History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 18

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & co.
Number of Pages: 1706

USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 18

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

they found this unexpected great thing. Honor to the brave and true! They verily, we say, carry fire from heaven, and have a power they dream not of. Let all men honor Puritanism, since God has so honored it."

CHAPTER II.

SETTLEMENT AT PLYMOUTH-TREATY WITH MAS- SASOIT-MERCHANT ADVENTURERS.

THE wants of the Pilgrims were abundantly met in Plymouth as a place of settlement. Depth of water for vessels of considerable draft was not needed. The visits of such vessels would not be frequent, and without wharves the existing channels were sufficient to bring even such near enough to the shore. A good boat harbor, plenty of fish (both sea and shell), eleared land, and an abundance of good drinking- water, all of which Plymouth afforded, were prime necessities which they could not fail to recognize, while the absence of the natives from the immediate neighborhood promised them a security which in no other spot on the coast they would have been able to find. The Indian tribes within the limited district known afterwards as the Old Colony were the Pocas- setts of Swansea, Rehoboth, Somerset, and Tiverton, the Wampanoags of Bristol, the Saconets of Little Compton, the Nemaskets of Middleboro', the Nausites of Eastham, the Mattakees of Barnstable, the Mona- moys of Chatham, the Saukatueketts of Marshpee, and the Nobsquassetts of Yarmouth ; but in Plymouth the Indians had only oceupied the land to save the labor of the colonist in clearing it, and had vanished from the earth, leaving a safe resting-place for the foot of eivilization in the western wilderness.

The first few days after the arrival of the " May- flower" at Plymouth were oceupied in explora- tions of various places round the margin of the harbor, with a view to a final landing-place. The ship probably lay at anchor in what is now called Broad Channel, as Bradford said, " a mile and almost a half from the shore." On the 18th they landed, and Bradford says " we found not any navigable rivers, but four or five small running brooks of very sweet, fresh water that all run into the sea. The land for the erust of the earth is a spit's depth excellent black mould, and fat in some places ; two or three great oaks (but not very thiek ), pines, walnut, beech, aslı, hazel, holly, asp, sassafras in abundance, and vines everywhere, cherry-trees, plum trees, and many others

b b

Das

e 0

Tel

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.

which we know not. Many kinds of herbs we found here in winter, as strawberry leaves innumerable, sor- rel. yarras, carvel, brooklime, liverwort, watercresses, great store of leeks and onions, and an excellent strong kind of flax and hemp. Here is sand, gravel, and excellent clay, no better in the world, excellent for pots, and will wash like soap, and great store of stone, though somewhat soft, and the best water that ever we drank. and the brooks now begin to be full of fish." This exploration was doubtless along the shore of what is now the town of Plymouth, as no other place within the bay answers the description. On the 19th they found Jones' River, named after their captain, which they ascended three "English miles," and found a very " pleasant river at full sea." " A bark of thirty tons may go up," Bradford says, " but at low water scarce one shallop could pass." "Some of us having a good mind for safety to plant in the greater isle we crossed the bay, which is there five or six miles over, and found the isle about a mile and a half or two miles about all wooded and no fresh water, but two or three pits that we doubted of fresh water in summer, and so full of wood as we could hardly clear so much as to serve us for corn."

On the 20th they determined to confine their con- sideration to two places, and after again viewing them they came to the conclusion, according to the record, " by most voices to set on the main land on the first place on a high ground, where there is a great deal of land cleared and hath been planted with corn three or four years ago ; and there is a very sweet brook runs under the hill side and many delicate springs of as good water as can be drunk, and where we may harbor our shallops and boats exceeding well; and in this brook much good fish in their seasons; on the further side of the river also much corn-ground cleared. In one field is a great hill, on which we point to make a platform and plant our ordnance, which will command all round about. From thence we may see into the bay and far into the sea ; and we may see thence Cape Cod. Our greatest labor will be fetching of our wood, which is half a quarter of an English mile; but there is enoughi so far off. What people inhabit here we yet know not, for as yet we have seen none. So there we made our rendezvous and a place for some of our people, about twenty, re- solving in the morning to come all ashore and to build houses."

