History of the Town of Acushnet, Bristol County, State of Massachusetts, Part 8

Author: Howland, Franklyn, 1843-1907
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: New Bedford, Mass., The author
Number of Pages: 424


USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Acushnet > History of the Town of Acushnet, Bristol County, State of Massachusetts > Part 8


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The regiment with which he was connected was soon ordered to New York state, where he served continuously through the entire war. He was in the battles of White Plains in 1776; Saratoga in 1777; Stony Point in 1779; and Yorktown in 1781. He was at the surrender of General Burgoyne and General Cornwallis, and at New York when the British evacuated that port. His company remained in the vicinity of the Hudson river till peace was declared. Deliverance walked from there to Long Plain in January, 1783, after an absence of more than seven years with- · out a furlough, was joyously received by his friends and townsmen, and was one of the greatest heroes of the war.


Mr. Bennett was married Dee. 24, 1786, by Elder Daniel Hix, to Mercy Phillips of Freetown.


Mr. Bennett became a sailor in the War of 1812; was captured and pressed into the British service. Here he was severely wounded by a splinter made by a cannon ball. This misfortune he used as a means of securing his parole. He applied copperas to the wound to keep it open till it was pronounced incurable and he was released. The wound never healed and he died from the effects of it in the autumn of 1836, aged eighty-six years. He was allowed a pension on account of the wound. Mr. Bennett was well informed and had a good memory. He was an interesting man to converse with till the close of his life. It is said he made a very venerable and attractive appearance as he rode in the Fourth of July procession at New Bedford the year previous to his decease. His fine and dignified form, clad in a striking suit of old fashioned style, consisting of a blue coat and a bright colored waistcoat, both with rows of showy brass buttons, and knee trousers, was a feature of the day. This is no historical fiction-the name Deliverance Bennett is on the roll of Revolutionary soldiers from Dartmouth, in the, State house at Boston, and the above statement was as he made it to a personal friend of the writer.


SAMUEL JOY'S OVEN The writer has found in various records a place or object designated "Samuel Joy's Oven,"


and has frequently been asked for an explanation of what it referred to. No records or person or writings have come to hand in response to my inquiries in our local papers for such information. In the layout of the present Mill road from Ball's corner southerly to Swift's corner-near the village bridge, the course is thence westerly "along the back side of Samuel Joy's Oven" to Lunds corner. This was Jan. 3-6, 1719.


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It appears that all the tract on the south side of the latter section of this road, extending from the river to the County road, was set off to "Samuel Joy, blacksmith," in 1711. He built a house in the northeast corner of the three acre tract where the present Humphrey Hathaway (Alice Roosevelt) dwelling now stands, and a blacksmith shop to the west- ward of it. Here he doubtless resided till he conveyed the property to Nathaniel Blackwell in 1722. But the oven! Dictionaries, cyclopedias and other books have been searched in vain for the significance of the term as applied to this case. My impression is, however, that his dwelling, and others in the neighborhood, may have not had that almost indis- pensable adjunct in those days of no stoves, a bake oven. Samuel Joy was a town official, a bright, thrifty business man, and perhaps concluded he could supply a household necessity for Good-wife Joy, and turn an honest penny by baking for neighbors situated like himself, by building an oven in a small structure apart from the house in which the family lived. Here his family could do the baking for themselves, and at a small cost for neighbors who had no facilities for such needful work. This novel, ingenious thought worked out to a conclusion resulted in "Samuel Joy's Oven." Whatever the object was it faced the south, as most build- ings at that period did, regardless of their location or the highway, as the layout was "along the back side" of it.


Photo, by Fred W. Palmer, New Bedford.


THOMAS WOOD HOUSE, Built about 1675.


