History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 26

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 26

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).

The church at Eastham, established in 1644, was the third offshoot of the parent church, those of Duxbury and Marshfield, in 1632, having been the other two. The church in Scituate, organized largely by settlers from Massachusetts, could hardly have claimed it as its mother. These churches were the foundations of the towns, and after the churches were established grants were made and acts of incorporation followed. In some respects the churches and the towns were identical. The towns settled the minis- ters and paid their salaries out of the rates assessed on the inhabitants. The original church of the town formed the territorial parish, and every inhabitant was supposed to have been born into its fold. Until 1834 every inhabitant was assumed to be a member of the territorial parish, and paid his parish tax to the treasurer of the town until he notified the parish committee in writing that he had attached himself to another. Subsequent to the settlement of the earliest towns companies were formed from time to time, re- ceiving grants of land from the colony, and becoming " purchasers" or " proprietors" or founders of towns. These grants conveyed, however, nothing more than a pre-einption right, and were not to take effect until the Indians had released their rights and titles by a formal sale. The proprietors organized as an associa- tion, having their own clerk and selling lands to settlers. Their records, next to the grants of the court, form the basis of the land titles of many of the towns in the Old Colony.

It has already been stated that the first entry in the town records bears the date of 1637. Precisely under what authority the records were kept neither the orders of court nor the laws disclose. In the re- vision of the laws, bearing date Nov. 15, 1636, the first provision seems to have been made for a clerk of the colony court, and on the third day of January, 1636/7, Nathaniel Sowther was chosen. From that time, or not long after, both the colony and town records were kept by hin. From 1645 to 1679 both were kept by Nathaniel Morton, the successor of Na-

112

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH COUNTY.

thaniel Sowther. On the 3d day of March, 1645/6, it was ordered by the court that the elerk or some one in every town " do keep a register of the day and year of every marriage, birth, and burial, and to have three pence apiece for his pains." It does not plainly appear whether the clerk here spoken of is the clerk of the court or of the town. It is certain, however, that until 1679 the records of town procced- ings were kept by the clerk of the colony. In 1679, Nathaniel Morton was formally chosen town clerk, and from that time until his death the records con- tinued to be kept by him. In 1685, Thomas Faunce was chosen as his successor. The volumes containing the births, deaths, and marriages were opened by him in that year, and though they contain entries as early as 1662, it is evident that they were made by Mr. Faunee from memoranda which came into his pos- session from Mr. Morton. The predecessors of Mr. Faunce had complied with the law of 1645/6, and had registered during their terms of office the births, deaths, and marriages in the Old Colony Records. After the death of Nathaniel Morton, Nathaniel Clark became secretary of the colony, followed by Samuel Sprague, who, except during the usurpation of Andros, continued to act until the union in 1692. Thomas Faunce, who was chosen town elerk in 1685, remained in office until 1723, when he was succeeded by John Dyer, who held the office from 1723 to 1731, and, after a year's ineumbeney by Gershom Foster in 1732, from 1733 to 1738. Edward Winslow acted as elerk until 1741, succeeded by Samuel Bartlett, whose term extended from 1742 to 1765. John Cotton in 1766; Ephraim Spooner, from 1767 to 1818; Thomas Drew, from 1818 to 1840; Timothy Berry, from 1840 to 1852; Leander Lovell, from 1852 to 1878; and Curtis Davie, the present incumbent, complete the list.

Of Nathaniel Sowther, the first secretary of the colony, little is known. His first appearance in the colony was in 1635, when on the 4th of October in that year he was made a freeman. His qualifications for the office of secretary, to which he was so soon chosen, must have admitted him to the list of free- holders at an carly day, and it is fair to presume, therefore, that 1635 was the date of his arrival. It may be also said that the immediate recognition of his fitness for the important post of secretary, and his advancement over those who had been longer in the colony, show him to have been a man of more than ordinary endowments. Of his antecedents and family nothing is known. Judge Davis, in his notes to Morton's " New England's Memorial," has expressed the opinion that the name was identical with South-

