USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Dorchester > History of the town of Dorchester, Massachusetts > Part 3
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As we learn from Dr. Fuller, June 28, 1630, that the Dorchester Company still entertained their origi- nal design of settling on the Charles river, a month after landing at Mattapan, they had of course made no arrangements for future supplies of food by planting corn or other vegetables the first year, and Roger Clap informs us that bread was very scarce and that plenty in their dwellings applied only to the article of fish. Gov. Winthrop, anticipating the scarcity
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
which was evidently approaching, chartered the ship Lyon, Capt. Pierce, to go to Ireland for provisions early in July, 1630 ; and Clap says he wrote imme- diately to his father to send him food, who relieved him as soon as possible ; and the same course was doubtless pursued by others. Much sickness pre- vailed in Dorchester, Salem, and Charlestown, caused by long voyages, bad shelter, and poor provisions, and a public fast was holden in these three settle- ments, July 30th, on this account. It is probable that by midsummer the Dorchester people had de- termined the question of their future residence.
This point settled, they set themselves about lay- ing out their town-plot and distributing the lots according to direction of the General Court, pre- scribed in London. The first settlers found the country unoccupied, and were at liberty to make such selection as pleased them, subject to certain limita- tions as to individual grants, pointed out by the proceedings of the General Court. The Court Re- cord makes no mention of any especial grant of Mattapan and the present territory of the town of Dorchester to the West Country settlers, though they doubtless had the sanction of the Court of Assistants, which authorized the use of their corpo- rate name on the 7th of September ; and the loss of the early leaves of the town records, renders the precise date of the first grants of land uncertain. They were made by a committee of the plantation, viz., the two ministers, Maverick and Warham, and the two deacons, Gaylord and Rockwell.
After choosing the spot for their town, they de-
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
sired to secure the best sites for cultivation, giving the preference to places which had been cleared for planting by the Indians, and attaching great value to the salt marshes, as furnishing an immediate supply of hay. They were unaccustomed to the process of clearing land, so familiar to the American settler of the present day. The oldest allotment of land upon the Dorchester Records, was made of salt marsh, April 3d, 1633, among twenty-one persons, divided into four classes (according to their interest in the stock). Mr. Ludlow had before this, November, 1632, obtained a grant of one hundred acres of the Court, south of Neponset. They probably took a release of the territory from Chickatabot ; but if so, the deed was lost, and they procured another from his son Josias, many years afterwards. A £50 share entitled the holder to an immediate dividend of two hundred acres and a town house-lot, and fifty acres for each member of the family besides - non-stock- holders to have fifty acres for the head of the family, and such quantity of land, according to their charge and quality, as the Governor and Council shall see fit ; for each servant transported, fifty acres to be allotted to the master .* They had abundant occu- pation in collecting building materials, erecting their houses, gathering fodder for cattle for the approach- ing winter, and employing a considerable number of hands in fishing. Wood, who wrote in 1633, says " the inhabitants of Dorchester were the first that set upon the trade of fishing in the bay, who received.
* Hazard, vol. 1, p. 275.
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
so much fruit of their labors, that they encouraged others to the same undertakings." The business of fishing was familiar to Dorchester people in England. The company sent down from London to that town and engaged six fishermen to go out to Salem in the Lion's Whelp, in 1629,* and there were doubtless other fishermen from the same place in the Mary and John.
At the first Court of Assistants, held August 23d, 1630, at Charlestown, the order for provid- ing one half the support of the ministers from the public treasury, passed the previous October, in London, was discussed, and Salem and Mattapan were excepted from this provision, because they had already provided for theirs. The Dorchester church had been organized at Plymouth before their em- barkation, and the ministers settled independent of government aid; this circumstance conferred upon the Dorchester Company the honors of seniority over the other towns in Suffolk County. Prince says, in all civil assemblies, or military musters, Dorchester used to have the precedency.t Dorches- ter, Boston and Watertown, received the authority of the Court, September 7, 1630, to use those names, but no corporate powers are specified.
* Prince, p. 208.
¿ Hazard, vol. 1, p. 264.
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
CHAPTER V.
Boundaries of the Town .- Freemen and their Privileges .- Return of Emigrants .- The Dorchester Record Book .- Orders relating to Meet- ings of the Plantation.