SMALL POX SCOURGE Small pox commenced in 1788, when it was a dreaded and almost fatal disease, a long continued attack in this community. A pest house was erected by the town. The question whether to recommend the practice of vaccination


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was decided in town meeting in the negative at this time. The fatality and increase of the disease was so alarming that a town meeting was called for Jan. 31, 1792, to take into consideration the request for "establishing a hospital for inoculation of the small pox * * * and to prevent its spreading." It was voted to provide four hospitals in different parts of the town. Alden Spooner and Eleazer Hathaway were on the committee of nine persons to carry out the order of the meeting. It appears that about one in seventy of the entire population died. The ravages of the disease, which was so frightful and dreaded in those days, did not end till eight years after its commencement. Among those who died of this pest in Acushnet between September, 1792, and Jan. 1, 1793, were Phebe Jenne and son Silas, Desire Taber and child, Phebe Kempton, Lemuel Hathaway, Antipas Taber, and each of the following persons lost a child: Jonathan Jenne, Asa Sherman, Humphrey Hathaway and Colonel Edward Pope. Inscriptions on the head stones in the Precinct cemetery at Parting Ways show a large number of deaths during the above prolonged period of pestilential visitation.


Photo, by Fred W. Palmer, New Bedford.


JABEZ TABER TAVERN, Built before 1715.


STAGE TRAVEL It was more than one hundred and twenty-five years after the original settlers established themselves here


before there were public conveyances in any direction. All the travel the first years of the settlement was by horseback and the provisions con- sumed in the homes, which were not produced here from the soil, were hauled from Boston by horses and oxen, largely by the latter. A descendant of Captain Mason Taber, who had a grocery store at the


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"Mason Taber tavern," says much of the goods for the business there were brought from Boston by teams.


The first public conveyance out of New Bedford the writer has learned of was a stage route owned and managed by Samuel Sprague, who lived on Long Plain road. It was established in 1793, and another the same year by Andrew Kershew. One of these routes was through Acushnet, Middleboro, Bridgewater to Boston. The other was over the Post road in this town to Rochester by Perry hill road, thence through Wareham, and Sandwich to Barnstable. Abraham Russell of New Bedford opened a. stage route about the same date through Acushnet and Taunton to Boston. Here is a copy of Mr. Russell's advertisement in the New Bedford Medley of May 19, 1797 :


New Bedford And Boston Mail Stage.


Will run from New Bedford to Boston thro' Taunton, the ensuing summer, three times a week, on the following days, viz .: Leave Bed- ford on the Second, Fourth and Sixth days of each week at 4 o'clock A. M. and arrive at Boston on the evening of the same day. Return- ing, leave Boston at 4 o'clock A. M. on the Third, Fifth and Seventh days of each week, and arrive at Bedford on the evening of these days. To commence running thus the next week.


The fare of each passage will be as follows: From New Bedford to Boston, three dollars and fifty cents; From Taunton to Boston, two dollars and fifty cents; And for any distance short of the above places, six cents per mile .- One hundred pounds wt. of baggage equal to a passenger. Abraham Russell.


New Bedford, 4 mo. 27, 1797.


Passengers were obliged to remain at Taunton over night. Upon the establishment of a post office in New Bedford in 1794, the mail was carried by this stage. This gave the name of Post road to the thoroughfares over which they were conveyed.


As the roads over which these stages were to go had been used only by horseback travelers and small teams, it was necessary to make way for the coaches by cutting off the branches of trees that overhung the road. It is said that Hannah, daughter of Doctor West, who lived on the east side of the Post road a little beyond Parting Ways, seeing men lopping off the branches of some fine trees in front of the dwelling, earnestly remon- strated at what appeared to her an outrageous act, and was not reconciled to it till assured it was to admit of the passing of a stage coach to Boston for public service. There was great rejoicing in Acushnet over the opening of these mail and traveling facilities.


One who may have been sitting on the stoop of the old Pope Tavern just east of the bridge in the village, some day when the Boston coach made its trip, might have heard the stage horn and the crack of the driver's whip as the coach turned eastward at Lunds corner; the rumble of wheels and the clatter of feet of fresh horses as they approach at John Gilpin speed. The driver pulls up in front of the inn, which is the first


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stopping place on the sixty-mile drive.


The passengers climb into the vehicle, the old fashioned band boxes, carpet bags and hair trunks are put on board, and the coach is off. The next stopping place is the Jabez Taber tavern, two miles beyond, thence to the Vincent or Mason Taber tavern, a mile farther on at the head of Perry Hill road. From here the route was onward to Taunton or Middleboro between the charm- ing lakes of the latter town.


This tedious mode of public conveyance was the only one out of New Bedford overland to Boston till the opening of the New Bedford and Taunton railroad on the first day of July, 1840. This event was hailed with great delight by every one except the owners of stage coaches and proprietors of inns along the stage lines. These men who had reaped a harvest in conveying the public and entertaining man and beast, found their occupation without patronage and went out of business. Nothing remains of these enterprises except the old wayside inns, which have since been private residences.