worth, and spelled as it might have been sometimes pronounced. But a theory, which at first seems plausible, becomes more than doubtful when we find repeatedly in the same record made by Sowther him- self the distinction between the two names pronounced. The naine as written by him was Sowther, and such he always signed it as long as he remained in the colony. He left no male descendants. By a wife, Alice, who died in Boston in 1651, he had two daugh- ters,-Hannah (who married William Hanbury, and a second husband named Johnson) and Mary (who married Joseph Starr). In 1638 he bought of Lieut. William Holmes, who next to Miles Standish was for a time the chief military personage in the colony, a lot of land on Burial Hill west of the land of John Alden, and alınost precisely the spot now occupied by the northerly row of tombs. Here he undoubtedly lived until about 1649, when he removed to Boston. He there married, in 1653, Widow Sarah Hill, and died in 1655. It may be here suggested that the residence of Lieut. Holmes was established near the fort, over which, as second in command, he would have had some supervision. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, it may perhaps be still fur- ther presumed that in the earliest days the residence of Standish was still farther up the hill and nearer the fort.

Nathaniel Morton, the successor of Sowther, has already been perhaps sufficiently referred to. It is only necessary to say, further, that he was ten years old when he came with his father, George, in the " Ann," in 1623, and married, in 1635, Lydia Cooper, by whom he had Remember, 1637, who married Abrahamı Jackson; Merey, who married Joseph Dunham ; Lydia, who married George Ellison ; Eliza- beth, who married Nathaniel Bosworth ; Joanna (1654), who married Joseph Prince ; Hannah, who married Benjamin Bosworth ; Eleaser, and Nathan- iel. His sons died unmarried, and he therefore left no descendants bearing the name. The family of Jacksons descended from his daughter, Remember, has always been a numerous and prominent one in Plymouth ; and descendants of his brothers, John and Ephraim, bearing the name of Morton, are seat- tered all over New England. Mr. Morton lived for many years on the estate now occupied by Amasa Holmes, immediately north of Wellingsby Brook, ou the westerly side of the road ; and in the latter part of his life, until his death in 1685, he occupied a house which stood on the easterly sido of Market Street, immediately above the estate of the late Johu B. Atwood.

Nathaniel Clark, the snecessor of Nathaniel Mor-

aber lun Park's

by Jan Toder ated. Forced đ the tos fed

time not SO YO chau tion beari bired last y D. N bas ter of comun Clark enter the " and w 1619 was ale ditions Tor revy Edwar and da keeper.

by from the Thơ and

too joy mat has

erad

113

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.

