History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 126

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1464

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 126

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Therefore, our bumble request unto the Court is that you will be pleased to order that the said Curtis may be sent for, and that both him and your Committee may be examined either before some Commit- tee of the Court, thereunto to report the matter, or by the whole Court ; fer the substance of the case will, as we conceive, turo upon this binge; whether an order of the General Court, dated in May, 1667, prohibiting the laying out any particular grants in this place, in order te reserve it for a village, shall be of force and efficacy to nullify the acceptance of a particular grant laid out in this place, as is pretended, a year after: namely, at a Court held Anno 1668 ; the notying of this knot, which none can do but the General Court, will resolve the matter of controversy one way or other; so that this town will proceed or cease, and that your committee, and others concerned, may not be wrapt up in trouble and contention abont this matter, whose scope and aim is the public good, and that the good of many may be preferred before one, wherein we have no cause to doubt of this honored Court's faver and encouragement.

This petition was signed by the aforesaid committee and twenty-nine other persons. Having heard the parties upon this petition, the deputies adjudged, the magistrates consenting, that said Curtis " shall have fifty acres of the land that is already laid out to

him, where he hath built, so it be in one place, with all manner of accommodation appertaining thereto as other inhabitants have." And also that he shall have liberty to take up two hundred and fifty acres of land without the bounds of the town, but near and adjoining thereto.

This closed the controversy between Mr. Curtis and the other settlers, a controversy which onght not and could not have arisen if the Colonial Legislature had exercised more care in making grants of land. The grant which Curtis had acquired by purchase was to Noyes, of two hundred and fifty acres, with the right to locate upon any lands not already granted. This was earlier than the grant of the eight miles square for the Worcester plantation, and yet the latter grant was made without excepting the tract of land which had then been located under the grant to Noyes within the limits of the eight miles square. But it was not an infrequent occurrence in those early times, when land was of comparatively little valne, for successive grants to overlap each other, and this endless confu- sion in land titles ensued ; and even to this day it is well-nigh impossible to fix with any certainty the exact boundaries of some estates in this county, es- pecially estates which have never been under culti- vation or enclosed, and consisting of forest or swamp lands.

¿4, Having adjusted their controversies with all other claimants and established rules for conducting the affairs of the settlement, the committee proceeded to obtain a release of title from the Indians to the lands embraced within the limits of their grant from the Legislature, and for the sum of twelve pounds in lawful money of New England, or the full value thereof in otber specie, the Indians relinquished their title (whatever that was) by a deed, executed by sev- eral of their Sagamores with great formality, July 13, 1674. The receipt of part payment, viz., two coats and four yards of trucking cloth, valued at twenty-six shillings, as earnest in hand, was acknowledged. The conveyance was to the committee in fee, and to the rest of the people admitted, or to be admitted, to be inhabitants-a most indefinite designation of the grantees. Another peculiarity about this deed was the fact that the acknowledgment was taken by Gookin, one of the grantees. But in reality it mat- tered little what was the form of deed executed by these untutored and nomadic savages, for, according to the law as interpreted by the highest courts in this country and in England, the Indians had no fee in the land, but only a right of temporary occupation, and the Crown, only, had the power to extinguish that right. But, nevertheless, as a means of promoting friendly relations with their nncivilized neighbors, it was good policy for the settlers of the town to go through the form of purchasing their lands from them ; yet the worthlessness of the covenant contained in that deed, that the grantees, their heirs and as- signs, should forever peacefully enjoy the granted

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premises, was made painfully manifest not many months after the giving of the deed, when the Nipmucks and other neighboring tribes joined Philip in his war of attempted extermination of the English scttle- ments throughout the colony. But Gookin and Eliot, who had the amplest means of knowledge on the sub- ject, earnestly asserted that the praying Indians of the Nipmuck and other tribes remained faithful and true to the English.

