USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Canton > History of the town of Canton, Norfolk County, Massachusetts > Part 39
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On the 23d of February, 1797, Canton was made a separate town agreeable to --
" An Act to divide the town of Stoughton, in the county of Nor- folk, and to incorporate the northerly part thereof into a town by the name of Canton.
"SECTION I. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Repre- sentatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, That all the north part of the town of Stoughton, in the county of Norfolk, on the northerly side of the following described line, be incorporated into a town by the name of Canton, beginning at the
462
HISTORY OF CANTON.
Parish line between the first and second parishes in the town of Stoughton, at the westerly line of Randolph, thence running westerly on said Parish-line, until it comes to the road leading from the first to the second parish in said Stoughton, near Ephraim Smith's, thence northerly by said road to Ephraim Smith's lane, so called ; thence westerly by said lane until it comes to said Smith's land, then south- erly and westerly in the range of the said Smith's and Lemuel Gay's land, until it comes to Steep-brook, so called; then on said brook a southerly course until it comes to Moses Gay's land ; thence in the range of the said Gay's and Smith's land, until it comes to the land belonging to Elijah Dunbar, Esq. ; thence in the range of said Dun- bar's and Gay's land, until it comes to land belonging to William Holmes ; thence in the range of said Holmes' and Dunbar's land, until it comes to land belonging to Joseph Belcher ; then in the range of said Belcher's and Holmes' land, until it comes to the Taunton- Road, at the northeasterly corner of the town of Sharon, - with all the inhabitants living thereon, be, and hereby are incorporated into a separate town by the name of Canton, with all the powers and privi- leges and immunities that towns within this Commonwealth do or may enjoy.
"SECT. II. Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the inhabitants of the said town of Canton shall pay all the arrears of taxes which have been assessed upon them by the town of Stoughton, together with their proportion of all debts due from said town of Stoughton, and shall be entitled to receive their proportion of all debts and monies now due to said town of Stoughton, and also their proportionable part of all other property of the said town of Stoughton, of what kind or description soever ; and the apportionment of all debts, dues, and other public property between the said towns shall be made according to their proportion in the last State tax.
"SECT. III. Whereas, the town of Stoughton has been at a very great expense in endeavouring to procure a free and uninterrupted passage of a fish called Alewives, up into the ponds called Ponkapoag and Massapoag, in the towns of Canton and Sharon, and whereas the rivers leading to said ponds do not enter the town of Stoughton ; therefore, Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the town of Stoughton shall have their proportionable part with the town of Canton, of all profits and emoluments that may hereafter arise by the Alewife Fishery within the town of Canton, and shall be holden to pay their proportion of all costs and charges that may arise on
463
INCORPORATION OF CANTON.
account of said Fishery ; and the Fish Committees of the towns of Canton and Stoughton shall have the same power of regulating all affairs relative to said Fishery, agreeable to such Act or Acts, as is or may be passed for regulating the same, which the Committee of the town of Stoughton would have had if this Act had never passed.
"SECT. IV. Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That Thomas Crane, Esq., be, and he hereby is empowered to issue his warrant directed to some principal inhabitant of the town of Canton, requiring him to notify and warn the inhabitants of the said town of Canton to assemble and meet at some suitable place in said town to choose all such town Officers as towns are required to choose in the months of March or April annually.
" And whereas in consequence of the aforesaid division there will remain only one Selectman in said town of Stoughton, -
"SECT. V. Be it enacted, That Jabez Talbot, the Selectman re- maining within said town, be, and he is hereby vested with all the powers which a majority of said Selectmen would have had so far as relates to the calling the annual meetings in the months of March or April next.
"SECT. VI. Be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the said town of Canton shall pay two pounds two shillings and seven pence, on each thousand pounds raised by taxes in this Commonwealth, and that the same sum shall be deducted from the proportion that the town of Stoughton paid agreeable to the last valuation."
This Act passed the House, Feb. 22, 1797; on the next day it passed the Senate, and was approved by Samuel Adams, Governor.
Pursuant to this Act, Thomas Crane, Esq., who had then moved to Milton, issued his warrant directed to Laban Lewis under his seal, bearing date at Milton, Feb. 24, 1797, requir- ing said Lewis to warn the inhabitants of Canton qualified to vote in town affairs to meet at the meeting-house in Canton on the 6th day of March, 1797, at one o'clock, P. M., to choose town officers. The warrant was duly served and returned, and the meeting held, when Elijah Dunbar, Esq., was chosen Moderator; Elijah Crane, Town Clerk; and Elijah Crane, Deacon Benjamin Tucker, and Col. Nathan Crane, Selectmen and Assessors; and Joseph Bemis, Treasurer and Constable.
