USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 42
USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 42
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 42
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There were other taverns and inns at Weymouth, Cohasset and Quincy, seaport towns in Norfolk County which were engaged in early shipbuilding and fishing industries.
A leading inn in a large seaport town presented a scene of great variety and animation. It combined the functions of the modern hotel, club, railway station,
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and exchange. It was a rendezvous for merchants and ship-captains, as well as for politicians and officials of all kinds. Social meetings, dances, and entertainments took place in its assembly room. Stage passengers and their friends were con- tinually coming and going.
In 1801, as we learn from the Almanac, King's Tavern, in Market Square, Boston, was the "terminal" for the stages for Albany, New York, Portsmouth, Amherst, Providence, Plymouth, Salem, Taunton and New Bedford, Dorchester and Milton, Dedham, Groton, Quincy and Canton. Some of these ran daily (Sundays excepted), others three times a week, a few once a week. The bustle of arrival and departure must have been almost continuous.
CHAPTER LV
DEFENSE AND LEARNING UNIVERSALLY GUARDED
Early Militia Had to Keep Its Powder Dry, Watch the Loyalist and Be Ready for Whatever Happened-Stoning the British-A One- Man Navy-General Tupper's Test of Bravery-Burial of Captain Jonathan Alden-Education the Real Safeguard of the Nation-John Adams Graduated from Ditching-College and Academies-Begin- ning of Normal Schools-"Nature Method" of Instruction-First Woman Poet, First Woman Minister-Forerunner of Tabloids-Nor- folk County Newspapers.
The early colonists literally started life in America with the Bible for a guide and a gun for defense, and history shows that they had plenty of need for both. The church and the town meeting were es- sentially New England, as President John Adams said on one occasion. Next to those institutions was the local militia, dating back to the stand- ing army at Plymouth, with Captain Myles Standish as commander-in- chief. Those who served as officers in the militia companies were the leading men of the communities. They led the militant citizenry against the Indians, the French in defense of English sovereignty in the New World, and the English when the time came to teach the mother country the truth of what Benjamin Franklin had in mind when he originated the cartoon of the snake and the motto "Don't tread on me." Training greens and parade grounds were established in various towns, and spring training was an institution and a duty.
John Adams wrote in a letter to a friend : "The American States have owed their existence to the militia for more than two hundred years. Neither school nor town meetings have been more essential to the for- mation and character of the nation than the militia." The Colonial law provided that all from sixteen to sixty should serve in the local militia unless they were "timorous persons." By act of the Continental Con- gress in 1775, "all able bodied men between sixteen and fifty in each colony should form themselves into regular companies of militia." It was expected that one-fourth of the number should be "minute men." Borrowing a term from Cromwell's Army, the State was organized into companies called the "train band." Those who were above the militia requirement up to fifty were in the "alarm list" unless they were sixty- five. All must be ready at the call of the governor. Governor Hinckley, in 1689, reported that, besides the commissioned officers there were in the
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"train band" five hundred and ninety able, effective men of the colony.
The militia equipment called for a good firearm with steel or iron ramrod and worm, priming wire and brush, a bayonet fitted to the gun, a cartridge box holding at least fifteen rounds of ammunition, six flints, one pound of powder, forty leaden bullets, a haversack, blanket, can- teen to hold one quart.
Following the War of 1812, each company had a fife, drums, and sometimes clarinets and bugles, and the uniforms and equipment were much more suitable and pretentious than in earlier years.
Loyalists of the Revolution-According to the "Memorial History of Boston," John Adams was inclined to believe that in the colonies-at- large not more than two-thirds were against the Crown at the breaking out of the Revolution. The last vote that showed the strength of the Loyalists in the town of Boston was in 1775, when the vote stood five against two. "Of the three hundred and ten persons who were banished from the country and their estates confiscated, over sixty were grad- uates of Harvard College."
