USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Abington > History of the town of Abington, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, from its first settlement > Part 21
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present century (nineteenthi). The Family Memorials in the Appendix add greatly to our knowledge of the first settle- ment of the town, and of leading family names. It is to be regretted there were not more of them furnished. Such memorials show the internal state of a community in their family relations. Our ancestors toiled and labored all their days ; their graves are with us, over which are recorded their births and deaths. We have entered into all their labors, " and have a goodly heritage."
CHAPTER XXXI.
Some Account of the Slaves and their Owners .- Longevity of the African Race .- The Mulatto or Mixed Race .- Evil Consequences arising from the Union of White and Colored Persons .- Fires .- Tornadoes .- Native Lawyers.
SLAVERY once existed in this town. There were slaves here before the revolutionary war, under the British Colonial Government. My grandfather, Isaac Hobart, had several. My father inherited two of them : they were made free soon after, and left, but in a few months returned and requested to be taken back, saying they could find no employment, and no place that looked like their old home. They (Jack and Billah, man and wife,) were permitted to take up their old quarters, and occupied them for many years. They lived to a great age-over ninety years each. They were maintained by the family many years after they were past labor. They had several children, none of whom are now known to be living.
Mr. Brown, the first minister settled in town, had five slaves ; their names were Tony, Cuff, Kate, Flora, and Betty ; they all lived to be very old. Tony's age, at his death, is put down at one hundred years ; and all the rest are supposed to
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have lived over eighty years each. There was Pompey, in the south part of the town, once a slave of a Mr. House ; Moses, at the centre, a slave of Mr. Nash ; Jack Bailey, who lived on Beach Hill, once a slave of a Mr. Bailey of Hanover. The late Dr. Gridley Thaxter had one (Frank), who was formerly owned by General Lincoln, of Hingham, of revolutionary memory. Frank came into Dr. Thaxter's care and keeping, by means of his wife, who was the daughter of the General. He having been a slave in the family before her marriage, was much attached to lier, and called her his daughter. He was very aged-well nigh one linndred years.
A Mr. Cary, of North Bridgewater, had a female slave named Patience, whose age exceeded one hundred years.
After receiving their freedom, these colored persons lived in small buildings of their own, but most of them with the descendants-the children and grand-children-of their old masters. Not one of these, to my knowledge, was ever sup- ported by the town. In my early days I knew many of these once slaves. They were, with one exception, a quiet, peace- able race, and some of them were smart and active. There were probably from fifty to seventy-five slaves in town previous to the State Constitution. . Those named above were all of African descent, and of unmixed color.
There are several anecdotes told of some of these slaves that may be amusing to such as have not heard them. They relate principally to two of the slaves once held by Mr. Brown, and particularly to Tony (sometimes called Antony Dwight), and Cuff. It is not always certain to which of these a particular anecdote relates.
As introductory to what I am to record of them, I will give some account of their owner, who was a very respectable gen- tleman, whose name was Josialı Torrey-familiarly called " Old Squire Torrey." Mr. Torrey lived in that part of the town called Locust, on the site where the late Philip Pratt used to live. From the inscription on his tombstone, it is ascer- tained that he descended from an ancient and respectable family in Weymouth, and was born Nov. 5, 1718. When he
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came to this town is not known. IIe was educated at Cam- bridge University, studied Divinity, and was a preacher for a number of years, but finally left the profession and retired to private life. He was quite a land-holder, and cultivated a large farm. IIe married in succession the widows of the two first ministers settled in this town-Mr. Brown and Mr. Dodge. By his first wife, he came into possession of the slaves named above. They were not freed until after his (Mr. T's.) decease, which was in 1783, at the age of sixty- five years. Mr. Torrey had no children. He devised his large estate to one of his sisters, who married a Mr. Pratt, a nephew whom he brought up, the late Deacon Josiah Torrey, who lived in the southeasterly part of the town, and one of his nieces, who married Eliab Noyes. His remains were dis- interred within a few years, and, with the remains of other ministers of former years, deposited in Mount Vernon Cemetery.