HUMAN SLAVERY IN ACUSHNET


Very early in the history of Old Dartmouth some of its inhabitants indulged in the pernicious prac-


tice of holding Africans in bondage. They were bought and sold, a place was set apart in the meeting house for them to sit, and in the graveyard for them to lie.


John Chaffee, who lived on Mill road, a deacon of the Precinct church, and later an official of the Methodist church in the village, owned part of a Negro man named Venture.


Benjamin Pierce, who lived at Long Plain, near the Friends' Meet- ing House, and died in 1756, in his will bequeathed to his wife, Sarah, his Negro girl Phyllis.


Elnathan Pope, who was son of Capt. Seth Pope, received from his father the farm at Perry Hill, died in 1747, leaving a Negro man worth 100£ and a man worth 70£.


Robert Bennett, who lived in the Sands Wing house, now owned by John S. Perry, died 1746 and left a Negro woman to his son Robert.


Captain William Taber, who lived on the Post road, two miles above the Head-of-theRiver, advertised in The New Bedford Medley of May 15, 1797, for his Negro, who had run away. He ran away again in 1807. According to the record over 10,000 native Africans were brought into the port of Charleston this year, 1807.


Strange as it may seem, some members of the Friends' society engaged in the traffic, and did not readily yield to the entreaty of some of their brethren to abandon the practice. Others of that body publicly opposed the system, believing it to be morally wrong, and persistently urged action against it by the meeting. This they succeeded in, as indicated by the


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following minute entered upon the records of a Dartmouth Quarterly meeting in 1716.


"The matter relating to the purchasing of Slaves being agitated in the Meeting it is concluded by ye most of ye Meeting that it would be most agreable to our Holy profession to forbear for time to come, to be in any way Concerned in purchasing Slaves."


These courageous, God-fearing men and women possessed the spirit of the poet Cowper when he made this declaration :


"I would not have a slave to till my grounds, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth


That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.


I had much rather be myself a slave


And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him."


This noble action had a salutary effect on Friends generally, and through the firm stand which they took against the system a strong anti- slavery feeling soon prevailed throughout the community. This Christian organization generally, never faltered in the work till Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The incident marked the begin- ning of an increasing Abolition sentiment here, which caused New Bed- ford to subsequently become renowned as a noble champion of the anti- slavery cause.


The overthrow of the iniquitous system began at once, and as slave holders followed an enlightened conscience they either permitted their slaves to purchase their freedom, or voluntarily presented them with manumission papers. But the practice did not cease till a century after the above declaration of rights by the Friends.


Here follows a copy of an interesting bill of sale of a slave from his owners to himself in 1770 :


Whereas Elnathan Samson of Dartmouth in the county of Bristol & Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England Blacksmith did on the Eighth Day of November. A D 1769 at Public Auction purchase buy and become possessor of a Negro Man Slave Named Venter aged about Forty Six years as May appear by a Bill of Sale of Said Negro given to the Said Elnathan Samson by Job Williams a Deputy Sheriff in Said County of Bristol who was then Taken & Sold by Virtur of a Writ of Execution where-in one Daniel Russel was Creditor and one Jeremiah Child Debtor as the proper Estate of the said Jeremiah Child before the Said Sale And the Said Elnathan Samson Did afterwards reconvey one half of Said Negro to John Chaffee of Said Dartmouth Spermaciti Manufactory.


These are Therefore to certify Whom so ever it May Concern that we the Said Elnathan Samson & John Chaffee for and in Con- sideration of the sum of twenty one Pounds six shillings & four pence Lawful money of sd Province to us in hand paid by the Said Negro Man Venture the receipt whereof we hereby acknowledge him acquitted & renounced all Right Title or Interest whatever in and to


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said Negro & Do hereby set him at full Liberty to act his own Will, from the day of the Date hereof forever.


In Witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands and seals this Ninth Day of July in the Tenth of his Magesty's Reign Anno Domini


Signed & Sealed in the presence of


1770 Edward Pope Elisha Tobey


Elnathan Samson John Chaffee


Illustrative of two statements made above, one who saw it relates to me that there was a "slave pen" in one end of the gallery of the meeting house at Parting Ways, reserved for these people. In Lakeville, Mass., a few miles from this town, is an open lot surrounded by a growth of trees and shrubs and reached by a woods road. It is situated a few rods north of the highway leading from the County road eastward over Mullein hill, now known as Highland road.


In one corner of this plat are the graves of a family. Nearly seventy- five feet distant from these and in the centre of the lot is a grey colored stone-one only-about eighteen inches square. This was evidently erected to the memory of an esteemed slave of the family. On the stone is chiselled the following inscription :


Memory [ Ammon a negro[ Man belong to [ Capt. William Canedy ] he Died March ye] 30th 1778 in ye 29th [ Year of his age


INDIAN RELICS AND GRAVE YARDS Numerous places have been discovered in this town which were the locations of wigwams, and the burial places of Indians. Perhaps the find of relics in Fairhaven a little south of our town will show what may exist in many places in this town. In excavating near the site of Cooke's garrison house, Howland road, on the John M. Howland place in Fair- haven many relics of Indians were exhumed. About five hundred feet southwest of Cooke's garrison house was once an Indian settlement and burying ground, the latter a mound several feet high, long ago removed, as its material was valuable for building purposes. Many years ago a large number of skeletons were unearthed. Among them one was found in a sitting posture with elbows on the knees, wampum wound about the wrists and a brass kettle over the head. Large deposits of oyster, clam and quahog shells were found in and about the hill. They found many articles in a cellar. In one corner was a bed of wood ashes in the midst of which were charred embers, and underneath it all were two large hearthstones worn smooth on the upper surface. They found three


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pewter spoons with iron handles, a quantity of arrowheads, flint stones from which evidently arrowheads had been chipped, several stone toma- hawks, a cylinder block of stone ten inches long used probably as a pestle for crushing corn, a small deer horn, a boar tusk, fishhook, stone chisel, and what is perhaps the most curious of all, an iron key eight inches long, rude in construction and corroded with rust. Some one suggests it may have been the very one that locked the garrison house. Probably it was. Many of these articles used by the Indians have been found on the Colonel Robinson farm at Long Plain, the Rodolphus Swift place at Acushnet village and in many spots along the river shore and in the woods of the interior.


Indian graves are indicated by field stones on the surface or the articles buried with them which have been turned up by the plow of the white man, such as arrow heads, hatchets, chisels, wedges and gouges of stone, tobacco pipes, and in some instances skulls with teeth and hair attached. One instance is recorded where a skeleton was found with the nose of a bottle resting upon the mouth of the skull. This bottle probably contained "fire water" when placed there, a commodity which proved as great a curse to them as it has to many of the Anglo-Saxons who succeeded them in the habitation of this country.


STOCKS AND WHIPPING POSTS Dartmouth people early provided for punishing offenders against civil laws by the methods usually employed at the time, stocks and whipping posts. John Russell, Sr., built a pair of stocks for the town in 1686. At the town meeting of July 29, 1709, "Henry Howland was agread with to make a pare of Stocks and a Whipping Post." My impression is that the stocks built by Mr. Russell stood in the neighborhood of Apponegansett village, where he lived. This was a long distance to carry offenders for castigation from the northeast corner of this town, twelve miles or more, and those Mr. Howland constructed were the ones that stood on the west bank of the Acushnet river a few feet south of the bridge in Acushnet village, directly to the east of and across the cart path from Humphrey Hathaway's dwelling house. They were in commission many years. The intelligent antiquarian, George H. Taber of Fairhaven, related to the writer that his mother witnessed the last whipping administered at this place. This was about 1799. She was then attending the school located at the southeast corner of the Parting Ways. This event she said drew a large crowd of people and its importance was signalized by the closing of the schools, so that the scholars might be present at this final act in the history of this method of punishment. When the crowd of bystand- ers had collected about the whipping post, they were entertained by a lashing vigorously administered to John Black for stealing from his neighbor.


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SHIPBUILDING AT ACUSHNET VILLAGE


In the early history of Old Dartmouth, Acush- net village was the chief maritime port on the river. This was the centre of the northeast section of the original purchase. Dry goods, groceries and all the necessi- ties of life not raised here had to be hauled overland from Boston or shipped by water to this point. The first vessels constructed anywhere on the Acushnet river-before Belleville, before Bedford-were built here.


