 1927, Frederick C. Cobb, the presi- dent, spoke interestingly from old records which he had on hand for exhibition. Mr. Cobb is treasurer of Norfolk County.
Weymouth Agricultural and Industrial Society - This society dates back to 1863, when George H. Bates of South Weymouth obtained an option on a tract of land bordering on Old Swamp River and a new road from the village to Mosquito Plain, with the intention of building a race track. Others became interested and suggested that the track be built for public use and an agricultural society formed. A meeting for organization was held October 31, 1864. John L. Bates became the first president, Henry F. Woodman recording secretary, and George H. Bates, corresponding secretary.
Fairgrounds were purchased and the first kite-shaped track in the country laid out by Quincy L. Reed. The first fair was held Septem-
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ber 20 and 21, 1865, and was a grand success. The succeeding fairs have been educational along agricultural and industrial lines, and horse racing has been one of the leading attractions. Several Massachusetts governors have attended the fairs in various years. For many years entertainments were held at the fairgrounds every Fourth of July. The first coaching and trade parade of the society was given in 1903.
Plym-63
CHAPTER LII INDUSTRIAL RISE AND DEVELOPMENT
British Army Officer From Boston Garrison Assisted in Establishing Paper-making in Milton-Driving the Bell Cart For Old Rags-Car- nival of Spinsters on Boston Common-Beginning of Flint Glass In- dustry in Dorchester-First Cotton Factory With Power Loom In Massachusetts Set Up In Canton-Paul Revere Refused Monopoly On Copper Manufacture-Deliberate Falsehood in a Bible-Straw Bonnets-Shipbuilding, From Colonial Crafts to Warships-First Railroad In America Built To Develop Granite Industry and Build Bunker Hill Monument-Marvelous Engineering Feat at Minot's Ledge-Stories of Craftsmen and Early Leaders Told in Sermons on Stones.
When one contemplates a record from the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, or the landing of the Puritans at Salem, including as many other little landings as pleases his fancy-Cuttyhunk and Mount Wollaston, for instance-he still finds that the record does not extend very far back as the world wags. Nor need he be especially surprised to find that it was during the first generation after these "landings" that great industries were begun which are still going concerns, im- portant in the industrial development and magnificence of Massachu- setts. Governor William Bradford and Captain Myles Standish of Pilgrim fame, representing the State and military affairs of their time, seriously proposed the building of Cape Cod Canal and its ownership by the government, which was started on the "Mayflower." It was three hundred years before it was completed, and the last yard of red tape incidental to its being owned by the government has not been en- rolled and definitely pinned at the time this chapter is being written in 1928.
Shipbuilding, the manufacturing of boots, shoes and leather products in general, iron working, brick and glass making and printing were recognized industries before 1650 and existed on quite a secure footing. Shoes became a product for export within ten years after the settlement of Boston.
The Legislature of the Province of Massachusetts Bay extended aid and encouragement to those who sought to develop industrial enter- prises, but the government in England did not look with favor upon the upbuilding of any industry which would have a tendency to make the
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colonists independent of the commercialism of Britain in any sense. The export trade of the colonies was limited to Great Britain, with few exceptions, as a matter of English law.
The colonists were permitted to export a few articles to certain des- ignated parts of Europe, Africa and the West Indies. Permission to deal with the West Indies was of great advantage to the colonists in Massachusetts. Agricultural products, rum, fish and lumber were ex- changed for West India goods which were sold in all the stores carry- ing on a general store business. Only a few years ago original signs appeared over the doors of aged buildings which had been used as gen- eral stores since colonial times, announcing that English and West In- dia goods were sold there.
Among other industries which the Provincial Legislature encour- aged with fostering care was linen manufacture. A law was passed granting a duty to be levied upon carriages of all kinds for the benefit of the proprietors or managers of the linen manufacture, to aid them in getting suitable land and buildings to carry on spinning, weaving and other parts of linen manufacture in Boston. An early record says : "Great show and parade were exhibited on the Common at its com- mencement. Spinning wheels were then the hobby horses of the pub- lick. The females of the town, rich and poor, appeared on the Common with their wheels, and vied with each other in the dexterity of using them."
