USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Brookline > History of the town of Brookline, Massachusetts > Part 4
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CHARACTER OF INHABITANTS
The size of the grants may be explained in part by the charac- ter of the leading grantees and in part by the nature and remote- ness of the allotments. Eminent citizens got more land, and so did those whose acreage was unadvantageously located. To William Tyng, a 'merchant of distinction' went the largest grant. He had come to Boston in the summer of 1638, having chartered the Nicholas for himself, his family, and his goods. Aside from holding positions of the highest responsibility in the colony, he left one of the largest estates of his day, and a group of daughters who made distinguished marriages in the New World. His great lot at Muddy River for eight persons and forty-two head of cattle, with 'thirtie heads to come,' ultimately measured six hundred acres, the largest single grant in the community, and probably the most extensive farm in the his- tory of the town.
Adjacent to him was William Hibbins, for a time an ex- ceedingly important person. He probably came in the Mary and John in 1634, and soon acquired an extensive estate, though it
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HISTORY OF BROOKLINE
was much diminished in his late years. Selectman, special commissioner and assistant of the colony from 1643 until his death, he was allotted three hundred acres of land, besides smaller parcels in the swamps, and to this he added the area originally granted to Underhill, Arratt, Deming and Mears, making him the second largest proprietor in the region. His wife, because 'she had more wit than her neighbors,' was ex- ecuted as a witch in 1656, two years after his death, and there were no descendants to perpetuate his name.
There are other names of equal or greater prominence in this list of proprietors, that need little explanation to students of the period. John Leveritt, son of Thomas, continued to add the luster of a famous family to the community. 'No man in our country,' writes the painstaking Savage, 'ever filled more im- portant offices, nor with happier repute'; and there were, in- deed, few public honors that were not granted him, and few public offices that he did not hold. James and Peter Oliver, both merchants of eminence and influence, and the sons of elder Thomas Oliver, started a second generation in Muddy River on their forty- and sixty-acre properties.
Jacob Eliot, son of John Eliot, called the Apostle to the In- dians, was for ten years a selectman in Boston, and despite the fact that he was a staunch supporter of Wheelwright, was deacon of the First Church a short three years after that trouble was over. Joshua Scottoe, 'not so popular as many others,' a churchman, but never sworn a freeman, was the son of the widow Thomasyne, whose earlier grant in Muddy River has been mentioned. Henry Webb became known for his interest in the iron works at Lynn, his benefactions to Harvard College, and the fact that he was able to amass an estate of £8000.
FIRST POPULATION
The names recited include nearly half of those who received land, and represent about four fifths of the acreage awarded, between the time of the great allotments and the final grant, in May of 1641, to Robert Turner. The rest of the available land was disposed of in much the same manner, but probably with closer attention to matters of use and settlement.
As will appear, four of the grantees, Robert Harris, Griffin
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LAND FOR THEIR HOMES
Bowen, George Curtis, and John Kendrick, lived on their grants, the nucleus of a small settlement that by 1650 was to number some twenty-five families. There may have been others at the beginning. Indeed, of those promised allotments that seem forgotten after a single entry in the town records, there is enough fragmentary evidence to show conclusively that some were completed and used. But precision in the observance of formalities was never a mark of town meeting. government, and if formal records were ever made, they are probably forever lost.
With the grant to Robert Turner, the allotments at Muddy River were completed, except for a few odd bits of marsh, and free land was never again given by the town of Boston to pro- spective settlers. Within seven years from the first allotment, the public domain was virtually exhausted, and thereafter land was to be had only through the ordinary channels of pri- vate conveyance. Beginning with generous grants to distin- guished citizens in the middle sections of the area, the process of dispersal continued with the famous allotments of January 8, 1638, to more numerous but less well-known applicants, and culminated, as it had begun, with the assignment of large farms to men of property in the remaining area to the southwest - men who represented either a new generation, or more recent arrivals in the New World.
Despite the fact that definite figures are entirely lacking for the early population of Boston, a careful examination of mili- tary lists, tax assessments and contemporary estimates places two thousand people as a generous number in 1643. In this year Johnson, writing his Wonder-Working Providence, estimated that since 1628, over 21,000 passengers had arrived in New England, nearly half of whom removed to different sections of America or returned to the old country.