The 21st and 22d were stormy, and the party on shore remained alone, suffering much from exposure. The precise condition of the weather is singularly enough nowhere stated in any Pilgrim record, and wc only learn from a letter from John White in the Mas-

sachusetts Colony, to a friend in England, written ten years afterwards, that there was at the time of the ar- rival of the Pilgrim company a foot of snow on the ground. As burials of the dead seem to have been made during the winter, we are left to infer that the ground remained covered with snow, and therefore but little frozen. On the 23d many of those on shipboard went on shore again to cut timber for their common store-house, which was the first build- ing crected. The street on which they began to build, now called Leyden Street, ran from the top of what is now Burial Hill to the shore, and it is probable that the store-house stood on the precise spot on the south side of the street now occupied by the brick-ended house occupied by Mr. Frederick L. Holmes. In a deed of this lot, in 1698, from Maj. William Bradford to John Dyer, the lot is described as " running on the street northeasterly as far as the northeasterly corner of the old store-house which for- merly stood on the lot." It was at first intended to build houses on both sides of the street, and Brad- ford states, under date of the 9th of January, that " we went to labor that day in the building of our town in two rows of houses for more safety." He further says that " we measured out the grounds, and first we took notice how many families there were, willing all single men that had no wives to join with some family as they thought fit, that so we might build fewer houses, which was done, and we reduced them to nineteen families. To greater families we allotted larger plots ; to every person half a pole in breadth and thrce in length; and so lots were cast where every man should lie, which was done and staked out. We thought this proportion was large enough at the first for houses and gardens to impale them round considering the weakness of the people, many of them growing ill with colds, for our former discoveries in frost and storms and the wading at Cape Cod had brought much weakness amongst us, which increased so every day more and more, and after was the cause of many of their deaths." But so much sickness occurred, followed by so many deaths, that it was found that nineteen houses were more than would be needed, and more than with scanty help could be built. Edward Winslow in a letter to George Mor- ton, dated Dec. 11, 1621, and sent by the " Fortune," which sailed on the 13th of that month, said, " We have built seven dwelling-houses and four for the use of the plantation." All these were built on the south side of the street. The following diagram, copied from the first page of the Old Colony Records, shows the " meersteads and garden plots of which came first layd out 1620."

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH COUNTY.

The North Side.

The South Side.

Peter Brown, John Goodman. Wm. Brewster.

The Street.

Highway.

John Billington. Mr. Isaac Allerton. Francis Cooke. Edward Winslow.

The upper part of the diagram shows the lower end of the street, and the highway corresponds to the present Market Street. The four store-houses were doubtless below the lot of Peter Brown. The records were begun in 1627, and as the diagram was made seven years after the landing, the fact that no lots are marked as controlled by Carver, Bradford, and Standish, three of the leading men, would lead us to doubt its correctness, were it not for its partial indorsement by the letter of Governor Winslow, above quoted. At a later day, in 1627, De Rasieres, who was dispatched on an embassy from New Amsterdam to the Plymouth Colony, in a letter to Mr. Samuel Blom- maert, one of the directors of the Dutch West India Company, describes the town of Plymouth, and says, " New Plymouth lies on the slope of a hill stretching east towards the sea coast, with a broad street about a cannon shot of eight hundred (yards) long leading down the hill, with a (street) crossing in the middle northwards to the rivulet and southwards to the land. The houses are constructed of hewn planks with gar- dens also enelosed behind, and the sides with hewn planks, so that their houses and court yards are ar- ranged in very good order, with a stockade against a sudden attack, and at the ends of the street there are three wooden gates. In the centre on the cross street stands the Governor's house, before which is a square enclosure upon which four patereros (steen stucken) are mounted so as to flank along the streets. Upon the hill they have a large square house with a flat roof made of thick sawn planks stayed with oak beams, upon the top of which they have six cannons, which shoot iron balls of four and five pounds and command the surrounding country. The lower part they use for their church, where they preach on Sun- days and the usual holidays. They assemble by beat of drum cach with his musket or firclock in front of the captain's door; they havo their cloaks on and plaee themselves in order three abreast, and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the Governor in a long robe ; besido him on the right hand comes the preacher with his cloak on, and on the

left hand the captain with his side arms and cloak on and with a small cane in his hand, and so they march in good order and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they are constantly on their guard night and day.

