History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 86

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 86

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1812, which war interrupted all ship-building on the river for a time, and made the ship-carpenters feel like fighting England or whoever they suspected was the cause of their misfortunes.

Some distance below was the famous Wauton ship- yard. Edward Wanton (a Quaker, whose family re- moved to Rhode Island and became very eminent there, his son, William Wanton, being Governor of Rhode Island) came to Scituate, and about 1660 bought of William Parker a farm of cighty acres at Till's Creek, now called Dwelley's Creek. Here, just below the creek, where the river sweeps grandly in to the upland, he began ship-building about 1660, one of the earliest on the river. He died in 1716, and was buried on his farm. His children having removed, his farm was sold to John Stetson, and ship-building appears to have been carried on by the Stetsons. In 1770, Benjamin Delano removed from Pembroke and settled on the ancient Dwelley place, at Till's Creek brook, recently the home of Maj. Samuel Foster, and now owned by the Delanos again. He succeeded to the business at the Wanton ship-yard, and there con- dueted the business for forty years. His son, Wil- liam Delano, succeeded him, and carried on the busi- ness with great energy and enterprise. He built the imposing mansion on River Street, where his daugh- ters still reside. This house, which has always been the home of the best culture and refinement of the old town, commands a fine view of the beautifully- winding river and some of the finest scenery in the world. Elisha Foster and Samuel Foster also built ships at this place. Joseph Clapp also carried on the business here, succeeding Mr. Foster. He was the last gentleman who had enterprise enough to build at this place, and is still living. The last ship built here by him was about the year 1835.

At this Wanton ship-yard more and larger vessels were built than at any other point. A half-mile or so farther down, about the year 1690, Job Randall engaged in the business. Here also the Proutys, Chittendens, and Torreys are reported to have built ships. Within the memory of those now living, Eli- jah Cudworth carried on ship-building at this yard, and with him the work there ceased. Another half- mile lower down was the block-house, garrisoned and suffering attack during King Philip's war.

Here also was another ship-yard, and here the pos- terity of Elder Nathaniel Tilden and Deacon John James carried on the business for over a hundred years. To this point the river had flowed in a course that was nearly due north from Barstow's bridge. Here it makes a turn nearly at a right angle, and thence flows east till near the beach, when it again

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HISTORY OF SCITUATE AND SOUTH SCITUATE.

turns and runs nearly south to its entrance into the sea. A little below the James ship-yard is Union bridge. Barstow's bridge had been erected above in 1656. and was a free bridge. In 1801 a corporation erected Union bridge. It was a toll-bridge until 1850, when it was made free. A ferry had previously ex- isted at this point. As Elisha Bisbe was the ferryman in 1645. it was probably established about that time. The Oakman family, of Marshfield, usually managed this ferry, but John Tolman was the last ferryman, so far as can be learned. Farther down the river was another ferry, known as Doggett's Ferry. Here, in 1825. a toll-bridge, called Little's bridge, was built. This also was made a free bridge March 20, 1865.

About a mile below Union bridge was a ship-yard, where the first vessel on the river was reputed to have been built by Samuel House in 1650. After him Thomas Nichols built vessels there, and following him Israel Hobart. Jeremiah and Walter Hatch also oc- cupied the yard. The Briggs family, for several gen- erations, built vessels there. Here, about 1773, James Briggs built the ship " Columbia." It was the first American ship to visit what is now the Pacific coast of this great country. Capt. Kendrick sailed up the great river he found there and named it after his ship, the " Columbia," a name so appropriate that it has been retained. Thus a little ship, built on little North River, gave a name to the mightiest river that empties from this continent into the Pacific Ocean. The last builders at this ship-yard were Cushing Briggs and Henry Briggs, and thus the business ceased about 1840. At Little's bridge, vessels were built at one time on the Marshfield side. Below Little's bridge the river expands greatly in width, the salt meadows form a vast expanse, and the scenery takes on grand proportions of beauty. The view from the "High Hills" and from the Third and Fourth Cliffs is among the finest in New England. Nearly a mile from the mouth of the river a ferry was very early established by the colony court. This was in 1638, and Jonathan Brewster was the first ferryman. He probably dis- liked the business or distrusted its profits, for three years later he sold the privilege to John Barker and another. But it could not have been a profitable business, for, later, Ralph Chapman petitioned the court to excuse him, as it would bring him to extreme poverty. The court voted to relieve him from his contract, " except upon special occasions, as bringing over the magistrates who reside there."