THE exact geographical limits of the Dorchester plantation were not determined till some time after its partial occupancy by the first settlers. Dr. Har- ris states that the Dorchester Company bought a tract from Roxbury Brook to Neponset, but he does not quote the authority for this assertion.
The first allusion to the Dorchester boundaries upon the Court Records, is found under date of 1632 .* In March, 1634-5, the difference between Dor- chester and Boston about Mount Wollaston bounds, is referred to Lieut. Heakes, Mr. Talcott and Mr. John Woolridge, to be accompanied by Ensign Gibbens and William Phelps ; all other persons pro- hibited from being present. This dispute was caused by a grant made by the Court in September, 1634, of land at Mount Wollaston to the town of Boston, some of the inhabitants of that place desiring to lay out farms and occupy a portion of the plains which Messrs. Rosseter, Ludlow, Newberry, and others of Dorchester, had already partially taken up for the same purpose. In September, 1635, Heakes and Talcott made a report, which was accepted, establishing the south line of the town on the sea,
* " Committee abt Dorchester bounds, 1632. Capt. Trask, Mr. Conant, William Cheesebrough and John Perkins are appointed to sett downe the bounds betwixt Dorchester and Rocksbury. Ralphe Sprage is cho- sen Vmpire."-General Court Records.
4
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
at some point in Quincy Bay, south of Squantum, giving a considerable portion of upland and all the salt marsh on the south bank of Neponset to the town of Dorchester-an extent of ten miles of shore, including near the whole south-west side of the harbor. In 1636, Dorchester received a grant from the Court, of all the land south of Neponset to the Blue Hills, the territory then known as Unquety, (now Milton), and the town took at the same time a deed of Kitchmakin of this territory .*
The population was at first so entirely dispropor- tionate to the territory, that the question of bound- aries seems not to have arisen immediately. The rule for the division of lands among individuals, adopted by the Company in England, and the order for compact settlements, rendered any action about the boundaries of plantations unnecessary, until the precise form of municipal government was deter- mined upon, and adjoining settlements began to interfere with each other. The Dorchester planta- tion being, from the beginning, provided with a church organization and ministers, the territorial jurisdiction of their church was doubtless their first limit.
In 1637, another very extensive grant, called the New Grant, was made to Dorchester by the Court, including all the land not previously granted, lying between the Old Colony line and a grant made to Dedham. This space covers the present towns of Canton, Stoughton, Sharon and Foxboro'.
* See Town Records.
HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
The Massachusetts Charter being drafted for a trading company, rather than as the basis of an independent government, its provisions applied only to the stockholders, to which class only three of the Dorchester Company, viz., Edward Rosseter, Roger Ludlow, and John Glover, are known to have be- longed. Henry Wolcott and T. Newberry were probably stockholders. The principal part of the first settlers having no political rights under the instrument, the Court immediately made arrange- ments for extending the privileges of freemanship to all suitable persons, and on the first application for this right (October 19, 1630), among one hundred and eight persons, twenty-four belonged to Dorches- ter. Besides the right of suffrage, freemen enjoyed advantages in the division of the lands ; and before the representative system commenced, they were all members of the General Court. The principal qualification for this privilege seems to have been church membership. The names of the first twenty- four Dorchester freemen, were John Greenoway, Christopher Gibson, John Benham, Mr. Thomas Southcote, Mr. Richard Southcote, Mr. John Mav- erick, Mr. John Warham, Henry Wolcott, Thomas Stoughton, William Phelps, George Dyer, John Hoskins, Thomas Ford, Nicolas Upsall, Stephen Terry, Roger Williams, John Woolridge, Thomas Lumberd, Bigot Eggleston, Mr. Ralph Glover, John Phillips, William Gallard, William Rockwell, and William Hubbert.
Prince* mentions that many of the early settlers
* Prince's Annals, p. 246.
