History of the town of Bellingham, Massachusetts, 1719-1919, Part 5

Author: Partridge, George Fairbanks, 1863-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Bellingham] Pub. by the town
Number of Pages: 296


USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Bellingham > History of the town of Bellingham, Massachusetts, 1719-1919 > Part 5


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Thomas Sanford's second wife, Tabitha, was mur- dered by a negro named Jeffs in Mendon about 1745 or 1750, who struck her with an axe as she stepped up from the kitchen into the main house with a basket of cheeses. He hid in a great pine tree and watched the funeral from there, the story says, but was caught when he came down. He was the first criminal executed in Worcester County, and the Mendon doctor kept his skeleton.


In his old age Thomas Sanford lived with his daugh- ters in Medway, where he died in 1764, ninety-one years old. The Bellingham records contain the following state- ment: "I Thomas Sanford resident in Medway, being now in the 87th year of my age, testifie that in the year 1700 I purchased one quarter and Wm Hayward one half and Thomas Burch the other quarter of 800 acres of land of Wm Rawson his wife and his sons, being the N E part of 1840 acres of land lying between Sherborn, Mendon and Dedham land, and in the year 1701 I with said Wm


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Hayward and Thomas Burch purchased of said Wm Rawson 740 acres of land in the aforesaid 1840 acres. being westerly of the said first purchase, the two purchases containing all the Northeast part of the 1840 acres next to Sherborn, as by said deed may more fully appear. That I removed on the said first purchase of 800 acres in the year 1701, and lived there 14 years."


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Thomas Sanford 1673-1764


SCOTT


Joseph and Sylvanus Scott were brothers and came from a remarkable family. Their grandfather Richard came from England in the ship Griffin in 1631, and another passenger was Katherine Marbery, who came with her married sister the famous Mrs. Ann Hutchinson. She soon dared to criticize the ministers of the Massachusetts colony on doctrinal subjects, held religious meetings for women and made so much excitement in this way that she was banished, and went first to Roger Williams' colony. The younger sister Katherine married Richard Scott in 1637 or 1638, and they settled at Ipswich. In November, 1634, two men of that town named Scott and Eliot had lost their way in the woods and wandered about hungry for six days, till they were found at last and brought in by a Rhode Island Indian. Governor Winthrop says that "the Scotts went to Providence because the wife of one of them was affected with Anabaptistry," and they "wanted no Magistrates."


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Here Richard Scott bought the estate of Joshua Verrin, a troublesome neighbor of Roger Williams, who forbade his wife to go to church. He had vexed the colony for some time, and it was voted in 1637 that he "shall be witheld from the libertie of voting till he shall" change his course. He went back to Salem where he came from, and demanded recompense for the property which he had left. Winthrop says in 1638: "At Providence things grew still worse; for a sister of Mrs. Hutchinson, the wife of one Scott, being infested with Anabaptistry and going last year to live at Providence, Mr. Williams was taken or rather emboldened by her to make open pro- fession thereof and was rebaptized." As Mrs. Scott was probably the most influential woman in Providence, so her husband became a leader among the men. In 1650 he was the largest taxpayer there but one. About 1651 he bought the island of Patience of Roger Williams, which he and Governor Winthrop had owned together. Scott said of Williams, "I have been his neighbor these 38 years. I walked with him in the Baptist ways."


But he had changed his ways long before then, and like Jacob Bartlett's father, his neighbor, had become a Quaker, called the first one in Rhode Island. When Roger Williams returned from England in triumph with a charter for his colony in 1644, which made it free from the interference of its persecuting neighbor, Massachu- setts, Richard Scott might be expected to rejoice with the rest; but his Quaker's hate of ostentation and the pride of heart which it expresses, led him to write this: "And there he got a charter; and coming from Boston to Providence, at Sea-conch the Neighbors of Providence met him with fourteen Canoes, and carryed him to Provi- dence. And the Man being hemmed in in the middle


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of the Canoes, was so Elevated and Transported out of himself, that I was condemned in myself that amongst the rest I had been an Instrument to set him up in his Pride and Folly."


Some of the members of this new sect became fana- tics in their public protests against the ceremonies of church and state, and they suffered persecution in various countries. In Rehoboth, Massachusetts, a town that joined Providence, lived a man named Obadiah Holmes. In 1651 he was whipped at Boston with thirty stripes for preaching while excommunicated, rebaptizing persons who had been baptized, preaching against infant baptism, etc. John Hazell, perhaps the first settler at Pawtucket on the east side of the river, went to Boston as his friend, and was arrested and fined. He was an old man, and died before he reached home again. The Scotts heard about all these things and the dragon persecution soon reached out after them.