This river near its mouth, between that and the Fourth Cliff, was sometimes called " New Harbor," to distinguish it from what is more properly known as Scituate harbor. It was recognized as a harbor as

early as the incorporation of the town, and vessels wintered there, the mouth of the river then being deep enough to admit them. Commerce with the West Indies has been carried on from thence also. Such is its character, that if an entrance could be ob- tained it would furnish one of the finest harbors of refuge on the coast. It is by no means certain but that if the government should spend some money in dredging out the mouth of this river it would benefit commerce more largely and more cheaply than is often the case with its "River and Harbor" appropriations. Upon the sea-coast is Scituate harbor, a secure little gem of a harbor when vessels get safely into it, but rather difficult of access. Government has recently been at considerable expense in building a breakwater to protect and secure and improve it. This work was brought about largely through the exertions of Hon. George Lunt, who has recently become a resident of the town and greatly interested himself in its im- provement. Vessels were built in Scituate at the harbor. William James began the business there about 1646. Whether the first vessel was built here by him or by Samuel House on North River is un- certain. Afterwards Job Otis conducted the business there. In modern times the Brothers Briggs built vessels there, but that industry has now wholly van- ished from the town.

Briggs Harbor, or Strawberry Cove, or, as the In- dians called it, Mushquashtuck, is a small cove formed by the projection of the Glades. Ship-building on a small scale was once carried on here, and it was quite a useful little cove to the fishermen. The name " Briggs Harbor" is from the name of the man who first settled there in 1651,-Walter Briggs, a valuable citizen. His will, dated 1684, contains this quaint provision : "To my wife Frances one-third of my es- tate during her life, also a gentle horse or mare, and . Jemmy, the Negur, shall catch it for her." The Glades, so called, situated at the northernmost point of the town, is a beautiful promontory jutting out into the sea. The southerly part of it is rugged, rocky, and covered with red-cedar. These trees, of an old growth when the country was first settled, formed quite an article of merchandise, and were sent in large quantities to Boston. The north portion of the Glades is composed of some of the finest arable land in the county. It all has quite an elevation above the sea, and the view therefrom in all direc- tions is very fine. It is now owned and occupied by a Boston club.

Natural Topography .- Though the general fea- tures of the land and its natural productions are the same throughout Plymouth County, each town, like

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HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH COUNTY.

each human being, has those features drawn in varying lincs to that extent that no one exactly resembles another, but each ever preserves its own identity. What hand but that of a Divine Architect could thus design, draw, and create a world and its inhabitants in such a way ? Surely chance would be uncqual to the work. Work, and designed work, it must bc. There is no town in the county whose face is so varied as this. High hills, deep valleys, a few level plains, many damp, dark swamps, extended fresh meadows, broad salt marshes, and brooks running in all direc- tions, are features of its surface. Approaching from the sea the first objeets to attract the voyager are the Four Cliffs, with their white sandy fronts lifting them- selves above the sea. Just inside of these that strange upheaval or deposit, whichever it may be ealled, now Colman's Hills, barren and unsightly in themselves, contrasting sharply with the rich meadows skirting the base, and useless except for the grand and inspiring view they afford.

