USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Canton > History of the town of Canton, Norfolk County, Massachusetts > Part 36
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SAMUEL TUCKER, Jr., Committee of Sixteenth Class.
March 4, 1782.
Twenty-three men were raised by the class system. The Committee of Correspondence in 1782 consisted of Elijah Dunbar, John Holmes, and Adam Blackman; and in 1783, of Benjamin Gill, James Endicott, and Major Swan.
On March 18, 1782, agreeable to an article in the warrant, "To see if the town will allow every male person, twenty-one years of age, and free, to vote in all town matters," the fol- lowing resolution on the right of suffrage was passed : -
" Whereas it has been the laudible custom of this Town ever since the struggles of ye United States with Great Britain for their freedom and rights, not to debar, but admit all and every person being Twenty- one years of age, living within ye limits of this Town, and taxed therin for ye support of Government, to exercise their natural, essential, and unalienable right of self-government by voting in all Town affairs and at election of public officers and Representatives ; which custom being upon ye principles of freedom, equality, and justice ought to be established an unalterable precedent, except in ye choice of ye Senate, which represents property ; therefore, voted, that this Town do hereby ratify and confirm said custom as a precedent that ought never to be violated or altered hereafter, with the exception aforesaid."
On May 16, 1783, the town instructed John Kenney, their representative, to endeavor to obtain from the General Court a lower valuation for the town, confiscation of the property of Tories, the prompt payment of officers and privates, fru- gality in the expenditure of the public money, and various other matters tending to an honest administration of public affairs.
The end of the war and the return of peace was duly cele- brated in Canton by a service at the old meeting-house, June
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2, 1783. The Rev. Samuel Dunbar made a prayer, and an oration was delivered by Samuel Searle.
In town meeting, Sept. 18, 1783, it was voted to accept the report of the committee that was chosen to take under con- sideration the address from Congress to the States and Gen- eral Washington, circular letters, and sundry other letters and papers, etc.
" Report : Gentlemen, your committee, whose names are under- written consonant to appointment, having taken into consideration the matter contained in the Pamphlets committed to their inspection, solicit permission to report that the recommendation of Congress relative to Impost ought by all means to be complied with, provided ye whole revenue arising therefrom be appropriated to the payment of the debts, and not otherwise, and also the eight per cent. fee allowed the officers for collecting be not granted. That the alteration in the eighth article of confederation agreed to and recommended by Con- gress, being incompatible with the interest of these Eastern States, is rejected. That the half pay and commutation granted to the officers of the army is both unreasonable and unjust ; and what they humbly conceive was not in the power of Congress to grant, being conspicu- ously incongruous with the general welfare of the United States, there- fore meets their warmest disapprobation.
"Thus, .Gentlemen, your Committee has, in a few words, com- municated the result of their proceedings, and are not without their suspicions, though not from a sensibility of remissness in the duty, that some will be ready to think that too little has been done and said upon a matter of such vast importance ; to such they modestly appre- hend it will be a sufficient apology to assure them that the whole passes their more penetrating inquisition, and consequently opens the field for expansion of more elevated genius and refined speculations ; but, Gentlemen, be this as it may, your Committee, conscious of having been faithful, cannot but hope and flatter themselves that you, upon canvassing the whole, will in some good measure coin- cide with them in the above sentiments."
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HISTORY OF CANTON.
CHAPTER XXVII.
SHAYS'S REBELLION.