"Their government is after the English form. The Governor has his council, which is chosen every year by the entire community by election or pro- longation of term. In the inheritance they place all the children in one degree, only the eldest son has an acknowledgment for his seniority of birth. They have made stringent laws and ordinances upon the subject of fornication and adultery, which laws they maintain and enforce very strictly indced even among the tribes which live amongst them. They speak very angrily when they hear from the savages that we (the Dutch at New Amsterdam) should live so barbarously in these respects without punishment. Their farms are not so good as ours, because they are more stony and consequently not so suitable for the plough. They apportion their land according as each has means to contribute to the eighteen thousand guilders which they have promised to those who had sent them out: whereby they have their freedom without rendering an account to any one; only if the King should choose to send a Governor General they would be obliged to acknowledge him as sov- ereign chief."

The street crossing in the middle, referred to in the above letter, was Market Street, at that time ex- tending from Main Street and reaching Summer Street by a gradual curve. The Governor's house was situ- ated at the upper corner of Main Street and Town Square, and the three gates were probably in Main and Market Streets, and at the westerly end of Leyden Strect, which then extended to the top of Burial Hill. The words, " northerly to the rivulet and southwards to the land," refer to the first brook, or Shaw's Brook, at the north, and Market Street, which then led into the Nemasket path, the Indian trail to Middleboro'. The houses in the first settlement were necessarily rude, built of planks without frames, eovercd witlı thatch on the roof, and lighted by paper windows covered with oil. Edward Winslow, in a letter ad- dressed probably to George Morton, dated Dec. 11, 1621, says, " Bring paper and linseed oil for your windows, with cotton yarn for your lamps." He fur- ther says, " Because I expect your coming unto us, be careful to have a very good bread room to put your biscuits in. Let your casks for beer and water be iron bound for the first tier if not more. Let not your incat be dry salted ; none can better do it than the sailors. Let your meal be so hard trod in your cask

செயின்ட்

...

٢٠٠٠

PLYMOUTH SQUARE, PLYMOUTH, MAOS.

tha

wit

for

can

TOU

Trei

(res

the thi

mea

ered

Dobi

The

and

the

espa

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.

that you shall need an adz or hatchet to work it out with. Trust not too much on us for corn at this time, for by reason of this last company that came (in the " Fortune," 1621) depending wholly upon us we shall have little enough till harvest. Be careful to come by some of your meal to spend by the way; it will much refresh you. Build your cabins as open as you can, and bring good store of clothes and bedding with you. Bring every man a musket or fowling piece. Let your piece be long in the barrel and fear not the weight of it, for most of our shooting is from stands (rests). Bring juice of lemons and take it fasting ; it is of good use. For hot waters aniseed water is the best ; but use it sparingly. If you bring any- thing for comfort in the country, butter or sallet oil or both is very good. Our Indian eorn even the coarsest maketh as pleasant meal as rice; therefore spare that unless to spend by the way."

The absence of glass windows was, however, by no means an indication of want or narrow means. Even in the reign of Henry the Eighth they were consid ered a luxury in England, and later, in the days of Elizabeth, they were confined to the houses of the nobility, and by them regarded as movable furniture. The constant reference to beer as a beverage in this and other records is noticeable. Tea and coffee were then unknown in England, and the poor quality of the water in Holland, repeatedly implied by the wonder expressed at the good quality of that in Plymouth, had confined the Pilgrims almost exclusively to beer sold at a penny a quart as their daily beverage. The juice of lemons referred to by Winslow was probably suggested as a preventive of scurvy, from which the company of the " Mayflower" had more or less suffered.