ton, was the son of Thomas Clark, who came in the " Mayflower," safely landed his boat's company there " Ann." in 1623. For many years the father en- on the Sth of November, 1620, and spent there the following Sabbath. The island is so called in the records as early as the 3d of September, 1638. On the 7th of January, 1638/9, it is recorded that "the Court hath granted that Clark's Island, the Eele River beach (Plymouth Beach), Sagaquash (Sa- quish) & Gurnetts Nose shal be & remayne unto the towne of Plymouth, with the woods thereupon." This grant was made, it must be observed, nearly two years before the definition of the bounds of the town by the court in 1640, showing that the latter act of the government marks in no sense the date of the origin or quasi-incorporation of the town. From the date of the grant of the island to the town it had been made a source of profit to its inhabitants by the erection of salt- works and the restricted use of the timber and fuel which it afforded. On this island Mr. Clark fixed his greedy eyes, and applied to the Governor for its title. Tlie State archives contain the following record : joyed the undeserved distinction of having been the mate of the .. Mayflower," and even now the tradition has taken so strong a hold that it is almost impos- sible. by the aid even of indisputable testimony, to eradicate it. His gravestone, on Burial Hill, is pointed out daily as that of the " Mayflower's" mate by those whose learning and knowledge are acquired from the traditions of their fathers. rather than from the newly-discovered facts of undoubted history. Thomas Clark, in question, was a carpenter by trade, and according to a statement made by him under oath in 1664. he was then fifty-nine years of age, or at the time of the landing. in 1620, but fifteen. We are not left, however, to the mere presumption that one so young, who afterwards pursued the trade of a me- chanic. could not have occupied the responsible posi- tion of a mate. In a letter of Robert Cushman, bearing date June 11. 1620, he says, " We have hired another pilot here. one Mr. Clarke, who went last year to Virginia with a ship of kine." Rev. E. " By his Excellency .- Whereas, Mr. Nathaniel Clark, of Plymouth, hath by his petition desired that a certain small Island, ealled Clark's Island, lying near New Plymouth, being vaeant and unappropriated, may be granted to him for the hetter settlement and improvement thereof, of which notiee hath been given already to the said town, hut no due return made nor any persons appeared thereon. These are, therefore, to require you forthwith to give puhlie notiee in the said town that if any person or persons have any elaim or title to the said Island they appear before me, in Couneil, on the 1st Wednesday in February next, and then and there show forth such their elaim and title accordingly, of which you are not to fail and to make due return. Dated at Boston 21 day of Dee., 1687. ANDROS. D. Neill, in some recent investigations in England, has discovered that Capt. Jones, afterwards the mas- ter of the " Mayflower," went to Virginia in 1619 in command of a vessel loaded with kine, and that John Clark was employed by the Virginia Company in the enterprise. It may be stated, then, that the mate of the " Mayflower" was certainly not Thomas Clark, and was probably John, who went to Virginia, in 1619, with kine. Nathaniel Clark, the son of Thomas, was an attorney-at-law, or as near to one as the con- ditions and exigencies of the times either permitted or required. He married Dorothy, the widow of " To MR. SAMUEL SPRAGUE, High Sheriff " By His Excellencies command. of the County of Plymouth. Edward Gray, an enterprising and thrifty merchant, and daughter of Thomas Lettice, a respectable inn- " The above written was publicly read to the whole of the Town of Plymouth, aforesaid, at their Town-meeting the 23 day of January, 1687/8. keeper, but had no children, and left no descendants. Soon after his election to the office of secretary, Sir " pr SAM'L SPRAGUE, Sheriff." Edmond Andros arrived in the country commissioned by James the Second as Governor of New England. A later record contains the following : Under his administration the colonial government was superseded, and the office of secretary necessarily va- "By virtue of a warrant from his Exeelleney, Sir Edward Andros, Knight, Captain-General, and Governor-in-Chief of his Majesty's territory and dominion of New England, hearing date Boston, the 23d of February, 1687, I have surveyed and laid out for Mr. Nathaniel Clark a certain small Island, being known by the name of Clark's Island, and is situated and lying in New Plymouth Bay, bearing from the meeting-house in Plymouth north by northeast about three miles, and is bounded round with water and flats, and contains eighty-six aeres and a quarter and three rods. Performed this 3rd day of March, 1687/8. PHILLIP WELLS, Surveyor." cated. Andros declared all public lands vested in the crown, and ordered that all private titles should be quieted by his confirmation alone. The governments of the other colonies were also suspended, and the confederated union was dissolved. With popular dis- satisfaction almost universal, Mr. Clark fastened him- self to the royal Governor, and became one of his most subservient instruments and tools. Ainong other landed possessions of the town of Plymouth was But the town did not yield up the island to the usurper without resistance. A town-mecting was Clark's Island, named after the " Mayflower's" mate, John Clark, who, in command of the shallop of the | called and a committee chosen to take steps towards

114

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH COUNTY.

reclaiming the island, and to collect subscriptions to defray the expenses of the undertaking. The com- mittee, together with Elder Faunce, the town clerk, and Ichabod Wiswell, were arrested for levying and aiding in levying taxes upon his Majesty's subjects and bound over to the Supreme Court at Boston. The an- noyances and vexations to which they were subjected only increased the spirit of resistance and strengthened the determination of the town to maintain its rights. Before the matter was settled, however, news was re- ceived (on the 18th of April, 1689) of the landing of the Prince of Orange in England, and on the 29th William and Mary were proclaimed in Boston. An- dros was arrested and sent to England, and Clark, as his most pliant coadjutor, was arrested also, and sent as his companion. At a town-meeting of the inhabitants the following declaration was made: " Whereas, we have not only just grounds to suspect, but are well assured that Nathaniel Clark hath been a real enemy to the peace and prosperity of the people, and hath, by lying and false information to the late Governor, caused much trouble and damage to this place, en- deavored to deprive us of our lands, and exposed us to the unjust severity of persons ill affected to us whereby a considerable part of our estates is unright- eously extorted from us, to the great prejudice of our families and the loss of many necessary comforts, and he persisting from time to time in his own malicious forging of complaints against one or another of us, whereby we are in continual hazard of many further great inconveniences and mischief, we do therefore seize upon his person, resolving to secure him for the hands of justice to deal with him according to his desert." On his arrival in England Clark was dis- charged and sent back, and on his return to Plymouth and his practice he built a house on the northeast corner of what is now the garden of Albert C. Chan- dler, where he lived until 1717, the year of his death. Clark's Island was restored to the town, but soon after it was voted to sell the island, Saquish, the Gurnet, and Colchester Swamp to defray the expenses of its attempted recovery. In 1690 it was sold to Samuel Lucas, Elkanah Watson, and George Morton, and after a few years passed wholly into the hands of the Watson family, by whose various branches it is still owned.