The land as a whole rises gradually as it reccdes from the sea and river. The soil in the northerly part of the town, near Hingham and Cohasset, is good, but generally hard of cultivation, bowlders being scattered over it with lavish hand. Large spaces of easily tilled land, however, abound. In the north part of the town are Mann Hill, Hooppole Hill, Mast Hill, Black Pond Hill, Mount Blue, and Prospect Hill. The last lies partly in Hingham, rises to a great height, and its summit affords an immense field of vision. Boston may there be seen on a clear day. It is a region thickly strewu with bowlders, covers hundreds of acres of land, and affords rich pasturage for large herds of cattle. Its soil is favorable to the growth of the barberry, which here abounds. Wal- nut-Tree Hill, named so by the early settlers because black-walnut trees were found growing there, is near where Judge William Cushing, of the United States Supreme Court, resided. It is unfortunate that these valuable trees should have been all destroyed without any provision being made for a succession. The last of them, an aneicnt survivor of the primeval forest, its trunk three fect in diameter, fell before the wood -. man's axe in 1820. Farther southwest is Cordwood Hill. Up the river still farther, and above Till's Brook, is an extended clevation of great height, early called Randall Hill, but since Studley Hill. This is mostly a stony range partly covered with wood, and in part affords fine pasturage and some good tillage land. Wild-Cat Hill, a mile west of this, is so called because of the killing of animals of that kind there. Pincer's Hill, at the centre of the town, and Simon's Hill, at the west part, complete the catalogue of the

principal elevations of land in the town. Although there are many ponds in the town, created for manu- facturing purposes, only three natural ponds of any size cxist. These arc Mushquashcut Pond, near the shore in the Conihasset grant; Blaek Pond, a deep, dark, cold pond in the north part of the town, cover- ing about four acres; and Accord Pond, at the west corner of the town. This pond derives its name from the fact that the commissioners appointed to settle the line between the Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Colony came to an aecord or agreement that the line should run through this pond. It lies within the limits of the three towns of South Scituate, Hing- ham, and Rockland. It is a fine sheet of water, clear and deep, covering about seventy acres, has recently been stocked with black bass, and supplies the towns of Hingham and Hull with water. With the excep- tion of the cliffs, "Greenfield," the north point of the Glades, part of Belle House Neck, and other places along the line of the North River which had been cleared and planted by the Indians, the early settlers found the place an unbroken forest. With the exception of the black-walnut, all the varieties of trees then existent are still represented in the exten- sive forests of the town. All the varieties of oak known to a northern climate grow herc,-the hickory, shell-bark, and pignut, the white- and black-ash, the beech, the willow, the graceful elm, the finest of all landscape or shade-trees, and largely utilized as such, the three kinds of birch (white, black, and yellow), sassafras, holly, iron-wood (hornbeam), hemlock, all these growing on the upland. The extensive swamps grow great quantities of white-cedar and maple, and among these grows the poisonous dogwood ; and last, but not least, the white-pine grows in great vigor and abundance on both upland and swamp.

The white-pine is a very valuable wood for manu- facturing purposes and of rapid growth. This has been of great value to the town from its early settle- ment, and has entered largely into the erection of its buildings and its manufactures. Saw-mills for cutting it into lumber have always abounded in all parts of the town. The acreage covered by white-pine is to- day as large as it has been at any time within the last century and a half.

To describe the several hundred species of plants growing there is here impossible. The most striking of the flowering shrubs is the laurel, which grows iu wild and rich luxuriance in or near Valley Swamp. In carly times wolves, wild-eats, beavers, and decr were found in the forests. That wolves were numer- ous is evident from the passage of laws requiring the town in 1642 to maintain four wolf-traps, and in 1665

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two wolf-traps. By the colony laws it appears also that a bounty of four bushels of corn was given for every wolf killed, and for a wolf killed by an Indian " a coat of trading cloth." Foxes, woodchucks, rab- bits, raccoons, and squirrels abounded in the woods. Bounties at different periods have been offered for the destruction of such of these as were injurious to the farming interests. Foxes, raccoons, squirrels, crows, blackbirds, and hawks were especially under the ban. The blue-jay, the robin redbreast (" red thrasher," so called), woodpecker, oriole, bobolink, and many others contributed to make the woods beautiful with plumage and vocal with music, and must have been welcomed back to their haunts in the spring with the keenest joy by the self-exiled planters of the colony. Laws should ever be in existence and in force to protect and perpetuate these feathered friends of mankind. Wild fruits are abundant. Grapes grow in the woods and pastures, and cranberries in the meadows. Whor- tleberries, blackberries, strawberries, and raspberries are also found in great abundance, and have been gathered in baskets and bark by all the generations. The geological formation in Scituate is syenitic.