In 1657 Roger Williams, the President of Rhode Island, brought "Katherine the wife of Richard Scott" and others into court "as common opposers of all au- thority," but when neither he nor any one else appeared to testify against them, they were acquitted.


The year before this Christopher Holder and seven other Quakers had sailed from England, and he had come to Massachusetts and been sent away. Now he appeared again at Salem, where he got thirty stripes and was expelled. The next year when he came to Boston again, he and two other young men had their right ears cut off in prison. Katherine Scott's daughter Mary was engaged to marry him, and her mother traveled to Boston to encourage him in his suffering. An old Quaker book, Bishop's "New England Judged," says:


"Katherine Scott of Providence, a Mother of many


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children (11), a Grave Sober Ancient Woman and of good Breeding, coming to see the Execution of These as afore- said, whose ears you cutt off, and saying upon their doing it in private, 'That it was evident they were going to act the Works of Darkness or else they would have brought them forth and declared their Offence, that others may hear and fear' Ye committed her to prison and gave her Ten Cruel Stripes with a threefold corded knotted Whip, the 2d day of 8th mo 1658. Though ye knew her Father Mr Marbury ... yet ye whipped her for all that, and told her that ye were likely to have a Law to hang her if she came thither again. She answered, 'He whom we love will make us not to count our Lives dear with our- selves for the sake of his Name.' To which your Gov- ernor John Endicott replied, 'And we shall be as ready to take away your Lives as ye shall be to lay them down.'


The next June her little daughter Patience, journeyed the forty miles to Boston to make her protest too. Bishop says: "Ye apprehended Wm Robinson ... and Patience Scott, daughter of Katherine, (a Girl of about 11 Years old, whose Business to youwards from her father's house in Providence was, To bear witness against your perse- cuting Spirit), and sent them to Prison-(the Child it seems was not of Years as to Law, to deal with her by Banishment, but otherwise in Understanding, for she confounded ye; and some of ye confest that ye had many Children, and they had been well Educated, and that it were well if they could say half as much for God, as she could for the Devil (as ye Blasphemed the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth that spoke in her, saying it was an Unclean Spirit.)" Another account says that Patience Scott, eleven years old, "was moved of the Lord to go to Boston (40 miles) to bear witness against the rulers." After an imprisonment of about three months, she


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was released, and Secretary Rawson wrote: "The Court duly considering the malice of Satan and his instruments, by all means and ways to propagate error and disturb the truth, and bring in confusion among us, that Satan is put to his shifts to make use of such a child, not being of the years of discretion, nor understanding the princi- ples of religion, judge meet so far to slight her as a Quaker, as only to admonish and instruct her accord- ing to her capacity and so discharge her; Capt. Hutchinson undertaking to send her home."


In October the older engaged sister went too: "8th of 8th mo 1659. One Mary Scot Daughter to Richard & Katherine Scot of Providence aforesaid, who came also to visit the said Christopher in prison, whom the same constable Apprehended as she was in the Prison to Visit her Friend ... your Governour committed also to Prison. 12th of 9th mo. Rawson your Secretary read to them their Sentences, to be whipped in the street. Christopher Holder sentenced to Banishment on pain of Death. Mary Scot to be delivered to your Governour to be admonished. The prisoners were then returned to prison for their jailor's fees, till freed by friends who gave surety."


"I have walked Step by Step through your cruel Proceedings to see if I could find any Justice. Your Declaration is: The Consideration of our gradual Pro- ceeding will vindicate us from the Clamorous Accusation of Severity, our own Just Defense calling upon us, (other Means failing) to offer this Point, which these Persons have violently rushed upon ;- our former Pro- ceedings and the sparing of Mary Dyer-will manifestly evidence that we desire their Lives absent, rather than their Deaths present.


EDWARD RAWSON Secret."


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The Quaker writer had no difficulty in replying to this defence.


Katherine Scott lived a long time after that, and died in 1687, five years after her husband. No stone was set upon his grave. Both he and his son John fought in King Philip's War, and John was badly wounded near Pawtucket.


