USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Brookline > History of the town of Brookline, Massachusetts > Part 6
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Moreover, Joseph Dudley, born and reared in Roxbury, was President of the Council, and Jonathan Tyng (nephew of William Tyng, the largest original grantee in Muddy River) was a member. Both of them knew the hamlet well, and may for various reasons have encouraged its political as- pirations. In any case, it is not surprising that a few weeks later, on December 6, 1686, favorable action was taken, in these words:
In answere to the Petition of ye Inhabitants of Muddy Rivere praying to have Libertie to erect a Schoole &c. Upon the hearing thereof The President & Council do order That henceforth the sd Hamlet of Muddy River, be free from Towne Rates to the Town of Boston they mainetaining their own Highwayes & poor and other publick charges arising amongst themselues And that within one year next comeing they raise a Schoolhouse in such place as the two next Jus- tices of the County vpon a Publick hearing of the Inhabitants of the sd Hamlet shall determine alsoe maintain an able read- ing and writinge Master there from and after that day, and that the Inhabitants annually meet, to choose three men to manage theire affaires.
This is an important document. It seems either that the Governor and Council had granted somewhat more than was requested, or that the petition had undergone considerable expansion since its submission to the town meeting a few months earlier. Previous records indicate that only a 'writinge Schoole for their children' was sought; but the result was freedom from all Boston rates, the maintenance of their own highways and care of their own poor, full charge of additional local mat- ters, provision for the initial school as well as a plan for its location, and in conclusion a simple political framework to give these privileges effect. This last provided for a meeting of the inhabitants, and the choice of an executive group of three men to supervise affairs of the community.
Had such an order been given complete effect, it would have established virtual independence. In a few important matters the area was still an appendage of the parent settle- ment. Politically it remained the 'Hamlet of Muddy River.' It was still subject to Boston in matters of police, military
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service, assessment and collection of country rates, the choice or confirmation of major officers, and representation in the colonial government.
THEIR OWN SCHOOL
Thus Muddy River negotiated the first step in her difficult climb to independence. On the following January 19 a 'town meeting' was held - a 'full meeting,' and the first recorded gathering within the area. The grant of the President and Council was formally accepted, and a practical application of the new powers was the next move. The meeting voted twelve pounds for the maintenance of a school master, to be supple- mented by tuition fees from those students able to pay. Andrew Gardner, John White, Jr., and Thomas Stedman were selected as the 'three men to manage theire affaires'; and Thomas Boylston was chosen town clerk and ordered to buy a book for record purposes.
But that book, beyond recording this first meeting, is silent as to the succeeding eleven years, and there is little to show what was actually done under these new privileges. Evidently a schoolhouse was built, probably at what is now the inter- section of Walnut and Warren Streets, for the next extant record of the hamlet shows a vote that 'Mr. John Searl should tech school in sd Muddyriver from the first munday in May 1697 until the last day of february 1697 [1698, New Style].'
It was also 'voated by the Inhabitants of Muddyriver that twelve pounds should be levied upon the Inhabitants towards the schoolmasters salary according to a former voate of the Inhabitants upon the 19th of January 1686.' Further, pro- vision was made for the repair of the schoolhouse and pound.
The next record affecting education appears in 1705 when an appropriation of twelve pounds was again made, and new repairs ordered. There has been some confusion as to the es- tablishment of early schools in Muddy River, but it is fairly clear that the building described was the earliest, erected near the meeting-house of the First Church. The school-lane house, on School Street, may possibly have antedated the other, but it seems more likely to have been the result of an order of March 5, 1711 providing for the erection of 'two School houses.'
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REVERSALS
The other concessions of the Governor and Council appear to have made considerable difference in the life of the hamlet, but only for a time. An unpleasant issue had been raised with Boston, which resented Muddy River's assumption of these new privileges. And rights which in part owed their origin to His Majesty's disaffection with the town of Boston, were in a measure at the mercy of the barometer which reflected the fortunes of the Governor and Council.