We have now reached a stage in the history of the settlement of Worcester when, as appears from the foregoing brief narrative, a grant of a territory eight miles square had been made by the Colonial Legisla- ture to a committee, representing in reality the future inhabitants of the place, and that committee had procured from the Indians whatever right or title they might have had in or to the territory. Provision had been made for the public worship of God and popular education ; a training-field had been laid out, and a block-house or fort erected for purposes of defence in case of need; public highways had been provided for, and other appropriate measures adopted for establishing a civilized and Christian community.

And in the spring of 1674 as many as thirty house-lots were laid out and houses began to be erected. But "most of those who had expressed an intention to become planters, and who joined in the petition of the Committee in May, 1674, discouraged by difficulties or delay, had abandoned their purpose." Still, notwithstanding this desertion of many who had promised to give aid to the new enterprise, the work of settlement was pushed forward with vigor by those who were willing to encounter the inevitable hard- ship and dangers connected with the planting civiliza- tion in regions inhabited only by wild beasts and nomadic tribes of savage men. In the spring of 1675, and in the early summer of that year, the settlement had so far advanced that, in the language of an annalist of the period, the inhabitants "had built after the manner of a town." This was the hopeful state of affairs when, in midsummer of 1675, King Philip's War broke out in Plymouth Colony, and soon carried devastation and terror into every part of that and the Massachusetts Colony.

The commencement of hostilities in that desolating war, in what is now Worcester County, furnished au illustration of a trait in the Indian character which education and Christianity combined seem powerless to eradicate. Matoonus, a Christianized Indian, had a son who was executed in 1671 for the murder of an Englishman. Matoonus, described as a grave and sober Indian, and who had been specially befriended by Gookin, and appointed by him as one of the police officers of the neighborhood, still cherishing the vindictive spirit so characteristic of his race, vis- ited Mendon, with others of his tribe, July 10, 1675, and there avenged, according to his notion of retrib- utive justice, the death of his son by the murder of five of the unoffending inhabitants of that town.

"This," says Lincoln in his admirable " History of Worcester," " was the signal for the commencement of a desperate contest. Common dangers produced that efficient union of the Northern Colonies, ce- mented by the necessity of self-preservation. The war was not of long duration. Energetic and rapid excursions laid waste the resources of the hostile tribes ; the allies enticed to their support, foreseeing their fate, grew cold towards ancient friendships ; their supplies were destroyed; their wigwams were consumed, and Philip and his forces, hunted from post to post, deserted homes, and took refuge among the Nipmuck villages, where they received shelter and reinforcements. Unable to maintain open fight, they continued an unsparing predatory warfare upon the exposed homes and garrisons. Alarm prevailed throughout New England. None knew when to ex- pect the visitation of the foe, lurking unseen in the solitude of the forest, until the blow fell, as sudden as the lightning, and left the effects traced with fire and blood. The husbandmen went forth to culti- vate the field, armed as if for battle; the musket and the sword rested by the pillow, whose slumber was often broken, as the war-whoop rose on the watches of the night. The planters of Worcester, placed hard by the seat of the enemy, remote from friendly aid, with no dwelling of civilized man nearer than Marlborough on the east, Lancaster towards the north, and Quabaug (now Brookfield) westward, to afford assistance and support, were compelled to de- sert their possessions, and dispersed among the larger towns. The silence of desolation succeeded to the cheerful sounds of industry, and the village was abandoned to the wild beast and fiercer foe." And so ended the first act of the heroic struggle to plant a new town on this then perilous frontier.

¿ 5. Before proceeding to any account of the sec- ond unsuccessful attempt to establish a permanent settlement here, it may be well to call the reader's attention to the absolutely original plan upon which the settlement was to be effected, and how every step in the progress of the enterprise was directed and controlled by the character of the planters and the peculiar circumstances under which they were com- pelled to act ; to the original constitution of the com- mittee ; their petition to the colonial government for a grant of territory ; the grant and its conditions ; to the meetings of the committee and the measures de- vised by them ; to the principles announced by them upon which they proposed to act and to the objects to be attained by the planting of a new town in this un- settled part of the colony ; to their early and embar- rassing controversies respecting the title to land within the limits of the territory assigned to them and to the constant dangers by which they were menaced from the surrounding tribes of hostile In- dians ; to their carly and careful provision for popu- lar education and to that supreme purpose of theirs, the establishment, in its purity, of the worship of

