History of the town of Canton, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Part 2

Author: Huntoon, Daniel T. V. (Daniel Thomas Vose), b. 1842
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Cambridge, [Mass.] : J. Wilson and Son : University Press
Number of Pages: 728


USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Canton > History of the town of Canton, Norfolk County, Massachusetts > Part 2


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In December, 1753, a plan of the whole town of Stoughton was made by Joseph Hewins, Jr., but I know of no original or copy. It was probably done with especial reference to the setting off of several thousand acres of land to Wrentham.


When it was deemed by the British government that a war with the colony was inevitable, surveyors were sent into the interior to prepare a reliable map of the country. The State was surveyed in 1774. The main road appears, running substantially as at present through the town. The meeting- house at Canton Corner, the brooks and ponds bearing the


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HISTORY OF CANTON.


names "Mashapog" and "Ponkipog," are also delineated; Traphole Brook is called Trapall; a part of the Manatiquot River, Smelt River, and the Neponset River runs a question- able course on one side of the map.


The next map that has come under my observation in point of time appeared in, or was prepared for, the "Boston Magazine" of June, 1785. The scale is two inches to the mile. It displays the Doty tavern, the Bussey house, the Episcopal church, Bemis's mill, the old meeting-house, with the grammar school on the south, Bent's tavern ; and at South Canton, Withington's mill, Belcher's tavern, and the mill of Colonel Gridley ; on Ragged Row, Pequit Brook, the old saw-mill, and Dickerman's mill are placed. The meeting- house in modern Stoughton and Capen's tavern are on the southern limit.


The Hon. Elijah Dunbar, who was a mathematician and surveyor, records that "November 8th, 1783, he finished ye great plan of Dorchester land."


The General Court passed an order, June 26, 1794, that towns should be surveyed and plans made. 'Nathaniel Fisher was then our surveyor. He made his map on a scale of fifty chains to the inch, - or, as he always spelled it, "intch." It shows the occupants of the houses only on what are now Pleasant and Washington streets; the ponds and brooks; the situation of the mills, with their owners; the meeting- house; and the hay bridges over the Neponset. This map includes the modern town of Stoughton. When the line was run between adjacent towns, the selectmen of those towns were present; and Gen. Elijah Crane, Jabez Talbot, and Gen. Nathan Crane looked out for the interests of Canton.1


In 1830 Joseph Hodges, Esq., appears to have been a resi- dent of Canton, occupant at one time of the Bussey, and at another the Bemis house. He was a surveyor; and when in conformity to the law of the State, a map was required, the committee appointed by the town consulted with Mr. Hodges. His offer to make the map from actual survey for thirty dollars was accepted. In his labor he was assisted by


1 See Appendix III.


9


THE NEW GRANT.


a committee of five, but Hon. Thomas French and Robert Tucker are the only names which appear on record as having done anything. This map was published in March, 1831.


In 1855 Henry F. Walling, a civil engineer, who was su- perintendent of the State map, also engaged on a map of Norfolk County, proposed to furnish a map of Canton. He offered to make such surveys as were necessary, and draft a plan of the entire town on a large scale, showing all the roads, streets, lanes, hills, woods, swamps, ponds, streams, mills, stores, churches, schools, dwellings, and other objects of importance and interest usually laid down on a map of this description. The town accepted the offer; and this is the latest map of any size that has appeared. It states that the town boundaries are laid down in part from old surveys. Canton also appears in the maps of Norfolk County by Wall- ing, in 1853 and 1858; Boston and its environs, in 1866; and in the "Norfolk County Atlas," published in 1876.


S.L.1


INDIAN ARROW-HEADS.


IO


HISTORY OF CANTON.


CHAPTER II.


THE PONKAPOAG PLANTATION.


T HE Massachusetts Indians who had settled near the mouth of the Neponset River were known as the Ne- ponset Indians; and Chicataubut, their sachem, was styled the " Sagamore of the Neponsetts." It was here in a grove now known as Vose's Grove that John Eliot, on the 14th of September, 1646, first preached the gospel to the Indians in the wigwam of Kitchamakin, the successor of Chicataubut. Eliot continued to take a deep interest in their welfare; and it was owing to his advice that when for a trifling considera- tion they sold their lands at Neponset, they decided to remove to Ponkapoag.