Sabin, in his "American Loyalists," estimates that there were in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, more than two thousand Loyalists, for the most part wealthy, influential and professional men of the colony. He says: "Upwards of eleven hundred retired in a body with the royal army at the evacuation of Boston." One hundred and five were inhab- itants of country towns, Norfolk County, and elsewhere in the vicinity of Boston. Not all the Loyalists, or those known to be in sympathy with the British cause, were proscribed or banished. Neither were their estates confiscated, as people in the towns had confidence in their integrity. They were put under surveillance of the town authorities, and the militia had a responsibility at home harder to deal with than when they were ordered against those unqualifiedly enemies in the field.
When the Loyalists, or Tories, as they were usually called by the pa- triots, were known to give aid and comfort to the enemy or to furnish information to the English soldiers, they were dealt with much as the Quakers, Baptists and Ann Hutchinson had been dealt with. The rem- edy was likely to be swift, ungentle and effective.
Militia Engaged In Watchful Waiting -- Neither before nor after the Revolution were the general resources of America wasted by the main- tenance of fleets and armies. These were among the British institu- tions and practices which the Separatists had come over to get away from. The Americans undertook to conduct their affairs on principles directly the reverse of those by which the Old World in preceding ages had been guided. They entertained no purposes of aggression and the
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DEFENSE AND LEARNING GUARDED
maintenance of the militia served to protect them from their neighbors and unruly members of their own constituency.
Europe lay at the feet. and mercy of a few proud and powerful fam- ilies for the protection and glorification of which enormous multitudes of armed men were employed in devastating wars. Industry of toiling millions, and the rewards which should have been theirs, were subject to this handicap and withholding, to cater to the unholy ambitions and self-will of the nobility. The Americans were, perhaps, the only peo- ple who had comprehended what it was all about sufficiently to take a stand against it and had no intention of incorporating such a plan in the American scheme of things.
When resistance to British aggression became inevitable, the larger towns in the county had their militia companies. In Dedham there were five companies of militia. In addition there were "minute-men" and an association of veterans of the French wars. A convention was held in that town and prudential measures were adopted on current af- fairs. Delegates attended from the various towns in the county.
Powder and bullets were purchased and stored in safe places. Some- times these places were beneath the pulpits in the meeting-houses. Town meetings were held and it was voted in most of them to pledge their lives and fortunes in the cause of liberty. Strangely enough one of these town meetings, in the town of Bellingham, was held July 4, 1776. That date had no special significance when the warrants were posted for the call, but it was at that meeting, at almost the precise hour that the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed in Philadel- phia, that the following vote was passed :
"In case the Honorable Continental Congress should find it neces- sary for the safety of the United Colonies to declare them independent of Great Britain, the inhabitants of this town with their lives and for- tunes will cheerfully support them in the measure."
The town of Wrentham had taken action unanimously a month be- fore and declared it in substantially the same words. In fact, Septem- ber 15, 1774, soon after the encampment of General Gage on Boston Common, Wrentham voted to buy two cannon "of the size and bigness most proper and beneficial for the town."
Each town voted measures which were literally acts of treason to- ward the old country. By the time the blood was shed at Lexington all of the towns were ready with men and ammunition.
Distinct Types of Patriots-The spirit of 1776 lived in Captain John Parker who refused to disperse at the British command on Lexington Common. It lived in Joseph Bates, of Cohasset, who marched to Bos- ton to join the army and fought at Bunker Hill. When the Americans
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were obliged to retreat after their ammunition had become exhausted, Bates caught up stones and hurled at the on-coming, well-armed British until death put an end to his patriotic zeal.
Another patriot of Cohasset declared he would have one shot at the enemy in the War of 1812. Alone he rowed toward the British fleet in his ducking punt and fired a shot with good effect. He was taken prisoner and died in Halifax jail.
In June, 1814, a British man-of-war sent a flotilla of barges to burn the shipping of Scituate and Cohasset. Captain Peter Lothrop was in his bed when aroused by a messenger from Scituate. He mounted his horse without a saddle and, without coat or hat, rode through Cohasset village and aroused the inhabitants. When the British appeared they found a redoubt at White-Head, thrown up by the men of Cohasset. The fleet withdrew and the militia of the vicinity garrisoned White- Head for three months.