The Manufactory House, as it was called, was erected on Longacre Street to house the industry, but it had no permanent success. House- hold industries supplied most of the needs previous to the Revolution. Every member of the family was taught to employ his or her time, and they naturally grew up thrifty and economical. A New England boy with a jack-knife and the wealth of primeval forests for material might well say, with the Count of Monte Cristo, "The world is mine." With it he fashioned his toys and it entered substantially into construction of most of his possessions as youth and man. The Yankee whittlers became proverbial. When President Coolidge remarked, near the close of his term in 1928 that, following his presidential duties, he guessed he would whittle for a while, it did not mean to an understanding New Englander that he intended to be idle.
Most farm implements were made of wood. When Governor Brad- ford and Captain Myles Standish proposed building the Cape Cod Canal there was not an iron shovel in the country. John Tomson, who mar- ried a daughter of Francis Cooke of the "Mayflower," had a grandson, Ebenezer, who was one of the first to have a wooden shovel pointed or shod with iron. It was considered a great improvement and was greatly in demand by the borrowing neighbors.
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Goodwin, in his "Pilgrim Republic," page 589, says: "Probably not one of the Pilgrms ever saw a fork used at table." The first table fork brought to America was in 1633 for Governor Winthrop. It was in a leather case with a knife and bodkin.
In the time referred to, that the fair spinsters of Boston and vi- cinity met on Boston Common and spun on a wager from sunrise to sunset, they were merely doing in the open air what the "female of the species" was doing generally in the colonial kitchens. Flax and hemp were planted as regularly as corn and beans in the spring and in June or July were carefully dried. After going through many proc- esses, twenty or more for flax, it was ready for spinning on the wheels. The spinning of two skeins of linen thread was a commend- able day's work.
Deborah Sampson, the Revolutionary heroine, was one of the best spinners of linen and worsteds. She spun the material from which she fashioned her suit of boy's clothes in which she masqueraded and enlisted as Robert Shurtleff.
The Neponset River afforded a good water power and sites for manufacturing establishments in great variety. The first water mill in this country were erected on the Neponset River in 1633. In 1805 a company which had been incorporated in 1789, completed the Mid- dlesex Canal and this brought other important industries into opera- tion.
A man named White began the manufacture of carriages in Dor- chester in 1805. It has been claimed that Mr. White built, at Dorches- ter, the first carriage made in the United States. This could not be true, unless it meant a particular kind of carriage, as such vehicles were made in Philadelphia in 1790 and in New York even before the Revolution.
In 1810 soap and candle factories in Roxbury employed a capital of $100,000. The manufacture of tin, japanned and plated ware was also in successful operation there. There was a nail factory a few years later which employed seventy-five persons and manufactured one thousand tons of nails, valued at $120,000. Carpets and India rubber cloth were made. Cotton, chairs and cabinet ware and paper were being manufactured in Dorchester at an early date.
Thomas Cains has been called the father of the flint glass manu- facture in America. He had a six-put furnace in operation in Dor- chester, now South Boston, in 1811. Out of twenty-one glass furnaces in the United States in 1831, for the manufacture of flint glass, six were in Boston and immediate vicinity.
Harrison Loring, one of the Loring family of Duxbury, whose sum- mer home was what is now the Bay View Farm in Duxbury, began
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the manufacture of stationary and marine engines and other machinery at South Boston in 1847. Later he engaged in shipbuilding there.
A machine shop was started in Roxbury in 1843 by J. C. Pratt, His successors, Chubbuck and Campbell, constructed the first tubular boiler made in this part of the country.
The Howard Watch Company which daily gives, over the radio, the exact time, may hark back to 1850, when Edward Howard and others began the manufacture of watches at Roxbury, as the "War- ren Manufacturing Company."
During the first generation of the nineteenth century, practically one hundred years ago, cotton mills were in operation at Bellingham, Braintree, Canton, Dedham, Dorchester, Foxborough, Franklin, Med- field, Medway, Milton, Needham, Sharon, Stoughton, Walpole, and Wrentham. In most of these towns it was the principal industry and in some of them woolen goods were also manufactured. Carpets were included among the manufactures in Roxbury and some other towns. Many of the towns manufactured boots and shoes, as they do; now. Quincy and Randolph were early prominent in the boot and shoe bus- iness and sent their product by vessels to many distant ports. Con- siderable detail of Randolph's pioneering and importance in making boots and shoes is contained in the chapter regarding the footwear industry in that portion of this work devoted more especially to Plym- outh County.
The manufacture of shovels, nails and other iron products has been carried on more or less the past century in most of the Norfolk County towns. In 1837 in Braintree making these things, with cotton, satinet, paper and chocolate, were the principal industries. Considerable gran- ite was exported. Shipbuilding was carried on to a large extent.
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