Thus by the persistency of strenuous petitioners the new
464
HISTORY OF CANTON.
town was established. A committee was appointed to settle all matters with the mother town. Joseph Bemis, who was chairman of the Canton committee, immediately wrote to Jabez Talbot, chairman of the Stoughton commit- tee, desiring that a conference be held at Landlord Drake's. On the Saturday following the receipt of the letter, the com- mittee met. It was agreed that the town of Stoughton should take the volumes of Laws and Resolves, the ancient books of record, the town clerk's desk, treasurer's boxes, and the box of weights and measures. The pound was to remain with Canton, and the inhabitants of the latter town to have free access to the record-books, - a privilege not now needed, as Canton has an exact transcript of the ancient Stoughton records, and a duplicate copy of its own from that time to the present. In 1881 the town adopted a corporate seal.1
1 See Appendix XXIX.
C
. -
4
THIS MAP IS COMPILED FROM TWO PLANS, ONE IN THE POSSESSION OF JABEZ TALBOT ESQ. OF STOUGHTON AND THE OTHER IN THE MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES, BOTH HAVING THE SAME TITLE, BUT EACH CONTAINING SOME DATA NOT GIVEN IN THE OTHER. NAMES OF ROADS &C IN GOTHIC LETTERS ARE FROM A PLAN BY NATHANIEL FISHER, DATED JANUARY 16TH & 18TH 1796 WHICH WAS PROBABLY USED WHEN CANTOI WAS SET OFF FROM STOUGHTON. DRAWN FOR THE HISTORY OF CANTON, FEBRUARY, 18.92. BY Frederic Endicott.
A plan of the Town of Stoughton Survayed in 1794 by orders of the Select men of Said Town & With their assistance, D'un agreeable to an order of Court Passed June 26th 1794 Laid Down by the Scale of Fifty
of Gunters Chains on 200 Rods to an Jutch Pr
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Elijah Grane Jabez Talbott
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465
TOPOGRAPHY.
CHAPTER XXXII.
TOPOGRAPHY.
DONKAPOAG - the spot selected by the town of Dor- chester for the home of the Indians, soon to pass into the possession of the English settlers, and now the town of Canton - is wonderfully endowed by Nature. The face of the country is beautifully diversified by hills and vales. Nu- merous streams rise within the limits of the town, and widen into ponds, which dot the surface with patches of blue.
The town of Canton is shaped like a boy's kite, and has an area of over twelve thousand acres, over nineteen square miles. It is bounded on the northeast by Milton and Ran- dolph; on the southeast by Stoughton; on the south by Sharon, and on the west and northwest by Norwood and Dedham. The meeting-house at Canton Corner, which is near the territorial centre of the town, stands in latitude 42° 10' 32."06; and longitude 71" 08' 22."13. The distance from Washington is 482 miles. It is distant, south 25° west from Boston, over the old road, fifteen miles; via Brush Hill Turnpike from the Old State-House 13 m. 3 f. 31 r., and as the crow flies 12 m. 3 f. 36 r. From the Dedham Court- House the meeting-house is distant as the crow flies 5 m. 2 f. 12 r., S. 16} E., or by the road 6 m. 7 f. 10 r.
From a map of Boston and vicinity, the concentric lines of which show the direct distance, it would appear that the elev- enth mile from Boston would fall not far from the Ezekiel Johnson house on Doty's plain, the twelfth near the English Churchyard; the thirteenth near the Eliot trough; the four- teenth near Morse's trough; the fifteenth near Gridley's Pond.
30
466
HISTORY OF CANTON.
The first milestone in Canton, after crossing the line which divides that town from Milton, is situated at the foot of the great Blue Hill, about equally distant from the Milton line and the house now occupied by Mr. Henry Willard, and bears the inscription : -
12 MILES To BOSTON 1774 L. D.
The letters L. D. are the initials of the person who erected it, - Lemuel Davenport, who resided on the Nathan Tucker place, and who died July 4, 1802. In a wall a little to the south of the entrance to the house occupied by John Gerald, stands the thirteenth milestone; it bears upon its face these words : -
13 MILES To BOSTON 1 786 JOHN SPARE
No trace exists of the fourteenth milestone; it was situated on the right-hand side of the highway, between the old Bemis house and Potash meadow. The stone probably lies buried under the modern wall. The fifteenth milestone, after having undergone various vicissitudes, stands with no date, with its rough letters, on the east of the highway, near the line that divides the Catholic Cemetery from the adjacent lot, and is marked: --
B
15 M
Prof. Nathaniel S. Shaler, in speaking of the hills of East- ern Massachusetts, says : -
" These mountains have, by the frequent visitations of glacial pe- riods, been worn down to their foundations, so that there is little in the way of their original reliefs to be traced. They are princi-
467
TOPOGRAPHY.
pally marked in the altitude of that part of their rocks that have escaped erosion. The Sharon and the Blue Hills are, however, the wasted remnants of a great anticlinal, or ridge, that bordered the Boston valley on the south. . . . If we could. restore the rocks that have been taken away by decay, these mountain-folds would much exceed the existing Alleghanies in height."