In the Mound Cemetery at Sharon there is a monument upon which can be deciphered :
General Benjamin Tupper, Born at Sharon, Massachusetts, in 1738; died June 7, 1792, Aged Fifty-one.
The story of Benjamin Tupper is interesting and typical of the days in which he lived half a century. As a boy, he learned the trade of a tanner at Roxbury. He served in several campaigns of the French and Indian War; returned home and taught school in Easton. There he met and married Huldah White and took his bride to Chesterfield, then a frontier town.
Soon after the Lexington engagement, he joined the army at Rox- bury as captain of a company and won promotion to major. Ordered to proceed with his men to Boston Harbor and prevent the erection of the lighthouse by the British, he marched his command to Dorchester and halted them while he announced that they were about to drive the British from the island.
"If there are any of you afraid and unwilling to go, let him step two paces to the front," commanded the major.
Turning to the sergeant he commanded, in an undertone but not too low to be heard by the three hundred men before him:
"If any man steps two paces to the front, shoot him on the spot."
Every man held his position and later obeyed marching orders. Whale- boats took the command down the Neponset River and to the light- house, in process of being rebuilt, arriving there at two o'clock in the morning. The Guard was attacked and the officers and four privates
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DEFENSE AND LEARNING GUARDED
killed. The remainder of the British troops were captured and the lighthouse destroyed.
The fracas had attracted the attention of the British in the vicinity and they came in boats and made an attack. One of the enemy boats was sunk with a fieldpiece and fifty-three of the enemy were killed or captured. Major Tupper's loss was one man killed and one wounded.
Among the captured were ten Tories who were sent to jail in Spring- field.
The next day General Washington, in general orders, thanked Major Tupper and those under his command for their gallantry and soldierly behavior.
Major Tupper was appointed colonel of a Massachusetts regiment in 1776. While at Valley Forge camp in the memorable winter of 1778, he wrote a letter to the General Court of Massachusetts, telling the destitute condition of the soldiers. At the battle of Monmouth a horse under him was shot. Before the close of the war he was promoted to the rank of general by brevet.
Following the war, General Tupper was selected as one of the sur- veyors to lay out the ranges of the Northwest territory. He was pre- vented by hostile Indians the first season but returned and laid out the historic seven ranges.
Returning home, he rendered valuable assistance at the time of Shays' Rebellion. He helped form the Ohio company. His son was a sur- veyor for the company and left with the band of pioneers April 7, 1788.
General Tupper built wagons and started over the Alleghany Moun- tains and by boat reached Marietta, August 19, 1788, after a journey of ten weeks. He became one of the judges of the court and served until his death in that capacity.
The captain of a militia company was usually the prominent man of the community to whom those under his command gladly pledged their loyalty and obedience. Such was Captain Jonathan Alden, son of the Pilgrim John Alden of Duxbury. An account of his funeral appears in Winsor's "History of Duxbury" with a report of the sermon preached by Rev. Mr. Wiswall. Captain Alden was buried under arms, and members of his command gathered to pay him final honors. Said Rev. Mr. Wiswall :
As to his quality in our militia, he was a leader, and I dare say rather loved than feared of his company.
Fellow soldiers, you are come to lay your leader in the dust, to lodge him in his quiet and solemn repose. You are no more to follow him in the field. No sound of rallying drum nor shrill trumpet will awaken him till the general muster, when the Son of God will cause that trumpet to be blown whose echoes shall shake the foundations of the heavens and the earth and raise the dead.
Fellow soldiers, you have followed him into the field, appeared in your arms,
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stood your guard, marched, made ready, advanced, fired and retreated; and all at his command. You have been conformable to his military commands and postures, and it is to your credit. But, let me tell you, this day he has acted one posture before your eyes and you are all at a stand. No man stirs a foot after him. But the day is hastening, wherein you must all conform to his present posture, -- I mean, be laid in the dust.