Indians .- When the early settlers of Scituate first came there they found a condition of things similar to that of Plymouth when the Pilgrims landed. Pestilence had swept off the natives, and a depopulated land invited their occupation. There was proof enough that this was once a well-peopled region. But the cleared planting-grounds had been long abandoned. The Indian corn-hills were over- grown with grass to an extent that gave the name of Greenfield to one at least of those planting-places. The tribe to which this territory had belonged was the Mattakeesetts, and the remnant thereof was living about the Indian Ponds in Pembroke. Very likely this locality may have been always the headquarters of the tribe. A few scattered individuals of the race lingered about the burial-grounds of their fathers, and" died there perhaps. Deane says a few families made a summer residence about Wigwam Neck as late as 1700. Members of the families of Opechus, Tan- tachi. and Attawan were there as late as 1740, and the Indian Simon, living near Simon's Hill, which still bears his name, was there later still, and the last of the race probably was Comsett, who enlisted in the Revolutionary army. The settlers might well have claimed that this abandoned territory could be taken possession of under a claim of right, and that their title would be an honest one. For this, how- ever, they were far too conscientious, and as soon as the proper negotiations could be entered into pro- ceeded to extinguish whatever Indian title might be

said to exist by purchase from Josias Wampatuck, the chief of Mattakeesetts, within whose tribal terri- tory Scituate was supposed once to lie. This Indian title deed to the township of Scituate reads as follows. Perhaps it should be added here that this deed is not the first one which was obtained about 1640, but was one substituted for it, with the evident object of in- cluding the " Two Miles." The Mattakeesetts were a friendly people :

"I, Josiah Wampatuck, do acknowledge and confess that I have sold two tracts of land unto Mr. Timothy Hatherly, Mr. James Cudworth, Mr. Joseph Tilden, Humphrey Turner, Wil- liam Hatch, John Hoar, and James Torrey, for the proper use and behoof of the Town of Scituate, to be enjoyed by them ac- cording to the true intents of the English grants. The one parcel of such land is bounded from the mouth of the North River, as that River goeth to the Indian Head River; from thence, as that River goeth unto the Pond at the head of that River, and from the pond at the head of the Indian Head River upon a straight line unto the middle of Accord Pond ; from Accord Pond, by the line set by the Commissioners as the bounds be- twixt the two jurisdictions, untill it meet with the line of the land sold by me unto the sharers of Conihasset, as that line runs between the Town and the sharers, until it cometh to the sea ; and so along by the sea unto the mouth of the North River aforesaid. The other parcell of land, lying on the easterly side of the North River, begins at a lot which was some time the land of John Ford, and so to run two miles southerly as the River runs, and a mile in breadth towards the east, for which parcell of land, I do acknowledge to have received of the men, whose names are before mentioned, fourteen pounds in full satis- faction, in behalf of the inhabitants of the town of Scituate as aforesaid ; and I do hereby promise and engage to give such further evidence before the Governor as the Town of Scituate shall think meet, when I am thereunte required. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand

in presence of

"NATHANIEL MORTON. EDWARD HAWES. SAMUEL NASH.

" JOSIAS WAMPATUCK. his M mark.

" At the same time when Josias made acknowledgment, as above mentioned, there was a Deed brought into Court which he owned to be the Deed which he gave to them whose names are above specified for the said lands, and that he had not given them another; which deed was burnt in presence of the Court. "NATHANIEL MORTON, Secretary."

Settlement and Growth .- Scituate, though lying within the territorial limits of the Pilgrim Colony of Plymouth, can scarcely be said to have been settled by the Pilgrim people of that colony, and neither was it wholly settled by the Puritan element of the Massa- chusetts Colony. In Scituate the confluent streams of settlement by way of Plymouth and of Boston seemed to have met and mingled. The first inhab- itants came in by way of Plymouth. It is probable that the settlers at Plymouth explored the coast at Scituate, and made grants of lands there to per- sons before any settlements were made at the place The cliffs were cleared "planting lands," and were

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HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH COUNTY.

songht for and title to thein obtained from the colony government by non-residents. This will explain those transactions which have led to the supposition that Scituate had one or two English settlers before 1628, and claimed as early as 1626. It is not prob- able that Scituate was the residence of any white man until 1630. Henry Merritt is conjectured to have lived there before 1628, and he may have done so, but the mere fact that he conveyed "planting lands" in 1628, which he bought of Goodman Bird, to Nathaniel Tilden, is not conclusive evidence that he lived there. The fact that Bird does not appear among the list of freemen, and that Henry Merritt was not admitted as a frecman, until 1638 is against the theory that they established homes there before 1630.