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God; to their sublime faith in the unseen and eter- nal, which inspired them with a courage adequate for every temporary peril and with an invincible forti- tude for every trial and disappointment. It was these peculiar qualities in the character of the found- ers, combined with their lofty and well-defined pur- poses and the wholly novel circumstances under which they were called to act, that distinguished the origin and organization of towns during the first dec- ades of the Massachusetts and Plymouth Colonies from those of any other municipalities of any other age or country.

And the writer has set forth in the foregoing pages, in more of detail than may seem necessary, the prin- ciples, resolutions and plans adopted by the first set- tlers of Worcester, for the purpose of showing how broad and deep and abiding were the foundations upon which they proposed to build. For although the first attempt and the second failed, yet the prin- ciples and objects of the subsequent and successful founders of the town remained the same as those of their predecessors. In this connection brief notices of the members of the committee, by whom the affairs of the plantation were managed during the first twenty-five or thirty years, may not be deemed inap- propriate; especially as every great enterprise, like the founding of a new community, derives its charac- teristics from those who control it in its origin and early developments. The most distinguished and in- fluential member of that committee was Daniel Gookin, sometimes spoken of in our annals as Captain and at other times as General Gookin, for he was pro- moted in the military service from the office of cap- tain to that of major-general of the colony. He was also appointed by the General Court in 1656 as super- intendent of all the Indians who submitted to the government of the colony. He was the associate and fellow-laborer with John Eliot in the work of civiliz- ing and Christianizing the Indians ; he was one of the best and firmest friends the Indians ever found among the colonists, and for more than twenty years preced- ing his death, in March, 1687, his devotion to the in- terests of the Worcester settlement was constant and unabated. He was a native of the county of Kent, England, and the son of Daniel Gookin, who became one of the patentees of Virginia, and in 1621 planted a colony at Newport News, in that colony. Major- General Gookin, then a youth of nine or ten years only, accompanied his father in this attempt to plant a colony, and after his father left the colony, as is supposed, young Gookin remained, and subsequently secured large grants of land in different parts of Vir- ginia. In 1642 missionaries were sent from Massa- chusetts to Virginia to convert the people from the error of their Episcopalian ways. These missionaries were not well received, and the year following their advent the Assembly passed an act forbidding them fram preaching or teaching in public or private, and they were finally expelled from the colony; but not

until Captain Gookin, as he was then called, had be- come one of the converts, and in 1644 he left Virginia and removed with his family to Massachusetts ; by which removal Virginia lost and Massachusetts gained one of the noblest of men. A few days after his arrival in Boston he became a member of the First Church ; was made a freeman of the colony ; resided in succes- sive years in Roxbury, Boston and Cambridge ; he was a Representative in the General Court from Cam- bridge in 1648 and 1651 and Speaker of the House in 1651. In 1652 he was elected an assistant and re- elected thirty-four successive years. He revisited England in 1654, and while there was appointed by Cromwell a commissioner to induce New Englanders to emigrate to the island of Jamaica. On his return to this country he endeavored to promote Cromwell's colonization scheme, but without success, and in 1657 he resigned and asked to be relieved from any further duty under his commission, which request was granted. Gookin was at that time living in Cambridge, and was appointed one of the first two licensers of the printing- press at that place.