Those admitted to the freedom of the colony by the summer of 1641 numbered only 1292, probably not exceeding nine or ten · per cent of the total inhabitants. At this ratio, possibly 200 belonged to Boston, and approximately a third of these had ap- plied for and received land in Muddy River. To be a free- man almost inevitably meant being a church member. If, therefore, Lechford's claim is correct that three fourths of the
26
HISTORY OF BROOKLINE
people were outside the church, the initial proprietorship of Muddy River was composed almost entirely of that small ruling group within the colony.
This state of affairs is of the utmost importance in under- standing the development of Brookline, for so vigorous and select a heritage formed a mold that generations failed to alter. A common proprietary interest that brought together such men as Cotton, Colborne, the Olivers, the Leveritts, Hibbins, Webb, Tyng and the Scottoes, and was extensive enough to allow them possession of nearly half the allotted area, was certain to be a strong directive force in the history of Muddy River as well as in the eighteenth-century town of Brookline. On this background is thrown a stable group of minor proprietors who represent the 'poorer sort of inhabitants' only in a relative way. To a very large extent they were churchmen, freemen, skilled artisans, owners of property on the Neck; and their very presence in the New World was evidence of superior enterprise and vigor.
CHAPTER III THE COMMUNITY SPIRIT GROWS
FIRST STRUCTURES
THE discussion of land ownership has thus far been taken up mainly with the estates of those great men of Boston who, as absentee proprietors, used their acres at Muddy River simply as grazing and agricultural tracts; and with the smaller properties of accepted artisans whose inclination or livelihood kept them in residence on Boston peninsula. But the early grantees were by no means entirely of this class. Griffin Craft has been sug- gested as the first white settler of record in the vicinity, and al- though his farm was not in Muddy River, he lived near enough to be grouped with the first residents, and later generations of his family were prominent in the community.
Among the very early records of grants there are references to only two shelters in the Muddy River area: William Colborne's 'house' and 'Mr. John Coggershall's wigwam.' There is no evidence that Colborne ever lived in Muddy River; he was a prominent citizen of Boston, and the 'house' referred to was probably no more than a shed or some temporary structure. When the land was sold to Peter Aspinwall and Robert Sharp in 1650, the deed made no specific mention of a dwelling - merely a hundred and fifty acres, more or less, with 'all house- ing fencings woods marshes &,' and an additional sixteen acres in the common field.
Nobody knows what the wigwam of John Coggeshall was, but it cannot have amounted to much. At the time of the great allotments, he had been a member of the committee in charge, and there is room for speculation that he may have taken an active interest in the survey and established a kind of field head- quarters to expedite the work. But it has been generally sup- posed that this wigwam was a temporary shelter from which his cattle were tended, and the mere fact that he never owned land in Muddy River does not make this view untenable.
Apart from references in grants, there are other items which
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HISTORY OF BROOKLINE
may aid in identifying the very first settlers. In the records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony under date of April 7, 1635, eight months before John Cotton's grant was qromised him, appears the entry:
Griffin Montague shalbe sett in the bilbowes, for stealing boards & clapboards from Mr. Wilbore & is enioned to re- move his habitacion from Muddy Ryver before the nexte generall Court under penalty of v1.
This citizen seems to have been a bit of a nuisance. There is no evidence that he received a land grant at Muddy River, nor are there further notes of his activities in the local records. He was probably a 'squatter' - one of those who appropriated un- granted and unoccupied acres, and gave rise to the order of January, 1636, which made such irregular use legal for a period of three years. At any rate, though his claim to a place in the history of Brookline is almost purely technical, he is the first settler whose actual occupation of the area is known to rest on a documentary basis.
ESTABLISHMENT OF HOMES
James Fitch, probably accompanied by his brother Richard, lived in Muddy River with the earliest inhabitants. A young man of thirty or thereabouts, and a tailor by trade, he arrived in Boston by 1635. His name vanishes from the records with the comment that he was 'of Muddy River 1638.' Jarratt, or Gerrard Bourne, the servant of William Colborne, certainly occupied a site in the vicinity as early as 1643. He was, indeed, with Thomas Grubb, a fence-viewer three years before; and he remained identified with the region until his removal to Rhode Island some twenty years later.