The legislation of the Andros government continued to arouse the bitterest opposition, and the accession of William of Orange in November, 1688, found an exasperated colony ready to seize any advantage that political confusion at home might make possible. The result is well known - the govern- ment was overthrown, Andros imprisoned, a 'Council for the Safety of the People and Conservation of the Peace' set up, and the old charter accepted until 'an Orderly Settlement' should arrive from England. Accordingly, before the summer of 1689, almost every trace of this unhappy régime had van- ished, and Muddy River was quick to feel the pressure that an unwelcome but fortuitously friendly government had been able to hold in check.
From the Bostonian viewpoint, recognition of the Muddy River demands was probably one of the tyrannical acts of the usurping Andros against which that town had so vigorously protested. The records help little toward gaining a picture of public feeling, however, until the curt announcement of the town meeting of March 10, 1690, to the effect that the inhab- itants of the hamlet are not to consider themselves as discharged from Boston, but are to stand related to the parent settlement as they did before the order of 1686.
Whether this declaration had any practical effect it is impos- sible to determine. Even under the liberal grant of the Gov- ernor and Council, many important functions, as has been indicated, remained with the town of Boston. Constables and surveyors had been chosen, or at least affirmed, by the Boston town meeting as formerly; country rates were administered as they had always been; but there is no record of assessments in Muddy River by the selectmen of Boston during the period.
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In August, 1690, however, the area was again assessed for local rates, and the following October was sharing its burden for the poor of Boston. But from this time until 1700 there appears to have been a complete cessation of such levies, and the assumption is that Muddy River was largely free from financial obligations to the peninsula. It seems as though the fight was really won in 1686, and that while the order of 1690 probably caused some loss of ground, the hamlet was never reduced again to its former subservience, but continued stead- ily to make secure its initial gains.
RENEWED ASPIRATIONS
A few years passed, during which the records of Boston con- tain only routine references to Muddy River. The selection or confirmation of constables, surveyors, tithingmen, fence- viewers, and perambulators seems to have been the principal function of the town meeting toward the restless suburb. But that the episode of 1690 still rankled in the minds of the inhab- itants is beyond dispute.
The colonial charter of October 7, 1691, had re-established a General Court, each town to select two representatives, and in May, 1698, the citizens of Muddy River were again pressing their demands before this tribunal. The new petition called attention to previous efforts, reminded the members that the Governor and Council had in 1686 given the privileges that they then requested, and concluded by asking confirmation of the grant that had been summarily annulled by the town of Boston, with legal aspects which must have been exceedingly dubious. And there was a brief addition: they prayed to be allowed to choose the necessary officers and especially a con- stable to collect both country and local rates. Thomas Gard- ner, Benjamin White, and Roger Adams signed the petition 'In the name of the inhabitants,' and there was appended to the document a 'true List of the names Given, December ye 20th, 1697' indicating twenty-nine sponsors of the petition, two opposed, and six 'Neuters.'
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LOST GROUND REGAINED
The date of the petition is May 25, 1698, but the local vote approving it had apparently been taken the preceding Decem- ber. Under March 14, 1698, there is this entry in the town records of Boston:
Voted that rumny Marsh and Muddi rever, Each place haue Liberty to Chuse an Assessor to Set with the Select men, for the making of their Own Rates. Each place is to make their chose of their sd. Assessor. On their first Training Day, and when Chosen, to bring them on ye day of a publick Town meeting to be confirmed by the Town.
The General Court of the colony received the communica- tion from Muddy River, took it under advisement, referred it to the next session, and directed the 'town of Boston to be Notified thereof.' There seems no official trace of what ulti- mately happened with respect to this petition, but the manu- script copy is endorsed thus:
May ult: 1698. Read June House of Representatives & Committed.