The lots assigned to other members of the company than those indicated by the rude diagram of Bradford, have been disclosed by the records and casual refer- ences in diaries and deeds of estates. It is shown by the records that Stephen Hopkins occupied the lower corner of Main and Leyden Streets, John Howland the next lot below, and Samuel Fuller the lot below Howland. And it must be repeated that it seems im- possible to reconcile the diagram and the statement of Winslow concerning seven dwellings and four company houses, with the facts and probabilities in the case. It might be said that the assignment of these lots and their occupation by Hopkins, Howland, and Fuller were subsequent to the date of Winslow's letter Dec. 11, 1621, but we know that as early as the 16th of March Hopkins had a dwelling, for when Samoset ap- peared on that day in the settlement Mourt's " Relation" states " we lodged him that night at Stephen Hopkins house and watched him." So far as Carver and Brad-

ford are concerned, whose names are omitted in the diagram, it is possible that for a time the Governor may have occupied the common house with Bradford and perhaps Standish as companions. We know that the first two were there on the 14th of January, 1620/1, for Mourt's " Relation" says, in referring to the fire which burned its thatched roof on that day, " The most loss was Master Carver's and William Bradford's, who then lay sick in bed, and if they had not risen with good speed, had been blown up with powder." A review of the whole case may lead us to the conclusion that after all the diagram and letter of Winslow may be correct, and that Hopkins at the time of the visit of Samoset was occupying one of the seven houses on the south side of the street, and per- haps that of John Goodman, who is recorded as having died the first scason, and probably died before the 16th of March, the date of the visit.

During the first few months of the colony little was done besides making the dwellings as comfortable as possible, guarding against surprises by the natives, and nursing the siek. One after another succumbed to the attacks of disease brought on by the exposure to cold, and fatigue of systems already enfcebled by the hardships of a protracted voyage. In the cabin of the " Mayflower," in Cape Cod harbor, after the signing of the compact John Carver, who was already acting as the Governor of the company, was confirmed in that office under the adopted constitution, and from that time until the 17th of February there appears to have been no action taken with reference to the ad- ministration of the affairs of the colony. On that day a meeting was called for the purpose of " establishing military orders, and Miles Standish was chosen captain and given authority of command in affairs." Such action was natural, surrounded as they were by tribes of Indians of whose temper they were ignorant, and had no signifieance as to the form of government which the colony was preparing to adopt. A consul- tation at this meeting looking to the enactment of needed rules or laws was broken up and postponed by the appearance of two natives on a neighboring hill, " over against our plantation about a quarter of a mile and less (Watson's Hill), and made signs unto us to come to them. We likewise made signs unto them to come to us, whereupon we armed ourselves and stood ready, and sent two over the brook towards them, to wit, Capt. Standish and Stephen Hopkins, who went towards them. Only one of them had a musket, which they laid down on the ground in their sight in sign of peace, and to parley with them. But the savages would not tarry their coming. A noise of a great many more was heard behind the hill, but no

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH COUNTY.

more came in sight. This caused us to plant our great ordnances in places most convenient." In consequence of this occurrence two cannon were brought on shore, and mounted on a platform, on Burial Hill, in a position to command the surrounding country.

On the 16th of March another meeting was called to conclude the military orders, which had been before interrupted, and as Mourt's " Relation" says, " Whilst we were busied hereabout we were interrupted again ; for there presented himself a savage which caused an alarm. He very boldly eame all alone and along the houses straight to the rendezvous, where we interrupted him, not suffering him to go in as undoubtedly he would out of his boldness. He saluted us in English and bade us welcome, for he had learned some broken English among the Englishmen that came to fish at Monhiggon, and knew by name the most of the cap- tains, commanders, and masters that usually came. He was a man free in speech so far as he could express his mind, and of a seemly carriage. We questioned him of many things : he was the first savage we could meet withal. He said he was not of these parts but of Morattiggon (probably Monhiggon), and one of the sagamores or lords thereof, and had been eight months in these parts, it lying hence a day's sail with a great wind, and five days by land. He was stark naked, only a leather about his waist with a fringe about a span long or little more. He had a bow and two arrows, the one headed and the other unheaded. He was a tall, straight man, the hair of his head black, long behind, only short before, none on his face at all. He asked for some beer, but we gave him strong water and biscuit, and butter and cheese, and pudding, and a piece of mallard. He told us the place where we now live is called Patuxet, and that about four years ago all the inhabitants died of an extraordinary plague, and there is neither man, woman, nor child remaining, as indeed we have found none, so as there is none to hinder our possession or to lay claim unto it."