When the county of Norfolk was set off in June, 1793, and Dedham made the shire town, a well-regulated State Militia was maintained and all the large towns and most smaller ones had local companies ready for whatever duty they might be called upon to perform. Companies of Light Infantry were formed at Walpole and some other towns, but such organizations had to proceed with care, not to reduce the number in the regular militia below the strength required by law. Records of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia show that Governor Caleb Strong ordered the entire militia to be in readiness to march at a moment's notice, September 6, 1814. This was after Boston had been threatened by the British and the war with England had long been in progress. The threatened attack upon Boston did not come, although militia com- panies in the vicinity were called out and remained until October 30, at Dorchester Heights and elsewhere in the vicinity.
There was a general reorganization of the Massachusetts Militia in 1831, at which time some of the units which had been so well manned and officered were disbanded. There have been numerous reorganiza- tions since. Every generation has contributed men of military age to take part in military duty, defined in whatever manner the demands or fears of the times required. There are in Norfolk County several State armories for militia units which are a credit to the State, county and the towns in which they assemble.
The Real Strength of the Nation-It is taken as an undebatable con- viction of the American people that "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." It is equally true that it has from earliest times been demonstrated by those who did the pioneer work, and their descendants, that they be- lieved in the schoolhouse rather than the fort as the real bulwark of liberties and in developing the unconquerable spirit. Consequently, the movement for general schooling for the people began with the settle- ments. With the new education developed the idea of individual free- dom. As President Calvin Coolidge said at the opening of the Sesqui- Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, July 5, 1926: "A new nation was born which was to be founded upon those principles, and which from that time forth in its development has actually maintained those prin- ciples, that makes this pronouncement (The Declaration of Independ- ence) an incomparable event in the history of government."
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There were at times individuals who had a vision beyond that seen by the powers that be. One must not, in the early days, go farther in his or her convictions of progress than the Congregational clergymen, or the name of that intellectual pioneer would be anathema.
Ann Hutchinson was the founder of the first woman's club in Amer- ica and it was largely for this that she was banished into the wilderness. The club criticized the theology of doctrinal sermons. The ministers were the most powerful group of men in the colonies.
The first Jew to become well known in Massachusetts, was Judah Monis, instructor of Hebrew in Harvard College in 1722. He became a Christian before receiving the appointment.
The first Jew had come to America from Holland, to New York in 1650 or 1660.
The legal system of Massachusetts was based partly upon English statute law and legal tradition and partly on the law of Moses. The Bay Colony helped itself to whatever it liked in both and ignored such parts as savored too much of English institutions from which the Puri- tans had departed mentally and physically. All marriages were per- formed without aid of clergy. Dudley and Andros confirmed all mar- riages which had been performed under Massachusetts law; but later they required that the ceremony be performed by clergymen or justices of the peace, as is required now.
It might be correct to say that Ann Hutchinson was the first woman minister in the colonies, if to preach makes one a preacher. It was not, however, until 1881, that the first woman minister was ordained to Christian ministry in this vicinity. Rev. Clara M. Bisbee, it is claimed, had the double distinction of being the first woman admitted to Harvard and the first woman to be ordained to the Christian ministry in Massa- chusetts. She died in Dorchester in March, 1927. She was born in Lunenburg, in 1848, eldest daugther of Rev. William G. Babcock, for- mer minister of the Unitarian church in that town.
After making suitable preparation she was permitted to enter the Harvard Divinity School as a visiting student and take the three-year course, but was not permitted to graduate. Later she went abroad, and was refused admission to the lectures at Heidelberg as a regular student, on the same ground which had barred her from graduating at Harvard. She was, however, permitted to sit behind a curtain and listen to the lec- tures unseen. At Heidelberg she met Rev. Herman Bisbee, a Univer- salist minister from St. Paul, Minnesota; and, after a brief courtship, they were married.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Bisbee preached for a time in London. Returning to this country, they jointly conducted services in Hawes Place Unitar- ian Chapel, Boston. Rev. Mr. Bisbee died five years later. Mrs. Bis-
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bee was ordained to the ministry but never held a pastorate. She found- ed the Boston Society for Ethical Culture.