The two slaves referred to, after their freedom, took care of themselves. Tony had a small house near the Thicket Road.
Of Tony it is recorded by Mr. Brown that he and one of the female slaves (Flora), in 1742, were admitted members of his church.
One of the anecdotes told of Tony's strength and agility, is, that at the raising of a forty-feet barn belonging to Samuel Norton, Esq., he jumped from beam to beam, the whole length of the building. This has always been a mooted question ; and it seems almost impossible that it could have been done. There must have been five beams and four spaces of ten feet each, and to accomplish the feat it would be necessary to stand on a beam fifteen or sixteen feet from the ground, to jump over each of the four spaces, and come to a stand on the last beam. The two greatest difficulties would be to leap from the first beam over the first space, and to come to a stand on the last beam. That Tony jumped over all these spaces, I have no doubt. Such a tradition is not likely to have been fabri- cated. It is stated in "Hobart's Sketches of Abington,"
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without any query or comment. My solution is that Tony did his jumping whilst the frame of the barn laid upon the ground, put together preparatory to raising ; and that by starting at a distance and running, he might do it-passing on from the last beam to the ground without stopping.
It is told also of Tony, when he complained of having to pick bones, and Mr. Torrey said to himn, " the nearer the bone the sweeter the meat," that he tied Mr. T's. horse, after a hard day's work, all night, to a stake near a large rock, where, of course, he got hardly anything to eat. In the morning, when inquired of why he did so, he answered his master, "the nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat,"-" the nearer the rock, the sweeter the grass."
His master complained of his wearing out his shoes too fast, and got him a pair shod with iron, telling him he thought they would last him longer. Tony put them on and daneed all night on a flat rock, and wore them entirely out. In the morning he carried them to Mr. Torrey, and said he had had a dance last night and wore them all up-iron bottoms did not last so long as leather ones.
Mr. Torrey always required of Tony to remember the text at meeting, which he could never do correctly ; but on one occasion he came home from meeting and said to Mr. Torrey, "I've got him ; I remember the text." Mr. T. said, " Well, what was it ?" The text was these words in Daniel, " Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin." The interpretation of one word-tekel-is, " Thou art weighed in the balance, and art found wanting." Tony said, " A tea-kettle was weighed, and it wasn't heavy enough."
Cuff, his other slave, was a very bad fellow,-malicious and crafty. He used to drive Mr. T's. team, carting plank and lumber to Weymouth Landing. He was frequently taken up and fined for criminal acts. On one occasion he was sen- tenced to be whipped with a certain number of stripes, at the Whipping Post. After the clerk of the town had put them on, Mr. Torrey, who stood by, requested him to add three more for him, for he was an ugly fellow. The clerk refused, say-
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ing he had done his duty according to the sentence of the justice. Mr. T. took the lash and added three severe strokes more. Cuff, after being released, walked away muttering, and saying, " Massa shall lose three of his oxen for these three strokes ; " and so he did. One ox was overheated by him in going to Weymouth, driven into the river and foundered, and died in consequence. He broke the leg of another, by throw- ing a stone at him. A third was killed in the woods, by " some accident done on purpose."
He was so obstinate and unmanageable that Mr. Torrey put an iron collar around his neck, with a hook riveted to it, hang- ing down in front. When the collar around his neck was riveted together, Cuff shed tears, which he was never known to do before. When inquired of, out of town, about the col- lar, he said it was put on by his master to prevent his having the throat ail, which was very common in Abington. The hook, he would conceal under his waistcoat.
On one occasion-not to mention any more-he was taken up for breaking the Sabbath, tried before Justice Joseph Greenleaf (who will be noticed in another place), and fined. After he had paid the fine, he asked for a receipt of the justice. The justice asked him for what purpose he wanted a receipt ? Cuff answered, " By-and-by you die, and go to the bad place, and after a time Cuff die, and go and knock at the good gate, and they say, ' What do you want, Cuff ?' I say, 'I want to come in ;' they say I can't, because I broke the Sabbath at such a time. I say, 'I paid for it.' They will say, ' Where is your receipt ?' Now, Mr. Judge, I shall have to go away down to the bad place to get a receipt of you, that I mended him, before I can enter the good gate."