Of Samuel Sprague, the last secretary of the col- ony, little is known, except that he was also made high sheriff of Plymouth County at its organization, in 1685, and died in 1710. After the colony of New Plymouth was merged into Massachusetts, under her new charter of 1691, the records of the Old Col- ony remained in his hands until his death. By some

unaccountable and unjustifiable neglect they were per- mitted for eighteen years to continue in the care of a private citizen, exposed to the danger of loss and destruction necessarily attending on unofficial and irresponsible guardianship. Immediately after his death, in response to representations made to the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace within the County of Plymouth, they ordered Nathaniel Thomas, at that time judge of probate, to take them into his care and custody until further orders. In November, 1710, the justices of the peace for the counties of Plymouth, Barnstable, and Bristol, into which the Old Colony had been divided in 1685, petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts to have them " kept and lodged in the town of Plymouth, which was the head town of the said Colony of Plymouth, and where the said Records were wont to be kept." On this petition it was ordered " that the Books, Records, and files of the General Court of the late Colony of New Plymouth be committed to the custody of the Clerk of the Inferior Court of the County of Plymouth for the time being, he dwelling in Plymouth, a perfect schedule thereof being made, with an Indent, to be passed for the same to the justices of the said Court. And that the clerk be impowered to transcribe and attest copies of the said Records for any that shall desire the same, upon paying the established fees."

These records, now deposited in the office of the register of deeds at Plymouth, consist of eighteen manuscript volumes, six of which contain the pro- ceedings of the General Court and Court of Assist- ants ; six, the deeds of estates ; four, a registry of wills and inventories ; one contains the judicial acts of the courts, the treasurer's accounts, and a list of births, deatlıs, and marriages, and the last is a volume of laws. All these up to 1637 are in the handwriting of the then Governors, Bradford, Winslow, and Prence, and after that date in that of the secretaries of the colony. In 1820 a commission, consisting of Samuel Davis, of Plymouth, Rev. James Freeman, of Boston, and Benjamin R. Nichols, of Salem, was appointed by the General Court to superintend the work of copying such portion of the records as they might think desirable. Under their direction the six vol- umes of court proceedings, one volume of deeds, thie volumes of judicial acts, etc., and the volume of laws were copied, and the copies were deposited in the office of the secretary of the commonwealth, where they may now be seen. As a part of the Old Colony archives, the acts of the commissioners of the United Colonies, in two volumes, aro also deposited in the Plymouth registry, and have been always considered a part of the Colony Records, or records of New Plym-

aod 1636

The Fears

Bisr guar

80m

By bad aud prin ConS cons of THE Pu!

to of lef di an me car Pu ree prit Ha pare thus

chon!

retur pend

115

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.

outh. In 1855 a resolve was passed by the Gen- eral Court providing " that eight hundred copies of the records of the colony of New Plymouth, with suitable indexes. be stereotyped and printed. under the supervision of the secretary of the commonwealth, who may appoint some competent person or persons to prepare said records for printing, and take charge of the same." Under this resolve Nathaniel Shurt- leff, of Boston, was appointed editor. and under his direction David Pulsifer was employed in making fair and legible copies for the press. For the commence- ment of the work the copies of the commission of 1820, carefully revised, were used for the printer, and Mr. Pulsifer confined liis labors to those portions of the records of which copies had not been made. In printing the acts of the commissioners, the copy by Hazard, inelnded in his " Collections," earefully com- pared with the original and corrected, was used, and thus the necessity of copying those also was obviated. By the time those portions of the records which had already bcen copied by the commission of 1820 and Hazard's copy of the commissioners' acts had been printed, the General Court stopped the work, and consequently the remaining portion of the records, consisting of five volumes of deeds and four volumes of wills and inventorics, which were copied by Mr. Pulsifer at a large cost to the commonwealth, remain nnprinted. The ten printed volumes are thought by many to include the entire records of the colony, when in fact copies of ninc, and these perhaps in some respects the most important, lie packed away in a store-room at the State-House, rendering no return, until printed, for the labor and moncy ex- pended in their preparation.