Richard Scott's grandsons, Joseph born in 1697 and Sylvanus, in 1702 came from Pawtucket to Bellingham. In 1721 Joseph Scott, son of Sylvanus of Providence, "Bloomer," bought one-fourth of a Bloomary Iron Works in Mendon on the "Pentucket River at the Great Falls." He was called a Bloomer because he had made iron from the ore near Pawtucket. This foundry was at Woon- socket near the land of Nicholas Cook. In 1725 he bought another quarter of the same Bloomary, and his father's house and one hundred and six acres in Belling- ham, bounded north by Zuriel Hall, east by common land and the burying place, south by common land and Rich- ard Blood and west by Mendon. This was the burying place laid out at the proprietors' third meeting in 1717. The next year he bought from Banfield Capron ninety- seven acres joining his own estate by the road from Bel- lingham to Rehoboth. This property he sold for two hundred and twenty pounds to Elisha Newell in 1740. Later he bought Richard Blood's estate of one hundred and seventy-six acres which joined his own on the south for twelve hundred pounds.


In 1727 he and three of his neighbors had occasion to remember his grandmother's journey to Boston seventy years before. The General Court records show that Jacob Bartlett, David Cook, Josiah Cook and Joseph Scott in jail in Boston petitioned for release because their consciences do not allow them to pay the town tax for


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the support of the minister. The request was refused by a vote of the Representatives, but the Council did not agree and ordered them released if they gave bond to ' appear at the next meeting of the Court, when the town was ordered to present its case against them. That meeting was unexpectedly postponed for about a year, and there were similar cases in other towns. A thorough search at the State House has not shown any further record of the case.


Joseph Scott and his wife Elizabeth had four children recorded in Bellingham from 1724 to 1733. He died in 1742. His inventory mentions: Best suit head to foot, eighteen pounds, one sixteenth of a Bloomary, best dwell- ing house, two hundred and twenty pounds, another, one hundred and ten pounds, land, twenty-nine hundred and fourteen pounds; total, forty-three hundred and thirty-two pounds, certainly the largest estate in town.


His brother Sylvanus bought one hundred and forty-three acres in 1725, bounded by Wrentham line, Sergeant Darling and common land. He and his wife Mary had five children recorded in Bellingham from 1726 to 1734. He died in 1777, and left two sons named David and John.


One of the largest stones in the South Bellingham cemetery is inscribed :


"These two died with small pox. In Memory of Mr Silvanus Scott who Died April 17 1777 in ye 76th year of his age. In Memory of Mrs Joanna wife of Mr Silvanus Scott. She died April 20 1777.


In 1817 Joseph's grandsons Samuel and Saul occu- pied his land at Scott Hill, which has been in the same family nearly two centuries. Seventy persons of this name were born in Bellingham before 1850.


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PELATIAH SMITH


Pelatiah Smith the first lived in West Bridgewater, where he bought land in 1701, but came from there to Bellingham. He is the only one of the first settlers to be called "Gentleman" in his deeds. In 1714 he bought for three hundred pounds of Thomas Sanford "his Mansion house" on Rawson's Farm, "now laid to Mendon" with nearly a fourth of the eight hundred acres, all of Sanford's land that he had not sold to Marsh and Rich, including one-fourth of a sawmill on Stall Brook. In 1715 he mortgaged these two hundred acres to the Massachusetts Commission for issuing fifty thousand pounds of bills of credit, for fifty-eight pounds at five per cent. He was the first town clerk of Bellingham. He sold land on Stall Brook in 1723. His will calls him blacksmith. It left all his property to his wife Jane, and his son James refused to act as executor with her. He died in 1727, and left seven hundred and fifty pounds. His gravestone is in the North Bellingham Cemetery, and only eight others now there are earlier.


Pelatiah Smith 1657-1727


Two of his sons signed the Bellingham petition, James and Samuel, and two others, Pelatiah and Robert may be mentioned. The oldest son Pelatiah, 1659 to 1757, married Eunice in Bellingham in 1752. They had a daughter Margaret born in 1754 and only one son, Robert. They were the ones to begin keeping the prin- cipal tavern in the town, where stages stopped on their way from Boston to Hartford, and changed horses. There is a milestone in front of it which says: "31 miles from


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Boston R S 1767." His will left only forty-one acres of land.


James Smith was born in 1697 and married Sarah Hayward in 1728. He was town clerk in 1728 and 1729. He was a blacksmith, and sold land to John Metcalf in 1742, Daniel Penniman in 1747, and Joseph Rockwood in 1755. Samuel Smith, the other signer, was born in 1699 and bought land of his father Pelatiah in 1723 near Stall River. The fourth brother Robert was called Captain. He lived from 1704 to 1787.


The third Pelatiah and the last to keep the tavern lived from 1806 to 1892, and married Julia Bates. He had the south end of the great house set off to him, and a driveway to it beside Stall Brook. Three of his sons were Whitman, Stephen and Frank. Whitman kept a stall in Quincy Market, Boston, and he spent much money on the farm where his brothers lived. Their father Pelatiah had died in poverty. His house, the successor of Thomas Sanford's mansion, and probably the largest dwelling house in town, belongs now to the Bel- lingham Woolen Company. The last Pelatiah had a brother Robert, whose daughter Amanda Adams was ninety-four years old April 29, 1919. She remembers hearing that her grandmother went shopping to Boston on horseback with chickens in her saddlebags. Fifty Smiths were born in Bellingham before 1850.