The aboriginal name of the territory lying beyond the Blue Hills, known to the inhabitants as the " New Grant," was Ponkapoag. The territory derived its name from the pond, which formed one of the principal features in the land- scape; and the name in the middle of the seventeenth century applied to a more extended territory than that which sub- sequently was included in the Ponkapoag Reservation. While the Indians sojourned at Neponset, they were known as the Neponset tribe ; and when they removed to Ponkapoag, they received the name of the place of their new location. It is an error to suppose that the place took its name from the residence of the tribe within its borders; the reverse is true.


The apostle Eliot was anxious to gather all the Praying Indians into one town, but the Cohanit, or Taunton Indians, had reserved a spot for themselves; and owing to difficulties with the English people, he was obliged to give up this idea, and decided to place them in separate communities, the first


II


THE PONKAPOAG PLANTATION.


of which he established at Natick, which was designated as " The First Praying Town; " the second was at Ponkapoag. About 1650 the Indians made a beginning; and in 1655 Eliot says, "They desire to make a town named Ponkipog, and are now upon the work." Mr. Eliot was satisfied with the experiment; he found that they were more contented liv- ing in small communities than in a large town; such was the result at Natick and was beginning to be the " experience at Ponkipog." The " History of Dorchester " says in reference to Eliot: "He had become convinced that a position more retired from the whites would better promote their interests, spiritual and temporal, and solicited the co-operation of the principal inhabitants of Dorchester to further their removal."


In pursuance of this desire, the apostle in 1657 addressed the following letter to Major-Gen. Humphrey Atherton, - one of the most distinguished and influential men of Dorchester : -


MUCH HONORED AND BELOVED IN THE LORD, - Though our poore Indians are much molested in most places in their meetings in way of civilities, yet the Lord hath put it into your hearts to suffer us to meet quietly at Ponkipog, - for which I thank God, and am thankful to your- self and all the good people of Dorchester. And now that our meetings may be the more comfortable and favorable, my request is that you would please to further these two motions : First, that you would please to make an order in your towne record, that you approve and allow ye Indians of . Ponkipog there to sit down and make a town and to enjoy such accommodations as may be competent to maintain God's ordinance among them another day. My second request is that you would appoint fitting men who may in fit season bound and lay out the same and record it also. And thus commending you to the Lord, I rest. Yours to serve in the service of Jesus Christ,


JOHN ELIOT.


The influence of "the apostle," not only on Major Ather- ton, but upon " the good people of Dorchester," is shown by the action at the next ensuing town meeting, Dec. 7, 1657. On that day, the town appointed Major Atherton, Lieutenant Clap, Ensign Foster, and William Sumner a com- mittee to lay out the Indian Plantation at Ponkapoag, not to


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HISTORY OF CANTON.


exceed six thousand acres of land; and it was voted " that the Indians shall not alienate or sell their plantations unto any English, upon the penalty of loss or forfeiture of their plantations." This transaction is more fully set forth in the Records of Dorchester for the year 1707: -


" Whereas, the Indians in the Massachusetts Country had sold all their rights and interest in all the land in the township of Dorchester, and had no place to settle themselves in, where they might have the gospel preached to them by the Rev. Mr. Eliot, upon the considera- tion thereof, the Rev. Mr. Eliot did petition to ye town of Dorchester that they would be pleased to grant to the Indians of Punkapouge a tract of land within their township, which they might settle, and he have the opportunity to preach the gospel to them. Upon the Rev. Mr. Eliot's request in the behalf of the said Indians, the inhabitants of said town of Dorchester did call a town meeting and did grant to the Indians of Puncapauge, a certain tract of land lying beyond the Blew Hills, not exceeding six thousand acres," etc.


This was the land upon which the greater part of Canton is now situated; it was known as the Ponkapoag Plantation, and to it most of the land titles must be traced. It extended substantially from Ponkapoag Pond on the east nearly to the Neponset River on the west, thence south to near the Via- duct, thence east into the boundaries of modern Stoughton, thence north to Ponkapoag Pond.1


Gookin says in defining the position of the ancient village of Ponkapoag, "There is a great mountain called the Blew Hill which lieth northeast from it about two miles." This would bring the Indian village at what is now known as Canton Corner.