The first shipyard on the river was located on the west side of the stream where it widens, about 500 feet south of the village bridge. The river was so narrow, even at this point, that great care had to be taken in launching vessels or they would run into the muddy bank on the opposite side, as they sometimes did, and were hauled out with consider- able difficulty.


This was known at one period of its history as "Stetson's ship yard," from the proprietor, Charles Stetson, who lived in a house next north of it, now owned and occupied by Sarah, widow of George M. Nichols. In the early days of this enterprise only small crafts were constructed, such as were used in deep water fishing, and coasters. The building facilities were increased in the latter part of the eighteenth century and larger vessels were built, chiefly for the whaling industry. The first of this class launched from the yard, it is said, was the Hunter for Seth Russell & Sons at Bedford. This yard was abandoned and the ship Swift was built later at the foot of Howard street, a half mile south of the bridge. The Swift was named for Jireh Swift, 4th, who with his brother- in-law, Humphrey Hathaway, owned her. It is related that on the 10th of November, 1805, one hundred years ago, the ship Swift lay at the wharf with flags flying; on this same day Jireh Swift and Elizabeth Hathaway were married. For more than fifty years the ship Swift sailed the seas until her close came in the Pacific. Mr. Humphrey Swift owns an oil painting by Bradford of the good ship and her cabin water pitcher with her picture painted thereon. The brig Sun was also built here for Isaac Vincent of Acushnet.


Shipbuilding was transferred from here to Belleville, which became a busy place. Tradition says the brig Hope was built here. She was employed in the foreign merchant service, making a voyage under com- mand of Captain John Hawes from Philadelphia to Ireland in 1795 and from Liverpool to Alexandria in 1797. Captain Doty was in command of her in 1800. A ship Hope was a privateer in the Revolutionary war. Captain William Gordon was agent for the Thesis, which hailed from Belleville in 1808. From this it appears that the business at Belleville was restored after the British destroyed it in 1778. Here at Belleville were storehouses and a cooper's shop, together with. other buildings used in carrying on the ship building, whaling and freighting business.


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These were all consumed by the British in their eventful march. This was a great blow to the business and prospects of the place. Before the destruction of the place the people were so sanguine of its successful future that Captain William Gordon of Acushnet was employed to lay out a village there. The name of Glasgow was seriously considered for the name in honor of Joseph McPherson, a Scotch resident; but it was decided to call it Belleville, and that has been the name by which the locality has been known ever since. The first vessel constructed at Bedford village was the Dartmouth, in 1773, built near the location of present Hazzard's wharf. In "1784 a vessel was built at Apponegan- sett," probably at what is now Padanaram, which was later a whaling port of considerable importance.


THE WAR OF 1812 Acushnet was directly interested in and affected by the war with England in 1812. Many of the inhabitants of this town were engaged as agents, masters or seamen in the merchant marine and whale fishery at New Bedford, or in the many employments connected with these enterprises. This brought them in close touch with the unfortunate affair. It forced many of them into idleness and many of the families into almost suffering for the necessities of life. The proclamation issued by our national government in 1807 placing an embargo on shipping at all American ports, thus forbidding exports from this country, and the piracy of England on our shipping, seriously affected the maritime interests of the Acushnet river. At this date sixty vessels were registered at the custom house belonging to the port of New Bedford. War was declared June 18, 1812. Regarding the effect of this, the New Bedford Mercury editorially said :


"Never have we seen dismay so generally and forcibly depicted on the features of our fellow townsmen as at this portending moment. The hand of enterprise is withered; the heart sickened; the hard earned treasures of industry dissolved, and the business of life seems to pause in awful suspense."


The work of preparing for the defence of the town began at once. Capt. William Gordon of Acushnet, of Revolutionary War fame, super- intended the construction of a mud fort on Love rock, just east of Fort Phenix, and a similar defence at Smoking rocks near the location of the present Potomska cotton mills at New Bedford. The troops stationed about the harbor were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Lincoln with Judge Edward Pope, a native of this town, as Major. The British navy with the motto, "We are mistress of the seas," was con- stantly on the watch for American men-of-war, and pirates sailing under the flag of that nation were preying upon our commerce.




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