ISAAC AND EBENEZER THAYER


Their grandfather was Ferdinando, who married Huldah Hayward in Braintree and was one of the founders of Mendon. His son Isaac married Mercy Rocket or Rockwood there. Their son Isaac was born in 1695 and Ebenezer in 1697. In 1717 Ebenezer bought of Josiah


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Thayer of Mendon a large tract of land between Mendon and Wrentham, Charles River and Attleboro and Paw- tucket, and fifty-two acres at the Dedham Tree with eight cow commons and two sheep commons. In July 1719, just before the incorporation, he sold to Robert Smith of Roxbury, seventy acres on a branch of Peter's River. His will in 1723 also mentions land laid out to him in 1715 on Saddleback Hill, and land bought in 1721. His homestead was partly in Bellingham and partly in Mendon.


As a Quaker, Jonathan Thayer was exempt from the tax for the town church in 1744.


Isaac Thayer had thirteen children. His estate was sold to Oliver Pond in 1765.


Cornelius, Ellery, Jonathan, and Manning Thayer have been town treasurer one year each; Horatio, two years; Elias, ten; Francis, eighteen; and his father Ruel, twenty-two years. Ruel was town clerk also for four years.


Six Thayer families recorded twenty-five births from 1721 to 1750, and one hundred and sixty Thayers were born before 1850, the second largest family in town in this respect.


THOMPSON


Five signers of the Bellingham petition had this name, John, his three sons, John, Joseph and Samuel, and Eben- ezer. The family was prominent in Mendon from the earliest years. John Thompson of Mendon, weaver, deeded in 1701 to his oldest son John, land bounded on the west by Nicholas Cook. The deed was recorded in 1716. In 1721 he deeded to his son Joseph, fifty acres on both sides of Beaver Dam Brook. In 1732 he sold eighty acres to Dr. Corbet. In 1749 he sold land on the


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road from the meeting house to Charles River (at Crimp- ville). He died that year and left six sons and three daughters.


Ebenezer Thompson, housewright, bought of Joseph Holbrook for two hundred and fifty pounds in 1730 his homestead on both sides of the Country Road.


John Thompson, Sr., was town treasurer one year, his son John four years, Jonathan three, and Joseph fourteen years. Jonathan was clerk four years and Cyrus one year.


Eight Thompson families had thirty-eight births recorded from 1728 to 1744, and one hundred Thompsons were born here before 1850.


WIGHT


Joseph Wight, who came to Bellingham in 1729, was the grandson of Thomas Wight who was at Watertown in 1635 and Dedham in 1637. He and his wife Alice moved to Medfield. Their son Samuel married Hannah Albee, and his house was burned by Indians. His son Joseph was born in 1675, married Mrs. Martha Thayer of Bellingham in 1725, and they came here four years later. His name with that of his son Elnathan is in the first list of the Baptist Church in 1738. In 1741 he sold to Elna- than for six hundred pounds, ninety acres in three pieces. Sixty acres with the house were bounded by Captain Oliver Hayward, Deacon Joseph Holbrook and Dr. John Corbet. This son Elnathan deeded to three trustees the lot for the first building of the Baptist Church on High Street, at Crimpville in 1744. The site was marked in 1912 at the one hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of the church. Elnathan Wight, 1715 to 1761, after giving the land studied several years and then became its first settled pastor in 1750. The inventory of


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his estate fills seven pages of the probate records, and includes sixty books, most of them separately named and valued. It amounts to five hundred and seventy-eight pounds, and at the end is written: "And we judge there is about a sufficientcy of ye necessaries of life to support the family one year not inventoryed." There were only two sons, Nathan and Eliab. The former moved away but Eliab lived in Bellingham and was a deacon in the Baptist Church. His daughter Abigail lived in Worcester from 1817 to 1860, and died one hundred years ten months and three days old. There were seven persons in his family in 1790. He was town clerk in 1792, 1793 and 1796 to 1802. His uncle Joseph Wight, Jr., was town treasurer in 1753. Forty Wights were born in town by 1850.


NATHANIEL WEATHERBY


In 1717 he deeded land in Dedham to Josiah Thayer in exchange for eight acres in Dedham near Mendon. He signed the Bellingham petition, but soon disappeared, and his deed was not recorded till 1730 on the testimony of Thomas and Tabitha Sanford.