No early map is known to be in existence of the larger part of Canton; that is, the part embraced in what was known as the Ponkapoag Plantation. In 1667, when the Dorchester committee met with the Indians to renew the bounds of the plantation, they mentioned that the Indians had a plat of the land, but would not lend it to them. The committee had neglected to bring a compass, and when they arrived at the northeast corner of Captain Clapp's farm were obliged to


1 See Appendix II.


13


THE PONKAPOAG PLANTATION.


perambulate the remainder of the boundaries. It is proba- ble this map was in duplicate, but that the copy of the town was burned in the same fire that destroyed the early tax lists of Dorchester.


The next plan was in 1687, when Capt. Ebenezer Billings took a plat of the common lands between the Blue Hills and Pecunit; this must have covered some part of the Indian Reservation, probably one half. Some surveys were made between lessees in 1704, when the Indians gave leases, but probably no plan of the plantation. When the early settlers received their deeds in 1725, the General Court ordered a survey to be made. Capt. Ebenezer Woodward made the survey and plan.


In 1756 Robert Spurr was guardian of the Indians, and was very much embarrassed to determine the boundaries . between the lands of the English and the Indians. It was asserted that the Indians had no plat; and if they ever had any, that no trace of the field-notes even could be found. Spurr, therefore, desires the General Court to order the Eng- lish persons abutting on the Indian land to produce their deeds, and pay their proportion of the charges of surveying the Indian lands adjoining them. The request was granted, and he was empowered to employ a surveyor and chainman upon oath to settle the boundaries between the Indians and the English, - each party to pay their proportion of the ex- pense, the English to produce their deeds. The plan was finished in 1760, by which it appeared that there was still in possession of the Indians land amounting to seven hundred and ten and three quarters acres. The English abutters were Robert Capen, Recompense Wadsworth, Jonathan Ca- pen, Deacon Wales, Ignatius Jordan, Elijah Jordan, James Smith, Nehemiah Liscom, Paul Wentworth, Samuel Tucker, Josiah Sumner, John and Moses Wentworth, Edward Bailey, John Whitley.


In 1650 the Indians appear to have been in quiet posses- sion at Ponkapoag, and in 1657 with full permission of the town of Dorchester. ยท


In 1658 the Provincial Government appointed commission-


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HISTORY OF CANTON.


er's to take care of the Indians and watch over their interests. Major Humphrey Atherton was authorized to constitute and appoint commissioners in the several Indian plantations, whose duty it should be to hear. and decide upon such mat- ters of difference as might arise among them.


That they soon began to till the soil appears from the pe- tition of Manaquassen in 1662, whose necessities require that he should have a horse or mare to go before his oxen to plough his land. The deputies think it meet that a ticket be given him to buy a horse, provided that the seller take the ticket and make return to the Secretary. It must have thrown a damper on his agricultural pursuits when the peti- tion was returned with the indorsement, "The magistrates consent not."


In 1667, before going to the war, Josias, the sachem of the Massachusetts Indians, called upon the selectmen of Dor- chester, and desired that they would give him a deed of the six thousand acres at "Punkapauog," which the town had given to the Indians, to be made out in his name and the names of his councillors, - Squamaug, Ahauton, Momen- taug, William Ahauton, old Chinaquin, and Assarvaske.


It was probably in answer to this request that in May, 1667, a committee from the town of Dorchester went to Ponkapoag, and having given the Indians notice of their coming, met a delegation of the principal Indians at the " wigwam " of Ahauton. They reviewed the bounds, re- newed the landmarks, and returned at night to the wig- wam, where they slept. The next day they finished their labors, " old Ahauton " going with them.


As some of the Praying Indians had been suspected of attacking the English, the Indians at " Punquapoag" were ordered not to go more than a mile from their village with- out being accompanied by an Englishman. Although there was no evidence that the Ponkapoag Indians had been en- gaged in any conspiracy against the English, yet the select- men of Dorchester feared " that in case of an assault upon the town, they should not expect any help or succor from these Indians, but contrarywise, to the great detriment, if not utter


15


THE PONKAPOAG PLANTATION.


ruin, of our plantations." It was deemed advisable to place all the men of the tribe under the command of Quartermaster Thomas Swift of Milton, who removed them, first to Long Island in Boston Harbor, thence to Brush Hill in Milton, where they raised some little corn, although late in the sea- son when they came up from down the harbor. While here, they were visited every fortnight by John Eliot and Major Gookin.


A few years afterward the Indians were ordered to repair to their plantations at " Punkapaug," and dwell there; and a person was appointed to call over the names of the men and women every morning and evening.