They may have been there on business, cultivating their " planting lands" in the Third Cliff, but their homes were most likely elsewhere. And against the theory that they resided there before 1630 is this almost controlling fact that Rev. Mr. Lothrop, first minister at Scituate, appears to have left a manu- script in which he undertakes to give the names of all the " Planters of Scituate" who had houses at Scituate after his arrival there,-" about the end of Sept. 1634." Of the nine houses he mentions, there is none either of Henry Merritt or Thomas Bird. It is not conceivable that he could overlook or omit any.

Anthony Annable came to Plymouth in 1623, and had lands assigned him there. He became interested in land in Scituate apparently, and selling his house and land in Plymouth, in 1630, must soon have re- moved to Scituate, but whether much before 1633 is uncertain. In April, 1633, the land at the Second Cliff was divided between Anthony Annable, William Gilson, Edward Foster, and Henry Rowley. Whether houses were built there is uncertain ; there may have been. According to Mr. Lothrop, who came in Jan- uary, 1634, after his arrival in September, 1634, Mr. Hatherly, Mr. Cudworth, Mr. Gilson, Mr. Annable, Mr. Rowley, Mr. Turner, Mr. Cobb, Mr. Hewes, and Mr. Foster had houses. As the same authority says that Henry Rowley did not build on his lot on Kent Street until after that, and that James Cudworth, Henry Cobb, and John Hewes did not build on their lots till 1636, it is not unlikely that Mr. Rowley, and perhaps others, had houses on their lands at the cliff, and it is very probable that Mr. Gilson may have been there also, although there are some reasons for believing that his house and Edward Foster's were on what was afterwards called Kent Street, and that their lots were assigned them with reference thercto.

There can be no doubt that Mr. Cudworth's house was across the brook northerly from Mr. Foster's and in the Coniliassett grant, while Mr. Hatherly's house was probably either farther north or on one of the cliffs. These houses were of a slight and temporary character, not log houses, but, as Mr. Lothrop dc- scribes them, " small plaine pallisade houses." As these houses were somewhat scattered, it indicates that they felt a sense of security, which, however, they did not allow to make them neglect proper pre- caution in subsequently arranging the plan of their town. The nine gentlemen mentioned by Mr. Lotlı- rop as having houses there in 1634 may be properly regarded as the first settlers of the town. The order in which they arrived there can never be known. They preserved the memory of their English home in the name given to the street first laid out and per- manently built upon. "Men of Kent" they were called, because of their emigration from that county in England. Aug. 2, 1633, may be regarded as the day when they took permanent possession for pur- poses of settlement, as that day they proceeded to lay out a street (allowing to each house-lot not more than four acres) with a view to building their village in such a way as would be favorable for defense against their enemies. Thus Kent Street, named for their native county in Old England, was there located, and lots bounding only eight rods on said street, but run- ning back eighty rods into the woods, were laid out.

That street still exists just where the fathers located it, and made their homes in this then wilderness of America. The descendants of a few of them still live on these first Scituate homesteads, and look across the same green meadows to the same fertile cliffs and shingle beach and boundless blue ocean beyond that their fathers looked upon in their lonely exile, as with grim resolve they sat down there to help begin the building of a great and new nation with its "new departure" for civil and religious freedom. Kent Street follows the winding shore of the salt marsh ; and may the curving beauty of the lines of this ancient highway never be destroyed by the evil spirit of straight lines which has taken such full possession of selectmen and county commissioners, and has led them to destroy the beauty, without materially en- larging the utility, of so many of our old roads. It was originally well located for the purposes proposed. It started a little southcasterly of Satuit Brook, at the corner of a way then or shortly after used for travel westerly into the woods and on the border of the salt marsh the lines of which it followed, running a south- casterly course. In front stretched away a large ex- panse of salt marsh, an open plain, to the second cliff

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History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 86

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