Upon the outbreak of King Philip's War the In- dians who had been gathered into villages by Goo- kin and Eliot, and there taught some of the arts of civilized life, became objects of suspicion and dread to the people, notwithstanding Gookin and Eliot's assurances that they would remain faithful to their vows of friendship for the English. And so great did the excitement become among the people that Gookin, for the safety of his wards-the praying Indians-re- moved three thousand of them to Deer Island and provided for them there and in Cambridge until the close of the war, when they were sent back to their villages. By these acts of fidelity to the Indians Gookin became excessively unpopular, for a time, with the colonists, and his life was repeatedly threat- ened, but he continued the undaunted friend of the Indians, and never lost faith in their loyalty. Many of these Indians enlisted in the war against Philip, in many memorable instances rendering signal services as soldiers and spies. In 1674 Gookin published "Historical Collection of the Indians in New Eng- land ; of the Several Nations, Customs and Manners, Religions and Government before the English planted there." He also wrote an account of the doings and sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England in 1675, '76 and '77. His mannscript "History of New England," in eight volumes, was lost. In 1657 the General Court granted to him five hundred acres of land for services in behalf of the colony. His services to the colony were constant and of the highest value, both in the civil and military line of public duty. General Gookin descended from an ancient and hon- orable family in England, and his descendants in New England became distinguished in various de- partments of public service, and by intermarriage they became connected with several of the leading families of the colony. Captain Daniel Henchman,

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

another member of the committee, and second to General Gookin only in the value of his services to the early settlers of Worcester, made his first appear- ance in the colony as a teacher of a grammar school in Boston in 1666.

fle was admitted freeman in 1672, a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1674, and appointed captain of Fifth Boston Company of Co- lonial Militia. In May, 1675, he was sent with his com- pany of one hundred meu to the assistance of Plymouth Colony against the Indians. In July of the same year, the day after the attack by the Indians on the whites at Swansea, he again marched with his eom - pany and was present and took part in the attack upon Philip and his men at Pocasset Swamp, when the conflict only ended with the darkness, which rendered its further continuance impossible. All the other troops having been withdrawn, Captain Henchman was left with his men to watch the movements of the wily Philip, whom, having made his escape, Henchman, with only a few of his men, pursued as far as Mendon and Brookfield, in this county. He con- tinned in active military service during that fearful and final struggle of the ruthless savage to regain possession of New England. He was regarded as one of the bravest and most skillful Indian fighters. Captain Henchman was a cousin of Judge Samuel Sewall, and alfied by family ties to the Hulls, Gookins, Quincys and Eliots.

At the close of Philip's War Captain Henchman again became active as a member of the committee having charge of the " Plantation at Qninsigamond." He erected a honse here in 1683, which was the home of his family till his death, in 1685. Before his death, although he had shown himself for years as a stanch friend of the plantation, he had become very unpopular, in consequence of his action respecting a controversy between Captain Wing, a favorite of the people, and Mr. Danson, about the title to a small tract of land, which both of the contestants claimed ; and although, as it subsequently appeared upon full inquiry, Capt. Henchman was entirely right in his view of the case. But this vindication of his conduct was not until after his death and burial, the latter of which was at- tended by the immediate members of his family, two servants (one white and one black), and one or two other friends, presenting a striking illustration of the fickleness of popular favor and of the gross injustice that may be committed by what is sometimes called publie opinion.

Captain Richard Beeres, an original proprietor of Watertown-admitted freeman March, 1637-was selectman more than thirty years, and represented his town many years in the General Court. He was also actively employed in the military service of the Colony. In 1675 he marched with his company to the relief of Brookfield, thence to Hadley, thence to Hatfield and Deerfield ; in the months of August and September was present in several engagements with

the Indians, in which he exhibited the qualities of a brave and skillful leader. September 3, 1675, he started with only thirty-six men to bring off the men from the garrison at Northfield. The next day, while pushing on towards the fort with a part of his men, they fell into an ambuscade, and were driven back by the deadly fire of the Indians to a place called Beeres' Hill, and there the conflict was continued until the brave leader and most of his men were slain.