Blue Hill, the " Cheviot Hills" of Capt. John Smith, is the highest elevation of land near the sea-coast of Massachusetts, situated partly in Canton and partly in Milton, and forms the western extremity of the range which extends through the towns of Canton, Milton, and Quincy. The Great Blue Hill, which receives its name from its color as seen by a distant observer, is situated in latitude 42° 12' 44."03; longitude 71° 07' 10."84. It is the first land seen on approaching the coast, and rears its head 635.05 feet above the level of the sea. From its summit one beholds a magnificent panorama, unequalled for beauty and interest. Within a radius of ten miles, twenty-seven towns can be distinguished.
The following description of the objects to be discerned from Blue Hill is the most accurate I have ever seen; it is taken from the " Appalachia," vol. iii. p. 122: -
" Let us take the view in order, turning from left to right. A line due north almost touches the tower of the Harvard College Memorial Hall in Cambridge, eleven miles distant ; nearly hidden by which we see, three miles beyond, the Unitarian church in Medford. Directly under the tower is Jamaica Plain. A trifle to the right is Holt's Hill in Andover, - a bare smooth eminence about thirty miles off. Considerably to the right is another bare, lenticular hill, - Bald Pate in Georgetown, about thirty-five miles distant, seen directly over the Malden Orthodox church. A little to the left of this, eight miles away, is seen the white tower of the Roxbury stand-pipe. Midway between Holt and Bald Pate appears Somerville, twelve miles off, pre- senting a red church and brick high-school, side by side upon a hill. To the right of the stand-pipe is spread out the city of Boston. The State-House is ten and one-half miles distant ; its bearing, N. 14° 22' E. A little to the right of the State-House one sees the State Insane Asylum in Danvers, twenty-seven miles distant, a long build- ing on a hill. To the right of the city is Boston Harbor, stretching
468
HISTORY OF CANTON.
far round toward the east, with its islands, forts, and lighthouses. North-northeast is the Reservoir Hill in South Boston. Looking up and turning to the right, we see successively Lynn, Salem, and Swamp- scott, and under the latter Winthrop. Nearer, and a little right of Winthrop, lies Fort Independence, nearly under whose right are the two steeples of Milton Centre, three miles away. A little to the right is a church in Nahant, eighteen miles off, seen directly over a steeple about six miles . distant, near Neponset ; and nearly over the left of the Nahant church, one in Marblehead. To the right, along the hori- zon, we follow the North Shore as far as Eastern Point lighthouse in Gloucester, distant thirty-four miles.
" Northeast, eleven miles, is Long Island, with its low lighthouse. Far beyond and to the left, between it and Eastern Point, are seen against the sky the twin lighthouses of Cape Ann, apparently standing in the ocean. Their distance is forty miles. We are now looking down Massachusetts Bay, several hundred square miles of which are visible. The sea horizon crosses this at a distance of thirty-three and three-eighths miles. Sails may be seen far beyond this, the hulls being hidden by the earth's convexity. Turning far to the right, we see, N. 55° 05' E., Boston lighthouse, directly over the church-spire on Wollaston Heights. Six miles east-northeast is Quincy village. Over it we discern Strawberry Hill, thirteen miles off, with Nantasket stretching a long distance from it both right and left, thus making it appear like a bead strung on a thread. Following Nantasket to the extreme left, we find Hull village. On the right, Nantasket ends at the triple-turreted Atlantic House, which we see over the left slope of Fenno's Peak, the second in height of the Blue Hills, and three iniles off. Over its right slope is Minot's Ledge lighthouse, eighteen miles distant. Over the right base of Fenno lies Hingham, with three steeples in a cluster.
"Just to the right of east, one observes a large brick building some six miles distant, with a large village stretching away to its right ; the building is Thayer Academy, and the village, South Braintree. Nearly over the academy are the two spires of Scituate, eighteen miles distant.