Mrs. Bisbee may have been the first woman minister, regularly or- dained, who is identified with Norfolk County, but it seems improbable that no woman followed that profession in this vicinity in less than two hundred years after the banishment of Ann Hutchinson. The writer has made diligent inquiries to ascertain who was the first woman min- ister and has received many answers, only one of which could be true and, perhaps none. Like locating the first Sunday school in America and many other facts for which the writer has searched for purposes of this work, the quest has been interesting but the results have not been convincing. Eve has been taken for granted all down the cen- turies as the first woman but the Talmudists say that Lilith was Adam's first wife.
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw was licensed to preach by the Methodist Episcopalian denomination about 1878, and somewhat later was or- dained. She was a minister at Hingham and at Barnstable in the early years of her ministry but, so far as known, was not settled as a minister in Norfolk County although she supplied pulpits in the county on vari- ous occasions.
Some Early Private Schools-Norfolk County has had reason to be proud of the private institutions of learning which have existed from earliest times, as well as of its public school system in all the towns. In Old Braintree, there have been private schools in every generation. President John Adams attended a private school situated as he wrote "within three doors of my father's House." It was kept by Joseph Marsh. Among others who attended the same school were Josiah Quincy, Jr., and Rev. Zabdiel Adams.
The Adams Academy was endowed by John Adams in 1822. Over two hundred and twenty acres of land were given by him for the found- ing of it and the building of the "Stone Temple." He conveyed quar- ries to furnish the building material, and later the rents of these quar- ries and other lands were to be applied "for the support of a school for the teaching of the Greek and Latin languages, and any other languages, arts and sciences, which a majority of the ministers, magistrates, law- yers, and physicians, inhabiting in the said town may advise." President Adams also bequeathed his library of three thousand volumes and deeds of other lands for educational purposes, moved by the "veneration he felt for the residence of his ancestors and the place of his nativity, and the habitual affection he bore to the inhabitants with whom he had so happily lived for more than eighty-six years."
The Adams Academy was opened in September, 1872, when twenty- three pupils presented themselves. It was a school for boys.
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Dr. Ebenezer Woodward founded a school for girls. Dr. Woodward practiced medicine in Quincy from 1823 to his death, May 21, 1860. He left some over thirty thousand dollars, with the provision that when- ever the income from the accumulating fund should be sufficient, there should be established "and continue for the town of Quincy forever, a female institute for the education of females between the ages of ten and twenty years, who are native born (I wish it to be understood, in the town of Quincy, and none other than these to be allowed to attend this institute), which I wish to be as perfect and as well conducted as any other in the State."
He specified that the management should be and remain under the direction of the settled and ordained ministers of the town, and care- fully added : "I mean Catholic as well as Protestant."
It has been stated that John Adams attended a private school near his father's house. His own account of how he progressed in his school- ing was as follows :
"When I was a boy, I had to study the Latin grammar, but it was dull and I hated it. My father was anxious to send me to college, and therefore I studied grammar till I could bear it no longer, and, going to my father, I told him I did not like study, and asked for some other employment. It was opposing his wishes, and he was quick in his answer.
"Well, John," said he, "if Latin grammar does not suit, you may try ditch- ing; perhaps that will. My meadow yonder needs a ditch, and you may put by Latin, and try that."
This seemed a delightful change, and to the meadow I went. But I soon found ditching harder than Latin, and the first forenoon was the longest I ever ex- perienced. That day I ate the bread of labor, and glad was I when night came on. That night I made some comparison between Latin grammar and ditching, but said not a word about it. I dug the next forenoon, and wanted to return to Latin at dinner; but it was humiliating, and I could not do it.
At night, toil conquered pride, and I told my father-one of the severest trials of my life-that if he chose I would go back to Latin grammar. He was glad of it; and if I have since gained any distinction, it has been owing to the two days' labor in that abominable ditch.
Beautiful College For Women-Wellesley College was founded by Henry Fowle Durant, a native of New Hampshire, who was graduated from Harvard College in 1841. It was built under the personal super- vision of its founder and was opened with three hundred students Sep- tember 8, 1875, fully equipped by one individual who sought to do all the good he could in the world. Various buildings have since been erected on the extensive grounds, endowments bequeathed and addi- tions provided. Students have come from all parts of the world and from every State in the country.
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