June 7th. In answer to this petition
RESOLVED. That the petitioners be allowed what they herein pray for, and that all those persons mentioned in a list of the Inhabitants of sd. Hamlet hereto annexed, whether Neuters or otherwise, be compelled to pay their respective proportions to the charge above mentioned; and that it so remains until the Generall Court take further Order
Natha. C. Byfield Speaker
Sent up for Concurrance
In the House of Representatives
Voted that ye petition be Refferred to ye Next Sessione of this Corte that the town of Boston have opportunitie to act or speak in that matter
Natha. C. Byfield Speaker
8th June 1698/. Resolved a concurrance in Council - Re- ferred unto the next Sesion J. S. Addington Secry. of ye Court. The Town to have Notice
Here, it seems, legislative record of the petition is lost, but the records of Muddy River, after a lapse of some eleven years, commence again in 1697, and it seems plain that until the cor-
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porate status was finally secured in 1705, some of the actual benefits requested in 1698, and temporarily secured in 1686, were in fact enjoyed. Three men, in 1698 for the first time called 'Select men,' were regularly chosen to manage the affairs of the hamlet; a town clerk, surveyors of highways, fence-viewers, tithingmen, and constables were selected each year by the inhabitants, and the school continued to be main- tained.
Much of this may have been done by the hamlet for a long time; probably the order of 1669 regarding the local choice of constables had required some kind of town meeting for the purpose. But the practice had been extended to include all of the important officers as well as matters of local policy, and despite official discouragement, Muddy River exercised a wide latitude in regulating its own affairs.
It seems fairly clear, therefore, that the General Court post- poned consideration of the petition, and that the Boston-Muddy River relationship from 1689 on was in the nature of an in- formal modus vivendi, or tacit working agreement, based partly on town orders and partly on unexpressed consent, that kept both parties marking time while awaiting the next step. Cer- tainly, if the petition was not passed upon before 1700, it had entered the limbo of forgotten bills, for on March II of the first year of the new century, the hamlet once again opened negotiations with Boston that promised a complete departure in the relations of the two communities.
INDEPENDENCE DENIED
The situation was still unsatisfactory. Muddy River had carried on an almost unremitting struggle for a long time, and had made substantial if precarious gains. But the element of subordination continued to exist; there remained the poten- tial if not very real threat of interference from Boston, and local aspirations had undoubtedly been aroused that were not to be appeased until complete freedom was secured.
Boston, for her part, probably felt with some justice that many concessions had already been made to the importunity of her restless suburb, and that further demands at this time indicated scant consideration for what the larger settlement
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regarded as the general welfare of the community. After all, the handwriting on the wall was pretty plain; concessions to Dorchester, Newton, Cambridge, and Braintree had cost heavily in citizens and territory, and Rumney Marsh gave every evidence of following the lead of Muddy River. Was the town of Boston to be narrowly confined to the water-bound shores of the peninsula? It was a prospect not to be con- templated with equanimity.
This situation was faced in the March meeting of 1701. The residents of Boston plainly thought that the period of com- promise and conciliation had passed, and in the presence of a reasoned plea for independence from Muddy River, were pre- pared not only to rebuke the petitioners, but to penalize their effrontery as well.
The request at this time was phrased in language as devoid of compromise as the Bostonians' own had been - bluntly, 'To be a District or Hamlet Separate from the Town.' The reasons offered all hinged on remoteness from the peninsula, a condition which was said to make it impossible for citizens of the area to enjoy the municipal advantage on anything like equality with the inhabitants of the town proper, particularly in the matter of schools, poor relief, and highways.
It was futile to point out, as Boston did, that these matters had been administered for years by the precinct with a very large amount of local autonomy. While this was an answer to the petition, the fact of subordination was the real grievance. There was a sense of exploitation to the advantage of their large neighbor without commensurate returns. It is true that the complaint itself gives no positive evidence of this; it says, colloquially, 'We are not getting our money's worth.' But the true relation had been painfully evident on two acute occa- sions, the rejection of the petition of 1686 and the 'reannexa- tion' of 1690, both of which had probably left a measure of rancor that far outweighed any administrative grievance or speculative financial loss that may have been suffered.
Whatever the feeling underlying the relation, the petition was read and debate followed. Little sympathy was accorded the request, for the vote was in the negative, with this sanction attached:
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That tho' they had not for some years been Rated in the Town rate yet for the time to come the Selectmen Should rate them in the Town Tax as the other Inhabitants & as formerly they used to be.