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
of Massachusetts returned to England, and this was the case with some of the Dorchester settlers, the Southcotes and others ; but continual accessions were made to the plantation by arrivals from Eu- rope for several years. Winthrop mentions (July 24, 1633) that a ship arrived from Weymouth with eighty passengers and twelve kine, who sat down at Dorchester. Much pains were taken to scruti- nize the character and morals of all persons offering for emigration to Massachusetts in England, and such as arrived here without proper testimonials were not received. * Many of the early inhabitants .. of Dorchester being natives of the channel ports, were accustomed to the sea, and employed them- selves in fishing in the bay and coasting on the shores of Maine in pursuit of furs. Hutchinson mentions a shallop belonging to Mr. Glover, cast away at Nahant, in February, 1631; and again, that five men, belonging to a Dorchester shallop, were murdered by Indians on the coast of Maine, in 1632. Several of the principal inhabitants were men of capi- tal, who devoted their energies to commerce, and when the decided advantages for trade of the pre- sent metropolis became apparent, in 1642-3, re- moved thither.
The following is Wood's description of Dorchester in 1633.
" Dorchester is the greatest town in New Eng- land, but I am informed that others equal it since I came away ; well wooded and watered, very good
* See Winthrop, p. 38.
1
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
arable grounds and hay ground; fair corn-fields and pleasant gardens, with kitchen gardens. In this plantation is a great many cattle, as kine, goats, and swine. This plantation hath a reasonable harbour for ships. Here is no alewife river, which is a great inconvenience. The inhabitants of this town were the first that set upon fishing in the bay, who received so much fruit of their labours, that they encouraged others to the same undertakings."
The following is Josselyn's description of the town: " Six miles beyond Braintree lyeth Dorchester, a frontire Town pleasantly seated, and of large extent into the main land, well watered with two small Rivers, her body and wings filled somewhat thick with houses to the number of two hundred and more, beautified with fair Orchards and Gardens, having also plenty of Corn-land, and store of Cattle, counted the greatest Town heretofore in New Eng- land, but now gives way to Boston ; it hath a Har- bour to the North for ships."
The first Dorchester Record Book, re-copied a few years since at the expense of the town, commenced January 16, 1632-3, and in point of time takes pre- cedence of any town records in Massachusetts. It contains the transactions of the plantation and town, from the date above named to 1720. The two miss- ing leaves at the beginning, traced, probably, the pro- ceedings from the commencement of the settlement. A very large part of this book, containing six hun- dred and thirty-six pages, is devoted to grants of land, regulations for fences, the care of cattle, laying out of highways, and other kindred matters. Sub- 4*
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
jects casually introduced of a general historical interest are very few and excessively meagre. Be- fore the year 1636, the entries were probably made by one of the clergymen or deacons. In 1636, one of the twelve selectmen or townsmen, Nathaniel Duncan, was voted ten shillings, for copying the or- ders of the town, and he probably continued to per- form this office until his removal to Boston in 1645. From this period to 1656, there are evidences of en- tries made by Robert Howard, Dea. John Wiswall, and Edward Brick, Selectmen of the Town. In 1656, William Blake was chosen Recorder or Town Clerk, .. and from that period the records were kept by a person chosen for that purpose. Frequent allusion is made to a book, containing a plot of the town, with lots, and the names of grantees from the begin-
ning, probably a registry of deeds.
Dr. Harris
states it to have been accidentally burnt in 1657. It is however stated that a copy of this plot and the names of the grantees, made by that excellent drafts- man, James Blake, has existed within the memory of persons now living. If it should be found, it will be of great interest to the present generation.
The rule first adopted for the division of lands in Dorchester, was probably recorded on the missing pages, and cannot now be accurately determined. The pecuniary condition of persons, the size of fami- lies, and other circumstances, may be supposed to have had their influence in determining the differ- ence in the quantity granted to individuals. A few of the larger grantees are known to have been stockhold- ers in England under the patent. The whole face
--
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
of the territory subject to their control was early surveyed; the salt marsh, fresh meadows, arable lands, &c., were divided into lots, and a portion of each, suitable to the wants and condition of the individual, was allotted him. There is no mention made of pay- ment for lands to the plantation by any individual. They were doubtless regarded as the inheritance of such persons as intended to occupy them and remain permanent inhabitants. Lands allotted to persons who shortly left, appear to have been granted to others by the plantation ; all speculation was thus prevented. In November, 1634, it was ordered that "no man shall sell his house or lot to any man with- out the plantation, whom they shall dislike' of." This and many other orders show the great anxiety felt by the first settlers to control the question of membership of their community, a feeling which continued to manifest itself for many years.