On the next day, the 17th, Samoset departed for the Wampanoag country, and on the 18th returned with five other Indians, bearing a few skins and some tools, which some marauding Indians had previously stolen from the fields near the settlement. The five left the same day, leaving Samoset bchind, who re- mained until the following Wednesday, the 21st of March, on which day another meeting was held to conelude the laws and orders, and again interrupted by the appearance in the neighborhood of another small group of natives. On the next day for the fourth time a meeting was held, and still again broken off by the reappearance of Samoset, attended by Tisquantum, the stolen Indian returned by Thomas Deriner and

three others, who signified that Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoags and of all the other tribes within the limits of the Old Colony, " was hard by with Qudequina, his brother, and all their men. They could not well express in English what they would, but after an hour the king eame to the top of the hill (Watson's Hill) over against us and had in his train sixty men, that we could well behold them and they us. We were not willing to send our Governor to them, and they were unwilling to eomc to us. So Tisquantum went again unto him, who brought word that we should send one to parley with them, which we did, which was Edward Winslow, to know his mind and to signify the mind and will of our Governor, which was to have trading and peace with him." After some consultation and an exchange of hostages Massasoit, with twenty men, came from the hill, and were met at the brook by Capt. Standish and another with six musketeers, and was escorted by them to "a house then building," where a green rug and three or four cushions had been placed for his reception. Governor Carver then ap- peared with drum and trumpet and a few musketeers, and after salutations the Governor kissed his hand and Massasoit kissed the Governor, and the following treaty was entered into :

" 1. That neither he nor any of his should injure or do hurt to any of our people.

" 2. And if any of his did hurt to any of ours he should send the offender that we might punish him.

" 3. That if any of our tools were taken away when our people were at work he should cause then to be restored ; and if ours did any harm to any of his we would do the like to them.

" 4. If any did unjustly war against him we would aid him : if any did war against us he should aid us.

" 5. He should send to his neighbor confederates to certify them of this, that they might not wrong us but might be likewise comprised in the conditions of peace.

"6. That when their men came to us they should leave their bows and arrows behind them, as we should do our pieces when we came to them. Lastly, that doing this King James would esteem of him as his friend and ally," all which, Morton says, " he liked well and withall at the same time acknowledged him- self content to become the subject of our sovereign lord, the king aforesaid, his heirs and successors ; and gave unto them all the lands adjacent to them and their heirs forever."

This treaty secured peace and safety to the colony for a period of fifty-five years ; indeed, it saved the colony from destruction. The lands granted by it to the settlers ineluded what aro now the townships of

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.

Plymouth, Duxbury, Carver, Kingston, Plympton. Marshfield. Wareham, and a part of Halifax. The colony now for the first time held any title to the land. It was obtained by neither invasion nor conquest, but by the influence of a Christian spirit over the savage mind, a title which no charter nor patent in the minds of the Pilgrims could confer, unless sealed and ac- knowledged by the natural owners of the soil. So sensitive were the Pilgrims to the rights of the In- dians that individual purchases of land from them required the approval of the court. In 1643 the fol- lowing act was passed :

" Whereas it is holden very nnlawful and of dangerous con- sequence and it hath been the constant custom from our first beginning that no person or persons have or ever did purchase, rent. or hire any lands, herbage, wood, or timber of the natives bnt by the magistrates' consent ; it is therefore enacted by the conrt that if any person or persons do hereafter purchase, rent, or hire any lands, herbage, wood or timber of any of the natives in any place within this government without the consent and assent of the court every such person or persons shall forfeit five pounds for every acre which shall be so purchased, hired, rented, and taken, and for wood and timber to pay five times the valne thereof, to be levied to the colonies use."

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 18

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & co. Number of Pages: 1706

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & co.
Number of Pages: 1706