Captain Thomas Prentice, born in England 1620, came to this contry 1649 and settled at first in Cam- bridge. He was a farmer. He became a member of the church in Cambridge and freeman in 1653. He was elected lieutenant of a company of troopers in 1656. In 1662 was captain, and represented Cam- bridge in the General Court in 1672, '73 and '74 ; was chairman of the Board of Selectmen of New Cambridge many years. He was an extensive land- owner in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. He was noted for his courage, self-possession and keen sense of justice. He was a terror to the In- dians in war and a firm and judicious friend of theirs in times of peace. He was ever ready to answer the call of the country and served with marked distinc- tion during the war with King Philip. He com- manded the troops sent to escort Sir Edmund Andros, who had escaped to Rhode Island, back to Boston. Upon the death of General Gookin, Captain Prentice was appointed superintendent of the Christian In- dians as his successor upon the petition of the In- dians. He was in command of the troops that escorted them to Deer Island by order of General Gookin in 1675. His death, at the age of eighty- nine, was caused by a fall from his horse, July 7, 1709.

Adam Winthrop, grandson of John Winthrop, born 1647 and graduated at Harvard in 1668; was made freeman in 1683; was one of the commissioners for the town of Boston 1684, 1685 and 1690; select- man, 1688-89 ; Representative in the General Court, 1689, 1691 and 1692. He was appointed a member of the Governor's Council under the provincial char- ter, but failed to be elected by the people in the fol- lowing year (1693). At his death, in 1700, he left one son, graduate of Harvard 1694, and one daughter,

Captain John Wing, of Boston, acquired his title, it is believed, by his service as a mariner; was ap- pointed constable in Boston in 1671-72. In 1676 was chosen to " look after too much drinking in pri- vate houses." This was probably done more to secure the excise duties on liquors than for the purpose of promoting moderate drinking. He was for many years the popular landlord of the Castle Tavern, which stood on the corner of Elm Street and Dock Square. He was elected a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery in 1694. He became inter- ested in the plantation near "Quinsigamond Pond," and undertook, as early as 1684, to supply the town

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WORCESTER.

with a grist-mill and saw-mill, two indispensable things for a new frontier town. In October, 1684, he was made a member of the committee for the planta- tion. He gave much of his time for the next six years after his appointment to the business of the committee. He was the first town clerk elected by the inhabitants. He died in Boston, February 22, 1703.

Captain William Bond, of Watertown, son of Thomas Bond, of Bury St. Edmund's, Suffolk County, England, was a man of large and varied capacity for affairs, and filled many public offices, the duties of which he never failed to perform acceptably. He was successively selectman, town clerk, justice of the peace (not an unimportant office in his day), mem- ber of the Council of Safety, Representative and first speaker of the General Court, under the Provincial charter ; and he was one of the committee for rebuild- ing the town of Lancaster, after its destruction by the Indians.

Captain Joseph Lynd, of Charlestown, was a wealthy merchant and large land-owner, Representative in the General Court, member of the Committee of Safety in 1689, and one of the Council under the new charter.

Penn Townsend, born in Boston, 1651, made free- man in 1674, and the same year was elected member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. He was promoted in the military line until he reached the rank of colonel. In civil life he was, in succes- sion, selectman, Representative, commissioner and judge.

Captain Ephraim Hunt, of Weymouth, was of English origin. He accompanied the expedition to Canada in 1690. This was the expedition devised by the congress of the Colonies which met in New York in May, 1690. The conquest of Canada was to be at- tempted by marching a land force by way of Lake Champlain against Montreal, while Massachusetts should, with a fleet, attack Quebec. It was the latter that Captain Hunt accompanied. He afterwards served as colonel on an expedition against the In- dians at Groton, in 1706-7. He was a Representative and Councilor.

Deacon John Haynes, at one time a member of the committee, resided in Sudbury, and was a Representa- tive of that town in the General Court, and was a person to whom his neighbors frequently resorted for the adjustment of their controversies. Such is a brief record of the men who were conspicuous actors in the settlement of Worcester ; and any community may deem itself fortunate, which can find names of such men upon the roll of its founders.1

¿6. The war, which had desolated many parts of New England, ended with the death of Philip, its chief instigator ; and upon the return of peace the commit- tee renewed their efforts for a permanent settlement

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 126

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1464

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1464