The affairs of the plantation were at first con- trolled by the clergymen, aided by the advice of the Magistrates Ludlow and Rosseter, until the spring of 1631, when a considerable number of the inhabi- tants had become freemen ; and in May, of that year, a meeting of the plantation took place (referred to in subsequent records) to make and confirm orders for the control of their affairs. Previous to Oc- tober, 1633, every order was voted upon by the freemen, and no special town government was or- ganized except the appointment of a committee to sign land grants, consisting of the two clergymen and deacons.
In October, 1633, the following order passed,
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
establishing the form of town goverment. This act acquires some importance from the fact of its pre- cedence, and that the example was followed the next year by the other settlements, and led to the law of the General Court, passed in 1636, regulating town governments, which has continued in force to the present day.
" MONDAY, OCT. 8, 1633. Imprimis-It is order- ed that for the general good and well ordering of the affairs of the plantation, there shall be every Mon- day before the Court, by 8 o'clock A. M., and pre- sently by the beating of the drum, a general meeting .. of the inhabitants of the plantation at the meeting- house, there to settle and set down such orders as may tend to the general good as aforesaid, and every man to be bound thereby, without gainsaying or re- sistance. It is also agreed that there shall be twelve men selected out of the company, that may, or the greatest part of them, meet as aforesaid to determine as aforesaid ; yet so far as it is desired that the most of the plantation will keep the meeting constantly, and all that are there, though not of the twelve, shall have a free voice as any of the twelve, and that the greater vote both of the twelve and the other shall be of force and efficacy as aforesaid. And it is likewise ordered, that all things concluded as aforesaid shall stand in force and be obeyed until the next monthly meeting, and afterwards if it be not contradicted and otherwise ordered at said monthly meeting by the greatest vote of those that are present as aforesaid."
The names of only seven persons thus selected,
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
are recorded :- Mr. Johnson, Mr. Pomeroy, Mr. Richards, John Pierce, George Hull, William Phelps, Thomas Ford.
CHAPTER VI.
Erection of first Meeting-House .- Building of Stoughton's Mill .- New Burying Ground commenced .- Controversy about removing to Con- necticut.
THE first meeting-house erected in Dorchester, and the first in the Bay, was built on Allen's Plain, near the corner of Pleasant and Cottage streets, in 1631, and the first settlers of Roxbury united them- selves with the Dorchester church and worshipped here with them .* Mr. Warham held a lecture here on the fourth day of every week, by an understand- ing with the other plantations. + This building was made a depot for military stores, and before the apprehension of attack from Indians subsided, was palisadoed and guarded at night. Winthrop men- tions that on the 19th March, 1632, Mr. Maverick accidentally set fire to a small barrel containing two or three pounds of powder, in the new meeting-house at Dorchester, which was thatched, and the thatch only blackened a little. The meetings of the in- habitants of the plantation were held in this build- ing. It continued to serve the plantation for the first fifteen years of the settlement.
March 3, 1633. The town granted leave to Mr.
* Prince, 2, 64.
+ Winthrop, p. 144.
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
Israel Stoughton to build a water mill, and in Jan- uary following, the mill and a bridge over Neponset being completed, the privilege of erecting a fish wear was voted to Mr. Stoughton, he agreeing to sell alewives to the plantation at five shillings per thousand, and to give the inhabitants the preference in selling all fish taken. Stoughton agrees not to sell the mill without consent of the plantation. The General Court confirm these proceedings in September, 1634, upon condition of keeping in re- pair a sufficient horse bridge over the river.
November, 1634, Voted, that "a sufficient cart-way .. be made to the mill at Naponset at the common chardge, if the chardge exceed not above five pounds."
The first General Court held by delegates, or re- presentatives, met May, 1634, when the Dorchester plantation sent Israel Stoughton, William Phelps, and George Hull, the whole assembly consisting of twenty-four persons, representing eight towns.
Arrangements for the burying ground commenced with the following vote, November, 1633. " Agreed that there be a decent burial place bounden in upon the knap, by Goodman Greenaway's, and that shall be done by the raters, and also a bier to carry the dead on."
March 3, 1634, Ordered, that the new burying place last agreed on shall be forthwith impaled with double rail pale five rods square.