T HE war was over, but the day of reckoning was to come. The Federal debt, the amount due the officers of the army, the State debt, and the indebtedness of the town for advances made either in bounties, supplies to the army, or families at home, had to be paid. Little remained of the gifts of land or money that had been received for public purposes. Private individuals owed large sums to one another which during the confusion of war times they had neglected to pay. Ill feeling soon sprang up between debtors and creditors; and the courts and the lawyers were looked upon as means of oppression by those who had shed their blood to free their country from the oppres- sion of Great Britain. In some counties the courts of jus- tice were overawed. Shays's Rebellion broke out, and the majority of our townsmen sympathized with the insurgents. "The insurrection of Shays," says a sexton of the old school, "was a matter of conscience beyond all doubt. He and many of his associates believed themselves a conscience party." Be this as it may, the government became alarmed, and determined to enforce submission to the laws. One of the young men of Canton, John Endicott, whose exploit as a boy of twelve has been related, enlisted in the small army commanded by General Lincoln, which was sent into the Western counties to reduce the insurgents. He held the office of orderly sergeant in the company to which he was attached. He was out in that famous night-march from Hadley to Petersham, pronounced by historians one of the most remarkable on record. It was attended with great suffering on account of the severity of the cold and depth
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of the snow. The insurgent forces were encamped on a hill in Pelham. General Lincoln was in Hadley watching their motions, going out himself on the 2d of February to recon- noitre their position. The next day, at noon, he was in- formed that they were in motion, - as it was supposed, how- ever, only shifting their quarters to another hill in the same town. But at six in the evening of the same day -the 3d of February- he received undoubted intelligence that they had broken up their encampment and begun their march eastward, in the direction of Petersham, on the borders of Worcester County. He instantly gave orders to his army to put itself in readiness to follow; and in two hours, at eight o'clock in the evening, his forces were on the march, - a long winter's night before them. By two o'clock in the morning, they had advanced as far as New Salem. "Here," says Judge Minot, in his History of the Insurrection of Mas- sachusetts and of the Rebellion, " a violent north wind arose, and sharpened the cold to an extreme degree; a snow-storm accompanied it, which filled the paths; the route of the army, lying over high land, exposed the soldiers to the full effects" of the blast, and, "the country being thinly settled," for many miles " afforded them no covering. Being thus deprived of shelter for want of buildings, and of refreshments by the intenseness of the cold, which prevented their taking any on the road, their only safety consisted in closely pursuing a march which was to terminate at the quarters of the enemy. They therefore advanced the whole distance of thirty miles," scarcely halting by the way.
They reached Petersham during the forenoon of the 4th of February. "On their arrival, Endicott - twenty-three years old that day, for it was his birthday - was obliged, before al- lowing himself time for refreshment or rest, to go some dis- tance to seek provisions for his company, those they had taken with them in their knapsacks being so badly frozen that they could not be used. It is not surprising that he could never forget that terrible night-march. The severity of the weather and the fatigue and sufferings of the little army dwelt in his memory, and his description of them was
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HISTORY OF CANTON.
minute and graphic. Little do we, who rest in our quiet habitations under protection of laws universally respected, reflect on the sacrifices by which our enjoyments and im- munities were purchased."
John Endicott, in 1787, took up his residence in Dedham, where he became a distinguished citizen, filling many offices of public trust, at one time being a member of the Council, during the administration of Governor Lincoln. He died in 1857.
At a town meeting, May 17, 1786, the instructions follow- ing were voted to the representative : -
To JAMES ENDICOTT, EsQ. :
SIR, - Notwithstanding your Constituents rely with full con- fidence on your integrity and abilities, yet they think it expedient to instruct you in the following particulars, viz. : You are hereby directed and instructed to use your utmost influence and abilities in ye next session of ye General Court, that ye pernicious practice of y Law, as most elaborately and feelingly held up in public view by some eminent Patriot under ye signature of Honestus, may be totally abolished, and that a Bill may be framed that each citizen of this Commonwealth may support and defend his cause before any Court of law with ye same freedom and propriety as he can now before Arbitrators or Referees, agreeable to the Declaration of Rights.
2d. You are also instructed to use your best endeavors that all exhorbitant Salaries and fees be reduced in proportion to services done, and ye poverty and distresses of ye people who pay.
3d. The distressing situation of ye people is so universally felt, on account of ye scarcity of a circulating medium, you are directed to use your endeavors that ye Legislature pay their earliest attention to a matter of such infinite importance, and devise and adopt ye most eligible plan for ye restoration of a proper circulation in ye political body, which is almost totally stagnated, and which must terminate in a dissolution unless timely prevented.