I received most of these traditionary statements about the slaves, from Mr. Bela Dyer, to whom they were communicated by his grandmother, the aged widow Dyer (named in the first part of the last chapter), who gave the account of the first settlers in South Abington. The account of Cuff's trial before Justice Greenleaf, I had from my brother, Nathaniel
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Hobart, who was cotemparary with those times, and who died many years since, in the eightieth year of his age.
The remarkable longevity of the slaves held in this town, has been noticed. It has been supposed that slaves could not live in the northern states. The long lives of these, seem to disprove this. It has, however, been explained that the pure African race can sustain our climate, but that those of mixed blood-the mulattoes-cannot continue as a race over three generations, and can never become a permanent race even at the South. This is reported to have been said by Senator Toombs, in Congress. Also, a gentleman formerly from this town, Capt. Zophar D. Ramsdell, who has served through the whole of the late war against rebellion, now a resident of the Soutlı, states a conversation which he heard on the subject, in a steamboat, betwixt two Southern physicians, one belonging to Kentucky, the other further South. One remarked, that iu all his practice, he never knew but one who lived five years beyond the third generation. The other said he knew of one beyond the third generation who lived twenty years.
If this is so, it is an important fact ; and some cases have occurred in this town, within my knowledge, which seem to corroborate it. I will mention one. There was a colored man (mixed) in my neighborhood, by the name of Thompson, whom I knew well over sixty-five years ago. He was called Siah (Josiah). Ile had a wife and family of children-six sons and one daughter. The family, with the parents, con- sisted of nine. He was a blacksmith, had a house and shop, and did considerable business in his line. He was quite intel- ligent for one of his color. Ile lived about one mile south of the Congregational meeting-house in South Abington, on the road leading to East Bridgewater. The names of his children were Rufus, Josiah, Mount Sinai, Micah, Ira, Ziba, and Mary.
The origin of the family is thus : It seems that in the early part of the eighteenth century, a carriage (hack), with a span of horses and driver, passed through this town in the early part of the evening, and went to the house of a man named
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Robinson in the northerly part of East Bridgewater-now Northville-and left a lady in disguise. (This Robinson was a carpenter, and built the house in which I now live.) In a few months, the same driver and carriage came again in the evening, and took her away. It is supposed she was from Boston. The result was there was a colored boy named Josiah found in the family, who was put out and grew up in another family, and finally was married and had two children only, a son and a daughter. This son was the Josiah, or Siah Thompson named above, father of the seven children. (How the name-Thompson-came, is not known.) These, the first Josialı, wife and two children, and the second Josiah, wife and seven children, make up the number thirteen in all. I cannot learn that any one of these thirteen is now living. They began to become a feeble race after I knew them, and all of them have long since passed away. The first Josiah (it is believed) never became a great-grandfather.
I will here introduce a remark of the late Dr. Ezekiel Thaxter, reported to me by Isaiah Noyes, Esq. Dr. T. had visited Island Grove on the occasion of a large picnic, com- posed principally of people of mixed blood. On returning home he remarked that he felt very sad, because the large number of good-looking and active young men and women, and others of more mature age, were all destined to short lives ; and in a few years would be all swept away. From this it would appear that Dr. T. must have had an idea that persons of mixed blood are short-lived, and cannot form a permanent race.
Whilst reflecting upon the subject of the longevity of the African slaves, it occurred to me that I never saw or heard of a very old person of mixed color ; and, on inquiry, I find others to say the same. Also aged persons North and South, of whom I have made inquiries, all agree that the lives of the mixed race are limited, and that their posterity only continue for a few generations.
If this idea in respect to the mixed race should prove to be well founded, it is a strong admonition against the union 22*
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between the black or colored people and the whites-the union between the Saxon and African blood. It is of much importance that this subject should be well understood, especially at the present time, when the abolition of slavery throughout the United States makes such a change in the condition of so many of the colored people. This change increases the likelihood of these unions, which, if the above suggestions are true, would prove very disastrous.