The General Court voted, October 1, 1633, a tax of £400; and the assessments show the relative im- portance of the towns at that period. The propor- tions are- to Dorchester, £80; Boston, Roxbury,
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
Newtown or Cambridge, Watertown, and Charles- town, £48 each; Sagus or Lynn, £36; Salem, £28; Medford, £12. Two years after, September, 1635, the rates of Dorchester and Cambridge are the high- est in the colony.
The following chronological items are from Win- throp.
1631, Jan. A house burnt at Dorchester.
1632, May. Dorchester men work on Boston fort.
1632, August. Two Neponset Indians put in the bilboes for assaulting some Dorchester people in their houses, after which Chickatabot beat them.
1633, July 24. A ship arrived from Weymouth, Dorset, with about eighty passengers and twelve kine, who sat down at Dorchester.
The emigration to Connecticut of a large portion of the first settlers of Dorchester, forms an impor- tant crisis in the affairs of the plantation ; it deprived it of nearly one half of its population, including the two ministers, Messrs. Maverick and Warham, and a large part of the intelligence and wealth which accompanied the first comers. This movement has been attributed to different causes, but it appears rather to have been produced by a concurrence of sundry incidents, than any one prominent motive. Cotton Mather, in reference to this subject, says :- " Massachusetts soon became like a hive overstocked with bees, and many thought of swarming into new plantations." But the whole colony contained at this time but five or six thousand people. The Dor- chester settlers were made acquainted with the rich bottom lands of the Connecticut by Hall and Old-
1149719
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
ham, in 1633, and the labor of clearing their own rocky fields daily brought to their minds the advan- tages possessed by the former position. A great quantity of valuable furs had reached the Bay from the River Indians, and many of the Dorchester people were engaged in the fur business. It was known that the Connecticut Patentees, Lord Brooke, Sir R. Saltonstall, John Hampden and others, were pre- paring to take possession of their patent and make a settlement at the lower part of the river. This subject agitated the people of the Bay to such a degree that a public fast was appointed, September 18, 1634. Roger Ludlow, one of the assistants and a leading inhabitant of Dorchester, strongly opposed the movement. In this state of affairs, Israel Stoughton, one of the first Deputies of Dorchester, had an altercation with Governor Winthrop, and published a pamphlet which occasioned his expul- sion from the house, * and the Dorchester people petitioned in vain for a remission of his sentence. Rodger Ludlow, of Dorchester, t aimed at being Governor of Massachusetts Colony in 1635, and protested openly against the choice of Governor Haynes, and was in consequence left out of the Magistracy. It is not improbable that these wealthy and influential gentlemen sought a more congenial field for their political ambition than the Bay Colony presented to them at that moment. It is certain that Mr. Ludlow suddenly changed his views on the sub- ject, and was actively engaged in the project in 1635,
* See Winthrop, vol. 1, p. 155.
+ See Hutchinson, vol. 1, p. 41.
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
which he had with zeal opposed in 1634. The cause of Mr. Stoughton's secession from the undertaking will appear in another place. These different con- siderations will suffice to account for the movement which was at first opposed by the Government, but in the spring of 1635 reluctantly assented to. In the summer of 1635, some Dorchester people had already reached the river and sat down at a place where William Holmes and others, of Plymouth, had erected a trading house two years before (at Windsor), and made preparations for bringing their families and settling permanently ; and in Novem- ber, sixty persons, with a large number of cattle, travelled from Dorchester and arrived in safety at the river after much tribulation. During the first win- ter the sufferings of these persons were intense, and they lost nearly all their cattle. Some individuals wandered back to Dorchester, and others avoided starvation by dropping down the river and taking refuge in a vessel at anchor at the mouth. In the spring of 1636, the settlers, with Mr. Warham, pro- ceeded to Windsor, his colleague Mr. Maverick hay- ing died at Boston the preceding winter.
Every effort on the part of the Colonial Govern- ment was made to divert the spirit of emigration so rife among the people. The large grants of land made to the Dorchester plantation, viz., the Un- quety Grant, in 1636, containing some six thousand acres ; and the year after, the so-called New Grant, extending almost to the Rhode Island line, were doubtless connected with a desire to quiet and retain the inhabitants. The emigration, however, did not
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