CHAPTER VI THE TOWN CHURCH, 1719-1756


Bellingham was the last town to be incorporated in what is now Norfolk County; it was the farthest inland, King Philip's War had delayed settlement, and there were two other good reasons. The Dedham com- mittee in 1695 reported that the soil was poor, and it has been seen that many of the settlers had come here with dread and hate of the religious tyranny of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. But their number increased, a town government became necessary, and as their land fell within the Massachusetts jurisdiction, there was nothing else for them to do but to ask the General Court for incorporation. The town of Dedham consented May 11, 1719: "This day the Inhabitants of this town in that track of land lying between Mendon and Wrentham presented a petition to this town praying that they may be set off from this town in order to a township the town have granted it provided they can unite and encorporat together with the farms adjacent and some Assistance and Inlargement from the towns of Mendon and Wrentham so as to capassatate them to manage the affairs of a town and have the approbation of the General Court." Like all the new towns before them, though a Congregational Church to be supported by law was what the Baptists and Quakers hated, yet the settlers had to make this the main point of their petition:


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THE BELLINGHAM PETITION


To his Exclency Samuel Shute, Esq., Capt. General and Governor in Chieff in & over his Majesties Province of ye Massachusetts Bay, in New England, & to ye Honourable Council & House of Representatives in Gen- eral Court convened at Boston.


The Petition of The Inhabitance of a Tract of Land belonging to Dedham, westward of Wrentham, and ye Inhabitance of a Considerable Farm adjoyning thereto and ye Inhabitance of a small Corner of Mendon ajacent Thereto (to ye number of four families) Humbly Shewethe:


That Whereas ye above Sd Inhabitance are Scituated at a Remoat Distance from ye Respective Towns where they at present belong: viz. The Inhabitance of the Town of Dedham, to ye number of three and 20 Families are about Twenty miles Distance from the Town where they belong and doe Duty, & being very Remoate from ye Public worship of God, & The Inhabitance, to the number of thirteen families of ye above Sd Farme being Six or Seven miles Distance from ye place of Public worship: & ye Inhabitance of Mendon afore Sd being about four miles Distance: and Considering our Remoat- ness & ye Inconveniancys we Labour under by Reason of the same: and that ye uniting and Incorporating of ye above Sd Tracts togeather & making of Them a Town may put us in a way in Some Convenient Time to obtain ye Settlement of ye Gospel among us &c (the uniting of ye Above Sd Tracts of Land Together will make a Town of aboute seven Miles Long & three miles & a half wide) and Further Considering that ye Inhabitance of ye above Sd Tract of Dedham Land & the Farme are already Incorporated into a Training Companie and that they have little or No Benefit of ye Town Priviledges or having No benefit of ye Schools we do Respectively Pay to.


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THE TOWN CHURCH


The whole Number of Families belonging to ye above Sd tracte being forty & lands enough already Laid out to accommodate 20 or 30 more: The Inhabitance of Dedham Land being voated off by ye Town for that end.


Our Prayer Therefore is that your Honours would Graciously plese to consider our Diffeculty Circumstances and grant us our petition, which is That ye above Men- tioned Tracts of Land (as by one Platt hereto affixed & Described) may be incorporated togeather & made a Town & Invested with Town Priveliges. That we may be Inabled in Conveniant Time to obtain ye Gospel & public worship of God settled, & our Inconveniances by Reason of our Remoatness be Removed: granting us such Time of Dispence from Public Taxes as in wisdom you shall think Conveniant, & in your so doing you will greatly oblige us who am your Humble petitioners: and for your Honours, as in Consciance we are Bound, Shall forever pray.


Dated ye 17th Day of November 1719


Richard Blood


Zuriel Hall


Samll. Smith


Tho. Burch


Jonathan Hayward


Ebenezer Thompson


Nicholas Cook


Oliver Hayward


John Thompson


Nicholas Cook Jr


Samll. Hayward


John Thompson Jr


Seth Cook


William Hayward Joseph Thompson


Daniel Corbet


Joseph Holbrook


Samll. Thompson


Cornelius Darling


John Marsh


Ebenezer Thayer


John Darling


Samll. Rich


Isaac Thayer


Samll. Darling


James Smith


Nathaniel Weatherby


Pelatiah Smith


The Inhabitance of Mendon


Eliphalet Holbrook, John Holbrook, Peter Holbrook, John Corbet.


Thus the heads of thirty-two of the forty families signed this petition; perhaps it seems strange that only eight refused. Of course these eight received no con- sideration in the reply, which as usual contained only




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