William Thorne, laborer, of Boston, was there in 1644. By 1645 Edward Devotion was living 'in that part of Boston called Muddy River,' and about two years later his wife, Mary, was with him. It is beyond doubt that Cotton Flack had a dwelling in the hamlet by the winter of 1648, the second house mentioned in contemporary records as within the area. As early as 1650, Peter Aspinwall was a resident, and perhaps a decade later he built the home destined to be a famous landmark until 1891.
ASPINWALL AVENUE ABOUT 1890 St. Paul's Church and (at right) the old Peter Aspinwall house
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THE COMMUNITY SPIRIT GROWS
John White was there also in 1650, and 'Goodman Sharp' by 1652. An order of the Boston selectmen demanding that the wife of Christopher Piggot be returned to her husband at Muddy River, confirms an additional family by April, 1655. And there can be little doubt that Robert Harris, Ann and John Kendrick, Thomas and Joanne Buckminster, John and Sarah Parker, and some others lived in the village well before 1660.
Such records can never be complete, but it is probable that twenty-five or thirty families were actual residents of Muddy River before 1660. Mrs. Lee's description in Naomi makes a pretty picture, but there is in it an air of order, symmetry, and established life that fits awkwardly with a region only a few axe-strokes removed from a wilderness. 'The flocks and herds of cattle, feeding upon the lovely meadows of Brookline, shaded by large timber trees, with scattered cottages upon the rising ground' shows a bountiful and well-populated landscape, but even the widely known 'Muddy River List' of 1674 contains only forty-four names; and those who took the oath of allegiance in April, 1679 (all above sixteen years of age) comprise sixty- nine names, representing a scant forty families. Indeed, even though the records be scanned to 1705, when the hamlet became the town of Brookline, three hundred inhabitants would be a generous estimate, and this number increased but slowly until the Revolutionary War.
FOUNDING FAMILIES
The most important feature of the middle period of the seven- teenth century is the disappearance of the absentee proprietors. The 'great men' of Boston for the most part disposed of their holdings in Muddy River, and left the way open for prominent owners and residents. True, John Cotton's heirs held their grant until well into the next century and the Jacob Eliot allotment remained in that family for another generation. But the 'great lots' of the early days soon fell into other hands and it was not long before a dozen leading families assumed most of the responsibility for the conduct of local affairs.
When the Thomas Oliver farm was sold to John White in 1650, one of Brookline's oldest families made its first appearance.
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HISTORY OF BROOKLINE
This settler at once took an active part as a citizen and his sons carried on that tradition.
The same year Peter Aspinwall and Robert Sharp jointly bought William Colborne's grant and divided it. Robert Sharp himself died in 1653 before he had much opportunity to par- ticipate in public affairs, but his descendants won military dis- tinction on numerous occasions. Peter Aspinwall, like his friend John White, filled a succession of village offices and raised a public-spirited family.
If the Whites, Aspinwalls, and Sharps were early in the field, there was another family of quite different heritage which, while destined to briefer activity, probably antedated them all in point of residence - that of Edward Devotion, a French Huguenot from La Rochelle, who, in 1645 was living at Muddy River. He acquired extensive properties and his son became known as a benefactor of the cause of public education.
Ronton Farm, made up of the original allotments of Captain John Underhill and Robert Mears, came into the hands of John Winchester, whose house stood probably near the corner of the present Warren and Cottage Streets. His numerous de- scendants came to occupy land in various parts of the town and most of them served in a wide variety of public offices.
Without interrupting the narrative, it is not possible to dis- cuss personalities at great length at this point. But a few addi- tional names must at least be mentioned here. There was Thomas Gardner, who became a resident of Muddy River in the sixteen-fifties, whose granddaughter married John Adams of Braintree and two members of whose family died heroically in the Revolution. Thomas Boylston married Mary Gardner in 1665, and went to live in the old house still standing opposite the west end of the old Brookline Reservoir. Through their twelve children an extensive and noteworthy line was established.