The following apocryphal story is told by the author of "Margaret Smith's Journal," of a powah, or wizard, who must have flourished about this time: -


"There was, Mr. Eliot told us, a famous Powah, who, coming to Punkapog while he was at that Indian village, gave out among the people there that a little humming-bird did come and peck at him when he did aught that was wrong, and sing sweetly to him when he did a good thing or spake the right words ; which coming to Mr. Eliot's ear, he made him confess, in the presence of the congregation, that he did only mean, by the figure of the bird, the sense he had of right and wrong in his own mind. This fellow was, moreover, exceeding cun- ning, and did often ask questions to be answered touching the creation of the Devil and the fall of man."


During the reign of Squamaug, the long contest which had subsisted between Josias Chicataubut, sachem of Ponkapoag, and King Philip, sachem of Mount Hope, in relation to the boundary line between their lands, was satisfactorily settled. They met at the house of Mr. Hudson, at Wading River, in what is now Attleborough, July 12, 1670, and signed an agreement that the patent line dividing Plymouth from Mas- sachusetts should be their boundary. Philip signed the agreement first, as he was considered the aggressor; then Squamaug signed, and William Ahauton and John Sassa- mon, councillors, witnessed the instrument.


The name last mentioned deserves attention from the fact


-


16


HISTORY OF CANTON.


that his violent death was the occasion of Philip's War. He revealed the plots of King Philip, whose secretary he had been, to the English at Plymouth; and not long after, Jan. 29, 1674-75, he was found dead in a pond in Middleborough, called Assawomset, with marks of violence upon his person. An Indian who saw the deed told William Ahauton; and this information led to the execution of the murderer on June 4, 1675. Sassamon, or Woossausmon, born at Ponka- poag, was the son of Christian Indians. He became a con- vert to Christianity in 1662, and was educated. At one time he taught school at Natick, and is said to have aided Eliot in translating the Bible into the Indian tongue. He was not only admitted into the communion of the Lord's Table in one of the Indian churches, but was employed every Lord's Day as a teacher.


In 1674 Capt. Daniel Gookin wrote a book entitled, "The Historical Collections of the Indians in New England," which remained in manuscript until published by the Massa- chusetts Historical Society in 1792. He gives a graphic and interesting account of the Indians, their government, manners, religion, and customs. By virtue of his authority as magis- trate and superintendent of all the Indians, he was brought into frequent communion with them; and his opinion is, with- out doubt, entitled to much consideration in historical matters. In February, 1668, Captain Gookin held a court at " Packe- mit," or "Punquapauge." Undoubtedly his description of the place was written a year or two later. He calls it "the Second Praying Town." Eliot in his description says, " Pon- kapoag, or Pakcunit, is our second town where the sachems of the blood, as they term their chief royal line, have their residence; " and Hutchinson follows hini almost literally.


At the time Gookin wrote, Ponkapoag had a population of only sixty souls, or twelve families. "Here they worship God and keep the Sabbath in the same manner as is done in Natick. They have a ruler, a constable, and a schoolmaster."


Ponkapoag had suffered in the decade immediately preced- ing Gookin's writing by the death of several honest and able men; and some who were considered faithful turned apostates,


17


THE PONKAPOAG PLANTATION.


and went away. These things had retarded the growth of the place; but especially had the village suffered in the death of William Awinian, - an Indian who is described as of great ability, of genteel deportment, and as speaking very good English. He appears to have been respected for his worth, and was a man of influence in the plantation. Gookin re- marks, " His death was a very great rebuke to this place."


Eliot says of him, " He was a man of eminent parts; all the English acknowledge him, and he was known to many. He was of ready wit, sound judgment, and affable. He has gone into the Lord."


The Indians were very useful to the early settlers. They helped them to build their houses; and to-day there are houses standing, in the erection of which tradition says the Indians assisted. They were useful in planting the seed and reaping the harvest. The more industrious earned money by cutting and preparing cedar shingles and clapboards for the Boston market. To the less industrious, the woods and the swamps offered the prospect of game; while the ponds, the river, and the brooks furnished them a supply of fish for their own consumption, or for barter and traffic with their English neighbors.