In view of the fact that much of the complaint centered about a school within the area, Boston ordered the selectmen to pro- vide a schoolmaster whose salary should be paid out of the Boston town treasury.
The program, at this point, becomes quite clear; on the one hand to discourage further petitions by a rebuke and a pen- alty, and on the other, to remove at once the principal cause of grievance and strongest argument of the petitioners by supplying a schoolmaster at Boston's expense. On the whole it would seem to be excellent strategy, but it was immediately followed by unexpected repercussions.
'Some of the Inhabitants of the North end of the Town' at once demanded equal school privileges with Muddy River, and upon the request's being granted, the citizens of Rumney Marsh, 'standing by and seeing the Town in so good a frame,' likewise sought, and received, the promise of a free school, pro- vided a suitable number of children could be had. Corporate Boston was certainly on a shifting foundation that required an increasing amount of political ingenuity to stabilize.
FURTHER PETITIONS
But nothing appears to have happened until about four years later. Just what caused the delay is not clear, but the next step, as in 1686, was logically an appeal to the colonial government, and it is quite likely that the moment was not propitious.
Acting Governor William Stoughton had retired in July, 1700, and for a year the colony had no chief magistrate. Then in June, 1702, Joseph Dudley, after a varied career abroad, was appointed to the office. Here was an executive who, despite his wide unpopularity, had proved sympathetic four- teen years before, and who might conceivably be depended upon to lend his support to further demands. Moreover, Sam- uel Sewall, son of Chief Justice Sewall who was a member of the Council, was himself both clerk of the hamlet and son-in-
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law of the Governor - a circumstance possibly of some importance.
At all events, in June of 1704, eight of Muddy River's lead- ing citizens joined in a third petition to colonial authority, once again setting forth their aspirations. As before, they cited their successful requests of 1686, emphasized that their com- munity had consistently maintained a school since that time, and asserted that, having arrived at a point of development more stable than ever, they now desired the privilege of having their own selectmen, the full rights of a township, and a 'min- ister and other benefits amongst us.'
The petition was read in the Council meeting of June 17, 1704, and an order entered to the effect that the selectmen of Boston be notified of an opportunity to be heard at the next meeting of the General Court. But Boston seems to have taken no action, and the Council on November 1, 1704, ordered the selectmen of that town to attend its meeting of Saturday morn- ing, November 4. However, this hearing was postponed, and it was not until March 12, 1705, that the town meeting ap- pointed a committee of five to draw up an answer to the Gen- eral Court in the matter of the Muddy River petition.
Meanwhile the petitioners, somewhat irked, had addressed another appeal to the Governor, Council, and Assembly, re- minding them of the fact that there had been no formal ob- jection made by the town of Boston. Hence, assuming 'that there is no Obstruction to our humble request,' they again begged that the proper legislative steps be taken to give Muddy River its desired freedom.
OBJECTIONS FROM BOSTON
By the summer of 1705, the 'Town' committee had made its report, and the general tone was one of mingled condescension and reproof. Observing that several sessions of the General Court had already passed since the time originally set for the hearing, and that the matter appeared therefore to have been dropped - a notably specious suggestion - the committee hinted nevertheless at the possibility of revival through a 'new petition or order.' In view of this, they said, it seemed proper to protect the town from any further embarrassment by pre-
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senting the General Court with a brief statement of the un- soundness of the Muddy River demands.
To this effect it was related that
they have been hitherto supported by the Town while they were not able themselves to defray their necessary public Charges many of which might be enumerated, and the town Charges, now increasing with us, and the body of ye town abounding with poor & such as are not capable to defray but rather greatly increase the Charge; for the Inhabitants of Muddy River at such a time & being themselves now grown more oppulent and capable to be helpful to ye town, to be sent from us seems most unreasonable, & in them very in- grateful, and may be a bad example to others to endeavor the like, & to cutt the Town into such shreds as will best suit themselves without any due regard to ye publick Interest; the Charge of the Road upon the Neck is great & is still growing & ye Petitioners & Inhabitants of Muddy River have had more benefit & do more to increase the Charge of that way, than all the rest of the town. Several other things might be instanced which the Select men are well acquainted with, and we think they ought (if the General Court see cause to proceed on the Petition) to pray to be heard therein.