At a town meeting, Oct. 2, 1786, the following additional instructions were voted to the representative : -
"Notwithstanding the high opinion your constituents entertain of your abilities and good intentions to serve them, and the trust reposed in your integrity and fidelity for that purpose, when State Convulsions
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SHAYS'S REBELLION.
and political diseases of a complicated nature, attended with the most dangerous and alarming symptoms, call aloud not only for the exer- tions of the head, and those skilled in political remedies, to administer speedy relief, but likewise for the aid of every inferior member of the Body, -they think it their duty, as well as their right, to tell their complaints, state their greviences, and hint the method of cure and modes of relief.
"Your constituents feel themselves aggrieved, and think that they justly complain of exhorbitant salaries in the executive and judicial departments, which they suppose is at present beyond the Constitu- tional power of the Legislature, by an act of Legislation, to redress. Notwithstanding, as his Excellency is framed for wisdom and great- ness of soul, your Constituents do wish, and therefore instruct you to use your influence in the Legislature, that he be politely invited to ex- hibit specimens of his magnanimity by imitating a Jewish Patriot who would not eat the bread of the Government in a time of general dis- tress. You are instructed to use your influence that the Treasurer and Commissary General's salaries be reduced in proportion to ser- vices done and the distress of the people who pay, and that the num- ber of Clerks in said offices be reduced as well as their pay, and likewise that all other exorbitant salaries be reasonably reduced, except those of the Members of Congress, and the Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court, which appears reasonable.
" You are directed to use your influence that the mode of collect- ing Imposts and excise be totally changed, in the following manner, viz. : -
"That the Collectors be chosen in and by each Town, and the expense of collecting be paid by said Towns, and that all the monies so collected be appropriated for the purpose of paying the foreign debt, and that greater duties be laid upon all superfluities of life, and especially upon all Spirituous Liquors.
" You are directed to vote for no gratuities to any man, or body of men, without particular directions from your Constituents. You are instructed to exert your best abilities to lop-off some of the unneces- sary branches of some departments of Government, and in particular the Courts of Common Pleas and Courts of Quarter Sessions, and let all actions and causes that used to come before and be recognizable at the above Courts come before and be recognizable at Courts appointed for that purpose in each Town, - the parties always having the benefit of appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court, and that the order of Lawyers, as they now practice, be entirely annihilated.
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HISTORY OF CANTON.
"Your Constituents view the present mode of collecting the Taxes to be a grievance on the poor ; therefore you will endeavor to have such alteration as shall appear to you beneficial to the public.
" You are also instructed to exert yourself to have the Probate Courts held, and Deeds recorded in each Town, and to likewise strive that all other grievances be addressed.
" And that a moderate Bank of paper money be emitted, and that it shall be a tender in all contracts made after the emission is issued, and for the interest on all former contracts, likewise to answer for any former contracts that are sued for or strenuously demanded, and for all public Taxes made on Polls and Estates. That the Imposts and Excise, so far as can be come at, shall be paid in hard money, and appropriated to pay the foreign debt or interest of the same."
At a town meeting, Jan. 29, 1787, an address from Gov- ernor Bowdoin having been read to the qualified voters, it was voted, -
" That this Town will exert its influence and power to support ye present Constitution, however imperfect it may be, and will, when Constitutionally required, most decidedly co-operate with Government in every necessary exertion for the restoring to the Commonwealth that order, harmony, and peace upon which its happiness and char- acter do essentially depend."
Also the town voted the following petition : -
"To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General Court assembled. Most Respectfully Sheweth -
"That your Petitioners, the Freemen of the Town of Stoughton, in Town Meeting legally assembled, are under the most alarming apprehensions on account of the public convulsions and universal Commotions in the Commonwealth at the present day ;
"That your Petitioners, at this dreadful crisis, when the din of arms and hostile appearances freeze them with horror, are greatly afraid that a general civil war and effusions of innocent blood will be the issue of the present measures of Government, unless the minds of the people are quieted by the Legislature adopting those that are more lenient, and redressing those grievances generally felt, therefore anxiously pray that your Honors would be graciously pleased to grant the following request : That the effusion of the human blood may be
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SHAYS'S REBELLION.
if possible prevented ; and that the most decisive measures be imme- diately adopted by the Legislature to accomplish so necessary and salutary a purpose ; that the Courts of Common Pleas and General Sessions of the Peace be abolished, and a substitute, answering every purpose, be instituted that shall be apparently most beneficial to the publick.