Thus while engaged in tilling the fields of their white neighbors, or in traffic, they were wont to "call to remem- brance the former days," and repeat the lessons those godly men, the apostle Eliot and his son, had taught them in their ministrations at this place; and these poor sons of the forest grew eloquent as they spoke of the loving-kindness of the Eliots for them and their race. When cheated and deprived of their lands at Neponset Mills, God had put it into the heart of the Rev. Mr. Eliot to become a petitioner for them to the town of Dorchester, that they might settle to- gether at Ponkapoag and be " gospellized ; " and after attend- ing to their temporal wants, he had established with them a regular religious service. He had taught them to keep the Lord's Day with reverence. Thus, on Sunday morning, when the sound of the drum reverberated over the plain, they all collected at the little meeting-house which they had erected,


2


18


HISTORY OF CANTON.


and with quiet and devout mlen listened while the " apostle " or his son John would exhort them to lives of purity, virtue, and godliness, laboring hard " to bring us into the sheepfold of our Lord Jesus Christ." And that they might never be without an instructor, Eliot taught members of their tribe in all matters bearing upon their spiritual and temporal welfare. For this he was well qualified. He had by his diligence and genius attained to great skill in the Indian language. He translated, as is well known, the Bible into this tongue. This was a work requiring great perseverance, and lasting many years. When we consider that to translate the Bible to-day into any of the foreign languages, with all the assistance of lexicons and dictionaries, would be a herculean task, how much more difficult must it have been for John Eliot, with no written or printed language to guide him, to translate the whole Bible into a tortuous and unknown tongue ! The task was simply gigantic. The printing was begun in 1660, and finished in 1663.


Although Mr. Eliot was so great a student and so learned a man, his preaching was adapted to the comprehension of the Indians. "His manner of teaching," says Gookin, " was first to begin with prayer, and then to preach briefly upon a suitable portion of Scripture; afterwards to permit the Indians to propound questions; and divers of them had a faculty to frame hard and difficult questions touching some- thing then spoken or some other matter in religion tending to their illumination, which questions Mr. Eliot, in a grave and Christian manner, did endeavor to resolve and answer to their satisfaction." His delivery was earnest and impressive, his words plain and to the purpose. " The Indians," says an historian of the time, "have often said that his preaching was precious and desirable to them;" and they have left this testimony on record in the following words, under date of Nov. 20, 1706: -


" We, having made large experience of the evidence and mercy of God unto us, in affording us salvation in and by the gospel of his son Jesus Christ, and has been pleased to move you ye hearts of his good people for to encourage us to embrace and come in with the same.


19


THE PONKAPOAG PLANTATION.


And that for above these fifty years by some of his faithful ministers, and when we had no convenient place of settlement, it pleased God for to move the heart of the Rev. Mr. Eliat not only for to labor hard with us for to bring us into the sheepfold of our Lord Jesus Christ, but did also become a petitioner for us to the town of Dorchester, that they would be pleased to bestow on us a certain tract of land at Ponkopauge, that we might settle together, that we might be gospilized ; and in answer hereunto the good people of Dorchester did call a town meeting and passed a vote that we should have a certain tract of land not exceeding 6000 acres, but we were not to sell or alienate any piece or parcel upon forfeiture of the whole. Accordingly we have enjoyed the same under Dorchester protection for about fifty years, both in securing us from the former war by soldiers, and otherwise for our safety and comfort, &c."


Mr. Eliot's son John also preached to the Indians at Ponkapoag, it having been his custom to visit them and preach for them once a fortnight; and great was the blow when John Eliot the younger died, - " when God was pleased to put an end to his work and life, and carry him with full sail to heaven." The apostle also had labors to perform at more distant places; old age wore on him apace; and finally the old man, "the first herald of Christianity to the savages," after many years of faithful service, died.


"The good, the pious, in the early days, Who planted here his noble palm of praise ; Who justly bore the " Apostle's " sacred name, And won from virtue's self a virtuous fame; Who to the Indian and the negro bore Learning's free gift, and opened wide her door."


A memorial drinking-trough was erected in 1880, on the old Packeen Plain, - a site rich in historic associations; it bears on enduring granite this inscription, -


" In memory of the labors of the Apostle Eliot among the Indians of Ponkapoag, 1655-1690."


Increase Mather, writing in 1687, says, -


" Besides the church at Natick there are four Indian assemblies where the name of the true God and Jesus Christ is solemnly called


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HISTORY OF CANTON.


upon. Mr. Eliot formerly used to go to them once a fortnight, but now he is weakened with labors and old age, and preacheth not to the Indians oftener than once in two months."




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