Isaac Stedman bought a large property in 1657. John Hull, son of Robert, an original grantee, acquired three hundred acres in what is now known as the Longwood portion of Brook- line, and thus helped to make himself eligible for marriage into the Sewall family. The Goddards were comparatively late ar- rivals who first became residents of Muddy River in 1680, and gave rise to a distinguished line of patriots and merchants.
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THE COMMUNITY SPIRIT GROWS
THE COMMUNITY DEFINED
These, then, were outstanding citizens of Muddy River at its beginning. Their character and abilities may be read in their accomplishments which give ample evidence of earnestness, strength of character, and capacity for getting things done.
Following accepted principles, frontier communities sought to limit their size and select their inhabitants, so as to assure a measure of compactness and social solidarity. A vast amount of hearty co-operation was necessary to the success of these settlements, and the group-mindedness from which such co- operation arose was, in itself, an expression of what might be called territorial loyalty. The neighbors with whom one works hand in hand must be neighbors in a place, and a place can scarcely be said to have identity until it has a name.
The order of the General Court assigning what is now Brook- line to the dissatisfied congregation at Newtown, later Cam- bridge, had referred to the area as 'that ground about Muddy Ryver, belonging to Boston, & used by the inhabitants thereof.' This is the earliest known definition of the region and, scant as it is, it pacified Hooker and his followers for the time being. The grant was a matter of emergency, however, and not long afterward it was thought necessary to run a line to separate the extended territory of Newtown from the northern limits of the then contiguous town of Roxbury. The formula for this purpose was very simple: a line southwest from Muddy River near 'Mr. Nowells bridge' (probably the cartbridge earlier mentioned), the exact spot being marked by a tree scarred on four sides, and thence northeast following the river to its mouth. While this made no provision for the southwest limits, and while im- portant alterations have since been made all along the line, in a general way it approximates the southeastern boundary of Brookline as it remains today.
It will be recalled, however, that Muddy River was shortly returned to Boston, and that the description accompanying this transfer was vague and unsatisfactory. Consequently, in 1639, citizens of Boston, Muddy River, and Cambridge were appointed to give a clearer definition of boundaries. The report of that committee affords the first official definition of the northwest line of Brookline:
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HISTORY OF BROOKLINE
Wee, whose names are underwritten, being appointed by the townes to which we belong to settle the bounds between Boston & Cambridge, have agreed that the partition shall run from Charles River up along the channel of the small brooke to a marked tree upon the brinke of the said brooke, neare the first and lowest reedy meddow, & from that tree in a straight line to a great red oake, formerly marked by agreement at the foot of the great hill on the northermost end thereof, & from the said great red oake to Dedham line, by the trees marked by agreement of both partyes, this 2d 8th month, 1640.
per Boston Thomas Oliver Willi: Colbron per Cambridge, Richard Champres John Bridge Grego: Stone Joseph Isaack Thom: Marrett
The 'small brooke' was for many years known as Smelt Brook. In later days it flowed beneath the Boston and Albany right-of-way and across Brighton Avenue, whence it debouched into an elliptical pond that some fifty years ago was on the W. H. Foster estate. It is probably near this point that the 'marked tree ... neare the first and lowest reedy meddow' was located. From here the line went straight to the 'great red oake ... at the foot of the great hill on the northermost end thereof,' probably near the present junction of Commonwealth and Brighton Avenues; and thence to the Dedham line.
Aside from the fact that this boundary does not today come within a mile and a quarter of Dedham, since the southern line of Brookline was not determined until later, the partition remains almost the same. In modern times Smelt Brook has almost vanished; a vague indentation north of the Boston and Albany right-of-way at Babcock Street is all that remains. The pond has disappeared beneath the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Brighton Avenue, and the 'great hill' is the despair of motorists on ice-bound winter days. But the line remains, marked by stone monuments in place of blazed trees, much as the first committee determined it.
ard DeveMen
lunch in Brovelino
M Edu ard Devotion tothe Cand in Bravely
1744.
1744
THE EDWARD DEVOTION TANKARD Given to the First Parish in 1744 and still in use
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THE COMMUNITY SPIRIT GROWS
When boundaries were fixed solely in terms of prominent trees, convenient swampy areas, and shifting brooks, their maintenance was a constant source of concern to the adjacent towns. Frequent re-examinations were necessary to take ac- count of changes in the boundary markers, and to assure the continued identification of those that remained. It was impor- tant always to have some people in every community who had been over the lines on official responsibility, and knew from ob- servation exactly where they were.