" To the southeast the country appears quite level and well dotted with villages and ponds. Of the ponds, the more noticeable are Wissahissick (or Houghton's), Ponkapog, Canton Reservoir, and Massapoag. I have named them as they appear from left to right, and also in the order of distance, Wissahissick being one mile east-
469
TOPOGRAPHY.
southeast, and Massapoag eight miles south-southwest. Immediately to the left of the easterly end of Wissahissick Pond is East Marshfield, on the horizon twenty miles away ; over the left portion of the pond, South Weymouth, nine miles. Looking about midway between Wis- sahissick and Ponkapog ponds, we see a long ridge thirty-three miles distant. This is Manomet Hill in Plymouth. Holbrook, seven miles, is seen directly under it. Midway between Wissahissick and Manomet, one sees, against the sky, Captain's Hill in Duxbury, surmounted by the Standish Monument, distant twenty-six miles. The steeple di- rectly under it is in West Duxbury. The large village of Randolph, five miles off, is seen stretching from under the right base of Mano- met to nearly over the left end of Ponkapog Pond. Ponkapog, being less than two miles distant, is apparently the largest pond in view. Just right of its centre is seen the city of Brockton, ten miles off. Midway between Brockton and the left end of the pond, we find East Stoughton, looking between which and Brockton we see, farther off, East Bridgewater. A little to the right of Brockton is North Stoughton church, five miles away ; over this, Campello; and, far beyond, Middleboro, twenty-four miles distant. About midway between Brockton and the right end of the pond are the two spires of Bridgewater, seventeen miles, with West Bridgewater church nearer, but a trifle more to the right.
" Turning nearly south, the large village, six miles off, is Stoughton. Nearly due south is the tower of the water-works in Fall River, about thirty-five miles distant ; a portion of the city is seen at its right. More to the right is Reservoir Pond in Canton, three miles off. Over its right end is Great Meadow Hill in Rehoboth. at a distance of twenty-three miles. Just south-southwest is Oak Hill in Attleboro, a small sharp peak twenty-two miles away. Under this peak we see Massapoag Pond in Sharon, and, still nearer, the villages in Canton. East Attleboro is seen just to the right of the peak.
" Facing nearly southwest, the wooded hill eight miles off is Moose Hill in Sharon. Sharon village, seven miles, and Foxboro, twelve miles, are respectively one third and two thirds the angular distance from Oak Hill to Moose. Now turn nearly to west-southwest. Just as far to the right of Moose Hill as Oak Hill is to its left, is Franklin, seventeen miles away, where we see the cupola of Dean Academy, and several steeples, against a distant ridge. To the left of Franklin, one fourth the way to Moose Hill, rises Woonsocket Hill in Rhode Island, S. 54° 35' W., twenty-eight miles distant. Spread along to the right of west-southwest is Norwood village, four miles off.
470
HISTORY OF CANTON.
" A trifle to the right of due west stands West Dedham church upon a hill five miles off. At its right, more than forty miles distant, is Leicester church-spire. Nearly in line with this lies Hopkinton, twenty-one miles. Considerably to the right stretches a low distant ridge, Asnybumsket Hill in Paxton, 1,407 feet high and distant forty miles. A little to the right of west-northwest is Wachusett, the most conspicuous mountain in view. It is situated in Princeton, is 2,018 feet high, and forty-four miles away. Just at its left is Little Wachu- sett ; as much more to the left, Princeton village, forty-two miles off. A trifle to the left of Princeton, and exactly west-northwest, Marlboro is seen, twenty-five miles. Under these two villages lies Natick ; and, still nearer, South Natick. Turning back two thirds of the way from Wachusett to Asnybumsket, we see on the horizon Rutland church, forty-four miles distant. A little to the right of Wachusett is Nobscot Hill in Framingham, about twenty miles off, nearly under which is Wellesley College, a cluster of brick buildings, eleven miles distant. Far to the right of Wachusett is Mount Watatick in Ashburnham, 1,847 feet high, and fifty-two miles distant. It resembles a great liay- stack, and is nearly over the court-house dome in Dedham, which we see at its left, only four miles away. Asnybumsket, Wachusett, and Watatick are the principal summits of a range sometimes called 'The Backbone of Massachusetts,' crossing the State from north to south. This range we may follow in New Hampshire by Kidder, Spofford, Temple, Pack-Monadnock, and Crotchett mountains. Beyond this. range, a trifle to the right of Watatick, stands the Grand Monadnock in Jaffrey, representing the main range of New Hampshire. It ap- pears as a sharp peak, falling away gradually to the right. It is 3,177 feet high, and sixty-seven and one-half miles distant.
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