We have thus far in a cursory way traced the history of the colony and town during the first quarter of a century of the colony's cxistence, with some necessary allusions to later events connected, as effect with canse, with those of an earlier period. Thongh in 1645 Plymouth had existed for some years as a distinct municipality, its form and organ- ization were far from complete. Constables had been provided for by law and chosen in 1636, coroners in the same year ; by-laws were authorized by the court, and deputies to the General Court were ordered in 1638; raters of taxes were chosen in 1643, surveyors of highways were provided for in 1644, a town clerk in 1646, and in 1641 it was enacted that each town should make competent provision for the support of its poor. But the town system was nevertheless in- complete. There was a necessity for some superin- tending head to have such a carc for the interests and welfare of the town as the colonial government, with

its extending limits and jurisdiction, was failing in its power to exercise. The superintending head was found in a board of selectmen, and with their estab- lishment the town government in the Old Colony assumed the form and shape they wear to-day, with such changes as time and circumstances have rendered necessary. In 1662 it was enacted by the court "that in every town of this jurisdiction there be three or four selectmen chosen by the townsmen out of the freemen, such as shall be approved by the court, for the better managing of the affairs of the respective townships, and that the selectmen in every town, or the major part of them, are hereby empow- ered to hear and determine all debts and differences arising between person and persons within their re- spective townships not exceeding forty shillings, as also they are hereby empowered to learn and deter- mine all differences arising betwixt any Indians and the Euglish of their respective townships about damage done in corn by the eows, swine, or any other beasts belonging to the inhabitants of the said respective townships; and the determination of the abovesaid differences not being satisfied as was agreed the party wronged to repair to some magistrate for a warrant to receive such award by distraint. It is further enacted by the court that the said selectmen in every township approved by the court or any of them shall have power to give forth summons in his Majestie's name to require any persons complained of to attend the hearing of the case, and to summon witnesses to give testimony upon that account, and to determine the controversies according to legal evi- dence, and that the persons complaining shall serve the summons themselves upon the persons complained against, and in the case of their non-appearance to proceed on notwithstanding in the hearing and deter- mination of such controversy as comes before them, and to have twelve pence apiece for every award they agree upon."

In some way and under some authority Plymouth anticipated this law, and on the 18th of February, 1649/50, voted to choose seven men to order the affairs and dispose of lands to persons, who should not sell if they leave, look after the poor and make a rate for relief, hire and employ men to herd cattle, said seven men annual, and the doings of five be legal." They were not called selectmen until after the passage of the law of 1662, but their powers and functions werc substantially the same, except in their judicial character. The following list of selectmen is added to this narrative for the purpose of presenting the names of those who have represented the different generations in the life of the town :

116

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH COUNTY.

1649. John Barnes.

Robert Finney. Themas Willet. Themas Southworth. John Ceek, Jr. Jehn Dunham. Themas Clark.

1650. The same.

1665. Thomas Southworth. Ephraim Morton. John Howland. George Watson. Robert Finney.

1666. John Morton.

Ephraim Morton. Robert Finney. Nath'l Warren. William Harlow. 1669. Ephraim Morton. William Harlew. William Crew.

1702. John Bradford. John Rickard, Jr. Samuel Sturtevant. Nath'l Merton.

1703. John Bradferd. Samuel Sturtevant. Nath'l Merten.

1704. The same.

1705. William Shurtleff. Nath'l Morton. Caleb Lering. 1706. Nath'l Merton. Caleb Loring. John Watson.

1707. Nath'l Merton. Caleb Loring. Benjamin Warren.

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 26

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