There is another idea which ought to receive here at least a passing notice. It is this :- that the emancipation of the slaves adds some millions, male and female, to our free laboring population. This will greatly interfere with a mon- opoly of labor by any class of people among us, and will open a much wider field of competition both to the employers and the employed in our country.
FIRES.
But few losses by fire have ever been sustained in this town in comparison with some other towns. No fire department or engine company has ever been organized here ; and there has never been a fire engine located in town. A number of houses, barns, and out-buildings have been burnt. The fires - especially those which have destroyed barns-have, for the most part, been caused by lightning. The first heavy loss by fire which I recollect-and which occurred over seventy years ago-was the dwelling-house of Daniel Reed, the grandfather of Ezekiel Reed, now living on the same site near the Centre Depot. It took place on Saturday evening. I saw the light of it; and on Sunday morning rode past the scene of the fire on my way to church. Mr. Niles noticed it in his discourse : " Riches take to themselves wings and fly away." It was a two story house, and well furnished ; considerable specie (silver dollars) was found in the ruins. Ten or fifteen other dwelling- houses in different parts of the town have been destroyed by fire. By far the most serious loss by fire, in this town, was that occasioned by the entire destruction of the Tack Factory, of the firm of B. Hobart & Son. It was estimated at $60,000,
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including the boarding-house, out-buildings and stock. In- surance, about $18,000; tacks saved, tack-machines not destroyed, engine and boilers, and some stock, amounted to about one-half of the loss. The loss fell almost wholly upon William H. Dunbar, Esq., who had just purchased the estab- lishment.
TORNADOES.
There have been other losses in town, more heavy than these, occasioned by two severe tornadoes or hurricanes. The first occurred October 9, 1804, and was very destructive. The wind was north-east; and it commenced blowing very hard in the afternoon. The height of the gale was in the fore- part of the night ; and being in the night, made it much more terrific. It began to abate after midnight ; but few went to bed that night. The tornado was very disastrous to the old heavy forests, to the pine and oak timber lots-especially to those which were most valuable for ship-building. This loss never has been, and cannot be made up. Ship-building de- clined after this calamity, and after another tornado, about ten years later, entirely ceased to be carried on-scarcely anything having been done in this business for over fifty years. Pre- viously it had been extensively carried on, in this neighborhood, and had been very profitable to this town. Many mouldering remains of these once stately forests are still to be seen de- caying before they could be made use of. The gale was very destructive to fruit and ornamental trees ; it unroofed houses and barns, prostrated fences, chimney-tops, and everything in its way. The shipping interest suffered most severely. In harbors, bays and inlets the moorings of vessels and boats gave way, and they were dashed against each other, and brought up on a lee shore, complete wrecks. Some lives were lost in these disasters. The storm extended not only a long distance on the Atlantic coast, but also far into the interior.
The other tornado which occurred on the 23d of September, 1815, about ten years later than the first, was far more severe, although it was not so destructive to forests, and to forest and
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fruit-trees, from the fact that comparatively few of these remained to be destroyed. I was a witness of this hurricane, (for so it was called,) and as at the time of its occurrence I was of mature age, I can describe it more particularly.
The weather, in the morning, was fair and pleasant, but there was an ominous stillness of the atmosphere, like that which is said to be observed before an earthquake. A sailor who had witnessed hurricanes in the West Indies, on the morning of which I am speaking, was frequently observed to start. When asked why he did so, he said there would be a hurricane here within twenty-four hours, "for there was a cracking in the atmosphere and a looming up of the same," * such as he had witnessed there before a tornado. It proved so. A haze soon began to appear in the atmosphere, and the wind to rise ; and before one o'clock, P. M., there was a severe gale, which went on increasing until it became a hurricane, sweeping everything before it. Barns were blown down ; boards, shingles and hay were carried miles away ; houses were unroofed, and some were carried to quite a distance from their foundations ; ¡ apple-trees and other fruit-trees, by thousands, were prostrated ; } whole orchards were swept down, fences blown over, windows blown in; even stone walls were blown down; many chimney-tops were overthrown. In this
* Meaning, as I suppose, an apparent elevation of objects into the air-a sort of mirage.
t Within two miles of where I was, over twenty barns and houses were unroofed, several barns blown completely down, roofs were taken off entirely whole, carried to a distance of twenty or thirty rods, and broken entirely to pieces. Many roads that were much travelled, were blocked up for days by fallen trees and fences, and roads through dense forests were impeded for weeks.