Hence, in 1649, 'Mr. Bowen and Peter Oliver is chosen for perambulation at Mudye River,' marking the first of the periodic excursions which Brookline has perpetuated to the present time. Some ten years later, 'Mr. Davis, Peter Oliver and Ed- ward Devotion, and Henry Stevens are chosen to goe the Bounds of the Towne betwixt Cambridge, Braintree, Dedham, and that Way,' the final phrase standing as the first reference to possible boundaries on the southwestern side of the hamlet.
During the succeeding fifteen years five perambulations were undertaken, all of which were concerned with the Cambridge and Roxbury lines. The Cambridge line seems to have caused a deal of dissatisfaction, so that in the spring of 1655 it was agreed to run it anew, and shortly afterward some sort of working agree- ment was reached. But in 1668 a complete resurvey was under- taken, and the account spread upon the records of the Boston town meeting incorporates a detailed description of the north- west boundary.
The first tree [the record reads] we found in ye said Smelt Brooke is marked with B. for Bostone and C. for Cambridge and is 1º a white Swamp wood by some called a plumb tree.
2 beyond the meadow a little walnut
3 a Red oake marked B. C.
And so the description continues, through ninety-four items, oaks, walnuts, maples, meadows, swamps, and piles of stones, concluding with 'a birch with B. C. R.' (i.e., Boston, Cambridge, Roxbury), probably the first marker of what is now the south- west corner of Brookline.
At intervals of about three years, perambulations continued
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HISTORY OF BROOKLINE
throughout the seventeenth century, and Muddy River thus re- ceived and retained substantially the shape and dimensions that it now has.
PROPERTY RIGHTS
If the inhabitants felt it important to define the limits of their community, it was of still greater significance to them to mark the bounds of their own farms. These were Englishmen in whom the tradition of respect for property was deep, and the desire for land strong. Thus it was that among them a properly consti- tuted fence became perhaps the first symbol of civic liberty. It was a natural thing, therefore, that the first order known to have been directed at Muddy River by the town of Boston was to require that field fences be made secure at the proportionate expense of the planters, and to fix a penalty for 'every Rodd un- done.' A similar regulation was enacted two years later in 1639; and in October of 1640 the first public officers for the hamlet of Muddy River were chosen as 'overseers of the fence' and their authority was conferred in the terms of the first by- law applying exclusively to the area.
From the beginning the responsible duties of the fence-viewer were entrusted to substantial citizens. They were obliged to settle neighbors' disputes with practical fairness and to see that the law was faithfully executed. At first their instructions were concerned only with the 'feild fences,' then later with the 'Corn feild fence,' and finally with just 'the fence.' In this broadening of the term is evidence of enlarging responsibility. A little later the viewers were given the added duty of designating certain men among the proprietors from time to time to attend to maintaining the fence around the commons.
Agriculture and cattle on the one hand, and public and pri- vate property on the other, were calling for diversified treat- ment not only in the interest of a fair division of labor, but of fixing suitable types of fence as well. Thus, after twenty years of experimentation, the Boston town meeting codified the practice as follows:
Whereas divers offences arise through defective fences, and different apprehensions of the sufficiency of fences betweene proprietors; Itt is therefore ordered that all outside fences
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THE COMMUNITY SPIRIT GROWS
aboutt pastures or cornfeilds shall be substantially fenced, either with five rayles, or posts and pales, or sufficient stone walls, or other wise, according to the judgment of the select- men; and that all partitionall fences between lott and lott shall be ordered by the select men, in case of the disagree- ment of the proprietors; and in case any damage arise to others, by the defect of fences, the party whose fence is de- fective shall pay damages, as shall be adjudged by the select men or any deputed by them upon the complaint of any damaged.
FIRST HIGHWAYS
1247317
While the first general concern for Muddy River was in the matter of boundaries, and the first internal regulation had to do with fences, the question of transportation within the area had in one respect antedated both. The order providing for a cart- bridge at a convenient place over Muddy River was the earliest official notice taken of the place by the General Court, and high- ways within the region promptly became a matter of pressing importance.
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