This reply was read in Council on June 15, 1705, and or- dered to be heard before the Court on the following Tuesday, June 19. But the time again 'slipt,' and it was June 22 before the hearing was held, and the selectmen of Boston, having been notified, again came forward to answer. This time, however, the rejoinder is a far more studied document, quite different from the somewhat perfunctory response of a few days before.
It represented a final stand, a complete case beyond which there was nothing more to say; and it was a summary of the pent-up grievances of many years. In particular, the first par- agraph provided an important historical commentary on the relation of hamlet and town for a generation preceding the separation. It called attention to the numerous concessions that Boston had made, and emphasized the large degree of autonomy that the hamlet had enjoyed. Its freedom from the support of the ministry, its release from the unwelcome service of 'Watchings and Wardings,' the constant nomination of its
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own officers subject only to the usual confirmation of the 'Town,' its free school, and its very moderate taxes - all these bespoke a condition that seemed to reflect credit on the generosity and consideration of the parent community.
With little alteration or addition, this document proceeded to restate the complaints made in the former remonstrance, and in the third and final paragraph introduced a new argu- ment and elaborated an old one. If separation were allowed, it was said, some five hundred acres of common land belonging to Boston within the area of Muddy River would be lost to the 'Town.' Also, further territorial losses, examples of which were freely offered, would confine Boston to the 'Isthmus of a mile long which was never thought sufficient bounds for a Townshipp,' much less for a community that had become the center of so many burdens and so much distress as Boston.
MORE THAN THEY ASKED
But it was of no avail, and after an unexplained interval of five months, the petition passed the Council on November 13, 1705. Muddy River, in consequence of a generation of con- sistent agitation, became the town of 'Brooklyn':
In Council
The Order passed by the Representatives upon the petition of the Inhabitants of Muddy River a Hamlet of Boston, read on Saturday last;
ORDERED That the Prayer of the Petition be granted, And the Powers and Privileges of a Township be given to the In- habitants of the Land commonly known by the Name of Muddy River, The Town to be called Brooklyn, Who are hereby enjoyned to build a Meeting-House & obtain an able orthodox Minister according to the Direction of the Law to be Settled among them within the Space of Three Years next coming, PROVIDED, That all Common Lands belonging to the Town of Boston lying within the Bounds of the said Muddy River not disposed of or Allotted out shall still re- main to the Proprietors of the said Lands: -
Which Order being Read again, was Concurd: - And is Consented to;
J. Dudley.
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HISTORY OF BROOKLINE
There remain two significant points in this development that are best settled here, so far as they can be settled at all. An examination of the successive petitions presented by Muddy River in 1698, 1701, 1704, and 1705, shows that in no place is it definitely asked that the hamlet be made a town, and in only one instance is the word 'township' mentioned in this con- nection.
The petition of 1698 asks confirmation of the grant of 1686, with some additional powers, but mentions no corporate change. The petition of 1701 as cited by the town meeting of Boston is a request to be a 'District or Hamlet separate from the Town.' In 1704 the demand is for 'a separate Village to have Selectmen, and all other rights belonging to a Township'; and the final petition of 1705 asks that the petitioners be al- lowed to become 'a Separate Village or peculiar.' The grant of November 11, 1705, however, brushed aside this medley of terms and invested the community with 'the Powers and Privileges of a Township ... The Town to be called Brooklyn.'
THE REAL REASONS
Now it seems hardly possible that the framers of these numer- ous petitions could be unaware of such discrepancies, nor does it seem more probable that they were so careless or ignorant of local terminology as to attempt to indicate their desires by unsuitable terms. 'Town' was a well understood designation, and although the authority of the Massachusetts Bay Com- pany, itself a corporation, to charter communities had been closely questioned during the Dudley-Andros régime, towns were recognized municipal corporations. They were vested with all privileges of local government known to the law, as well as the right of full representation in the General Court.
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