# The destruction of the forests, especially in the first gale, was so great, that new prospeets were opened. From particular points of observation, houses and landscapes came into view that could not be seen from those points perhaps for centuries before. My father went out after the first gale, and was surprised at the change of the appear- ance of things around, within view of his house. The change was so great, that from what he saw he could hardly have told where he was.
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gale, the wind being in a direction opposite to what it was in the first, thousands of acres of forest-trees, which were very valuable, were prostrated. The tide rose unprecedentedly high ; thousands of ships, and vessels of various sizes, were lost ; streets, cellars and roads were overflowed by the tide. The amount of property destroyed in the New England States, was immense.
When this tornado commenced, I stepped into the yard, and immediately fell flat upon the ground, as otherwise I should have been driven along withont power to control my movements. On the roof of our house opposite the gate, the shingles were torn up, and thrown off in lines from the eaves to the top of the house.
Several remarkable phenomena were observed in connection with this tornado. The surface of the water in the sea, bays, harbors, lakes and ponds, was made smooth by the velocity of the gale ; no waves or nnevennesses were seen upon them. On the sides of the houses, and every other thing facing the wind, there was a thin layer of salt-especially on windows. This was owing, doubtless, to the finely comminuted particles of water brought even to this distance inland by the force of the wind. When the gale moderated, some rain fell ; there was scarcely any rain during the tornado ; the rills and small streams became quite brackish. I actually scraped salt from the window-glass. The gale was so powerful, that fires could not exist ; for immediately, if kindled, they would be blown out.
The inhabitants, never having experienced such a gale, did not know what measures to take to protect their buildings, especially the roofs. They closed up all the windows and 'doors of their houses. This it was well to do, on the sides towards the wind ; but on the opposite sides the windows and doors should have been opened, and the scuttles in the roofs should have been uncovered. It was the spring of the com- pressed air when there was a lull in the gale, and the pressure was removed from the outside, that threw off the roofs, break-
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ing the frames and timbers. The roofs vibrated in and out even when not torn off. Of this phenomenon I was witness.
There was an expression of awe and reverence on the coun- tenance of every one during the gale. Men spoke in whispers when there was a lull, and held their breath when the wind again raged, fearing that a general wreck of houses and lives might be the result. Many lives were lost in this tornado.
The first notice of the abatement of the tornado was like an electric shock ; all started up, hope revived, and a great relief was experienced .*
LAWYERS.
There have been five persons, natives of this town, who have been admitted to practice as counsellors and attorneys in this State : - Benjamin Hobart in 1808, Aaron Hobart in 1809, Jared Whitman in 1809, and John King and Enoch Brown. John King settled in Randolph, Mass., and Enoch Brown in Maine; both these, and also Aaron Hobart, have deceased. Three attorneys also have settled here from out of town :- Daniel U. Johnson, who remained here only a few years ; Jesse E. Keith and Jacob B. Harris, now in regular practice-Mr. Keith at the Centre, and Mr. Harris at East Abington.
* A lady near my house (a Mrs. Dyer) was saved from instant death by the thoughtfulness of a young man, a relative, Mr. Bela Dyer, now living. She became much frightened at the gale, left her house, and went out and stood behind a large apple-tree. He, seeing her there, warned her of her danger, for the tree was more likely to be blown over than the house. She left her position, but had gone only a few rods before the tree blew over, and would doubtless have killed her instantly if she had not left her position that moment.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Miscellaneous Items of Events and Persons. - Epidemics. - Lon- gevity .- Old French War .- Revolutionary War .- Graduates of Colleges .- Banks .- Insurance Office.
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