"That the fees be regulated, &c.
"That the matters of the Governor's Salary and other Salaries be lowered for the present in proportion to the scarcity of money, and in order that some measures that we are persuaded will quiet the people in a considerable degree may be adopted. Until the abolition aforesaid shall take place, we pray that the Fee Table may be lowered, - in particular, that the Justices of the General Sessions of the Peace should not have more than 2s. 6d. per day ; who live within ten miles, and those above ten miles, 3s. 6d. per day, and no travel allowed ; also that the Fee allowed for acknowledging an instrument should not exceed 6d , and all other parts of the fee table be lowered in propor- tion. Also to prevent the numerous Lawsuits that have taken place, and the general costs that has arisen thereon, to the great distress and utter ruin of numbers, - we pray that a law may be made that when a dispute shall arise between party and party that if either of the par- ties shall offer to the other to leave the matter in dispute to persons mutually chosen, the party refusing shall pay all the cost which shall, in the Judgement of the Judges of the Supreme Judicial Court, exceed the cost of the proposed reference.
" Also we pray that a law may be made that whosoever, in the Judgement of the assessors in each town, can procure and keep five, ten, twenty, or thirty sheep, and being duly notified by the assessors, shall not procure and keep the number so specified, shall pay 6s. to the use of the Government for every five sheep he shall be deficient. Also we pray that a law may be made that whosoever in the Judge- ment of the assessors of each Town can raise one acre, one-half acre, or one-quarter of an acre of Flax yearly, and being duly notified by the assessors, shall neglect or refuse to cultivate the quantity allotted, shall pay six shillings to the Government for every one-fourth acre he shall be deficient.
" Also we pray that a law may be made for the preventing the killing of Lambs till they are upwards of a year old."
The following is the "oath of allegiance," subscribed to by the officers of the town of Stoughton, on the 19th of March, 1787: -
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HISTORY OF CANTON.
We, the Subscribers, do truly and sincerely acknowledge, profess, testify, and declare that the commonwealth of Massachusetts is, and of right ought to be, a free, sovereign, and independent State ; and we do swear that we will bear true faith and allegiance to the said commonwealth, and that we will defend the same against traiterous conspiracies and all hostile attempts whatsoever; and that we do renounce and abjure all allegiance, subjection, and obedience to the king, queen, or government of Great Britain, and every other foreign power whatsoever ; and that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, superiority, pre- eminence, authority, dispensing, or other power in any matter, civil, ecclesiastical, or spiritual, within this commonwealth, - except the authority and power which is or may be vested by their constituents in the Congress of the United States. And we do further testify and declare that no man or body of men hath or can have any right to absolve or discharge us from the obligation of this oath, declaration, or affirmation ; and that we do make this acknowledgement, profes- sion, testimony, denial, declaration, denounciation, and abjuration heartily and truly according to the common meaning and acceptation of the foregoing words, without any equivocation, mental evasion, or secret reservation whatsoever. So help me God.
ABNER CRANE. LEMUEL GAY.
JAMES POPE. ELIJAH CRANE.
WILLIAM WHEELER. ELIJAH DUNBAR.
At a town meeting, May 7; 1787, the town voted instruc- tions to their representatives, in which the following lan- guage occurs : -
"You will use your influence that the General Court be removed out of the Town of Boston, that the minds of the people may be quieted respecting undue influence.
"That wall of protection now broken down which once guarded the personal liberty of the Subject, - viz., the Habeas Corpus, - you will endeavor to have rebuilt with every public advantage and private convenience.
" Those discriminating and disqualifying acts which serve to irri- tate ye minds of ye people, instead of promoting the desirable blessing of peace, your constituents wish to have repealed, together with all other laws that appear repugnant to the common good.
" You will enquire whether the liberty of the Press, so essential to the security of Freedom in a State, has been in any manner violated
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SHAYS'S REBELLION.
or restrained in this Commonwealth ; and if so, you will endeavor to have the violations impeached, and future restraint prevented."
At a town meeting, Jan. 1, 1788, the committee of eleven previously appointed Dec. 3, 1787, to prepare instructions for the delegates chosen by the town to attend the State convention to consider the proposed Federal Constitution, reported -
"That it is our opinion, after a mature and deliberate consideration on the subject, that it be left discretionary with the delegates, - Ben- jamin Gill, Abner Crane, James Pope, Samuel Talbot, Nathaniel Fisher, Samuel Capen, Peter Crane, Frederic Pope, Elijah Crane, William Wheeler, Joseph Richards, Jr."
At a town meeting, May 5, 1788, the town voted to in- struct its representative to use his influence that there be a law made that the liberty of the Press in all public matters should not be restrained.
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434
HISTORY OF CANTON.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CIVIL HISTORY, 1775-1800.
T HE civil affairs of the town during the Revolution and the subsequent score of years offer little worthy of record. In 1778 the town was visited by the small-pox; and isolated dwellings were converted into hospitals. Again, in 1792 forty-eight people were suffering with this disease at the house of Mr. Jesse Davenport in Ponkapoag. Mr. Na- thaniel Wentworth's house was used in the same manner; and the house of Elijah Gill, then standing on the south side of the meadow which is now Reservoir Pond, was filled with patients.
The dark day of May 19, 1780, had thrown its silent pall over our people as well as the rest of New England, - the darkest day, says Samuel Chandler, ever known in this land; the farmers left their ploughs in the fields, and the children returned from the schoolhouses, affrighted. But Eliakim Pitcher was not alarmed. He was shearing sheep when the darkness came; he quietly called for candles, and worked all day as if nothing unusual was going on. The Rev. Mr. Gatchel afterward preached a sermon, taking for his text, "The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining."
The inhabitants of Canton, as well as other towns, had long been dissatisfied at being obliged to go to Boston to attend court. The desire to have a separate county was expressed in 1733, when the town voted to join with all the towns in the county of Suffolk except Boston, to be made into a sepa- rate county; this vote was repeated in 1735 and in 1738. The reasons they give are, - because the business of the Superior and Inferior courts at Boston is so great "that it is
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CIVIL HISTORY.
tedious to wait upon" and very expensive of time and money ; that the jurors " lie upon expense both for horse and man; " and that men in the country are unacquainted with matters pertaining to merchandise and seafaring affairs, and are better informed in regard to husbandry. Again, it was laborious for widows to be obliged to drive in and out, and sometimes have to wait a long time for their turn, so large was the busi- ness and so crowded the court-room. In 1775 it was pro- posed that the towns, with one or two additions, which are now comprised within the county of Norfolk be set off as a separate county, to be called Hancock.
In 1784 an article was inserted in the warrant to see if our town will join with the towns lying at the western part of Suffolk County, to form a new county. Three years later it was voted that the representative to the General Court recom- mend that proper measures be taken for a division of the county, and that Boston be a county by itself, unless adja- cent towns choose to join it. The choice of the shire town appears to have been a matter of indifference, although at one time it was suggested that Stoughton should receive that honor. In 1791 a petition was presented to the General Court for the formation of a new county, signed by Elijah Dunbar for Canton, and praying that the name of the new county be Union. This agitation resulted in the establish- ment of Norfolk County, June 20, 1793. It would appear that a convention met at Gay's tavern on Dec. 9, 1793, to prevent the dismemberment of Suffolk County, and was at- tended by James Endicott, Elijah Dunbar, Col. Nathan Crane, and Capt. Samuel Talbot. Ours was not the original county of Norfolk. In 1643 one of the four counties, embracing Hampton, Haverhill, Exeter, Dover, and Strawberry Bank. was called Norfolk, for the county of the same name in Old England, which was composed of the North-folk. By the present naming, the North-folk are south of the South-folk.
As early as 1753 Uriah Atherton, who was afterward a soldier in Capt. Jonathan Eddy's company of Col. Thomas Doty's regiment, commonly called Forgeman Atherton, witlı , others who resided in the southeast corner of the town,
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